Very basic newbee question
I have tried several times now to get into the habit of using something like On1 for enhancing photos rather than my usual go-to Photoshop Elements. I have tried doing so since back in the Version 7 days but I never had the time or patience to stick to it, even though I kept up with product versions. I am now on 2021 and am really trying to make an effort to use this program. But I am stumped even on the most basic situation of what to do when in the process of editing/enhancing a jpg and wanting to take a break before finishing (yes I still always shoot jpg).
When you do a number of edits/alterations in On1 and then want to quit to continue at a later date, do you need to somehow save the image in process or do you just exit the program and the image is somehow automatically saved? Then when you reopen the image-in-process at a later date do you open the original jpg or do you open the *.on1 file or do you open the *.onphoto file? I realize this might be answered somewhere but I have yet to quickly find the answer.
Thanks,
Doug
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As you are editing an image, whether it is a RAW file, jpeg, psd, tiff, or whatever, your edits are held in the program's Scratch space. When you finish editing that image, whether it is by choosing a new one while still in the Editor or by returning to the Browser, the Scratch space gets written to the .on1 sidecar file and to the program's internal edits database.
When you want to continue editing a previously edited photo all you have to do is select it in Photo RAW's Browser then enter its Editor. The previous edits will be read for you to adjust.
.onphoto files are ON1's internal Layered file structure. If you have your Preferences set so Double-clicking an image opens that image directly into Photo RAW's Editor then that is what will happen. Double-clicking an .on1 sidecar file will launch the program but I'm not sure exactly where you'll wind up. My guess is it would be the same as simply launching the program.
Because the "save" feature is built in to the program's structure and there isn't any actual Save command I make it a habit to regularly return to the Browser then jump right back into the Editor to force a save of my current work by pressing G then D.
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This non-intuitive situation ended up stymying me a few times. I made the mistake of doing a few edits to a jpg and adding a layer (sky) that I wanted to manipulate later, so I hit "Done" instead of just going back to the browser. Now when I go to edit that jpg again it has the sky layer which I intended to alter locked into the jpg and unalterable. So do I delete that file from the browser and start over again with the original jpg? Does deleting a jpg using the browser delete everything about that file. As an aside what I have been doing is copying any jpg I want to work on into a separate "For Editing" folder so I always have the original jpg in a safe space.
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Photo RAW is a non-destructive editor. Making copies of your just files for editing is a waste of space as the program will never make changes to the original. When I import new photos from my camera I do make a separate backup copy on a drive that I do not access from Photo RAW except in the Import dialog. I can access it, I just choose not to since it is my source file backups drive for my photos.
Clicking the Done button is exactly the same as pressing the G key or clicking the Grid button while in the Editor. The only time it acts differently is when you are using one of Photo RAW's plug-ins. Then, the Done button will send you back to the original program as the Browser isn't available to the plug-ins.
When you added the new Sky Layer the program created a new .onphoto file for you. That file contains the edits you had made to the original jpeg but not yet saved. It also contains the new Layer with the replacement sky.
Whenever you add a New Layer to an inlayered file the program creates a new .onphoto file to hold all the layers. When you return to the Browser, unfortunately, the original file is still selected and NOT the new .onphoto file which you were actually working on so you have to select it first before continuing with your editing.
Yes, when you use the Browser to Delete a photo all its sidecar files and internal edits information is also deleted.
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And a related question: If you hit done and therefore can no longer UNDO anything but are not really happy and want to start anew, what do you do? Do you remove the jpg via the browser and then replace it again with the original jpg?
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I highly recommend downloading and reading through the User Guide. A lot of these questions are answered there. There are also a ton of videos on both the ON1.com website and on YouTube.
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When you want to start over with your edits just click the Reset All button or use the Settings > Reset All command. The Settings menu also gives you the option of removing individual sets of edits instead of having to remove all of them.
Once again, the User Guide is your friend.
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Yes I have downloaded the User Guide and searched a bit but did not find the answer to my questions--at least not with the quick searching I have done. I am also in the process of watching videos on the various techniques. The problem I have always found with photo editing programs is not so much the various techniques but, rather, knowing which technique or combination of techniques should be used when assessing an image. In other words glancing at an image and somehow deducing the various techniques that should be applied. I guess that is more of an art that comes with experience.
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"[G]lancing at an image and somehow deducing the various techniques that should be applied. I guess that is more of an art that comes with experience."
Yes it is. I recommend watching Scott Davenport's tutorials. I also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are a Plus member the Local Adjustments: What, When, and Why tutorials would be a big help for you.
Dylan Kotecki's introductory videos are also quite good and introduce a lot of various techniques I've found useful. There is an entire set of videos on each of the Effects in turn.
I just ran across this that I hadn't seen before. I'm going to have to check it out now. The Official Effects 2021 User Guidebook
Another good technique is to use Presets then explore what they've done to your photo by turning off each Effect one-by-one.
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The Effects guide book appears to be the User guide for On1 Effects standalone app. It has equivalent info to the Photo Raw user guide.
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Thanks Rick.
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Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Back in my "youth" I loved to spend all sorts of time by reading guides and manuals to learn something. These days with apps and user interfaces trying to be more intuitive, it is more of a chore getting back into the "read the manual" mode. I sort of know the very basics of manipulating an image but always somehow get lost when the subject gets to layering and masking and then all of the various "modes" and non-intuitive techniques of masking. And, again, it is not at all intuitive to me what techniques to use in the workflow. Guess it just takes continually playing around with the program and watching tutorials. Even then there are several ways to skin a cat. I was looking for tutorials on removing the orange color cast from old slides and found a few different Photoshop techniques to do so, none of them obvious.
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Since you know the basics of editing I would focus on the more advanced tutorial videos then.
Dylan Kotecki just put out a nice one on blending modes. Not just the modes you see in other editing apps like Soft Light, Develop, Luminosity, etc., but Photo RAW's unique modes. Creative Editing with Multiple Elements
Scott Davenport has a good one on Layering. Use the search features to narrow down by presenter and topic to help dig through what's offered. https://www.on1.com/videos/
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Search these Forums for scanning negative film to see some ideas others have come up with that might help you get started.
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Me again. I've been playing around with some photos while at the same time watching tutorials. One thing that still escapes me is what happens when I want to take a break from the editing and come back to it later. I understand that going into Browse mode will automatically safe the On1 progress--so far no problem. I I added a layer as part of my editing it saves a *.psd file (also maybe an *.onphoto file but not clear when that happens). So at some later date when I want to come back to that image which file to I edit--the original jpg, the psd file, the onphoto file? My main problem is that leaving the editing and coming back to it later seems to erase ALL of the history steps, some of which I might not have wanted to keep. Is that by design so that whenever I leave Edit on an image I will not be able to go back to an earlier history step? Also just now when trying to reopen an image I had worked on I get that symbol with a line through a silhouette and the image does not load.
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"I added a layer…" When you finish the current editing session after adding a 2nd layer to your photo it creates an .onphoto file unless you are working with a .psd which can hold the layer so the .onphoto wouldn't be necessary. All the edits you made since opening the file in the editor are saved in that new .onphoto file, NOT the original file you started with and which will still be selected when you return to the Browser.
Did you export the file to a .psd after adding the Layer? That could explain how you would up with both.
"So at some later date when I want to come back to that image which file to I edit--the original jpg, the psd file, the onphoto file? " The .onphoto file.
"My main problem is that leaving the editing and coming back to it later seems to erase ALL of the history steps…" Yes, this is by design. The way Photo RAW works is that the final settings for the slider are all that matters to rendering those edits. How you got there, the step-by-step, do not matter and are not retained for the next editing session.
"[W]hen trying to reopen an image I had worked on I get that symbol with a line through a silhouette and the image does not load." How long did you wait? Was the loading progress indicator at the lower right corner of the window still visible? The file has to load then the edits are rendered before you can start editing.
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Doug - whenever you add a layer a .onphoto file will be created & you will want to edit the .onphoto file to continue from where you left off. A .psd file should only be created if you send the to another application (assuming you have your preferences set to send as .psd which is the default. If you have not added a layer and just edited the original file then you just return to the original file to continue editing.
You are correct all history is lost when. Personally I have never really understood the benefit of history in On1 because of the way everything is done with filters and / or luts. I'm sure many find it useful though.
Not sure what could be causing the last issue you mention.
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FWIW I keep a folder I call Alpha (as in alpha testing) where I keep copies of all different types of files, different types of RAW, psd, tiff, jpg, etc. I use these when I want to test something I'm about to say here. 😁😉 It also comes in handy for testing for bug fixes, new software plug-ins, etc. I suggest you might benefit from having one where you can play with this process step-by-step for the learning exercise, not necessarily to get a realistic looking photo.
Try this as an exercise:
- Start with a RAW file
- Make 1 very noticeable change to the photo — increase exposure?
- Duplicate the Layer
- Dramatically lower the exposure
- Add a Gradient Mask to the Layer
- Return to the Browser then open each file in the Editor again to see what has been done and where the edits were saved.
You should see that the original RAW file has been untouched and there is a new .onphoto which contains both edits on their individual Layers and without the History.
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(Everyone answering at the same time! Apologies if this seems like it is repeating what everyone else has just said, their responses were not there when I started mine.)
Are you using On1 standalone rather than a plugin to Elements?
I have never seen a PSD file created as part of standard processing when using On1 standalone, only when exporting or sending an image to another application and choosing PSD as the transfer format. So I can't help you with that issue.
.ONPHOTO files are the files that On1 creates when editing moves beyond simple editing of a file. This includes adding layers and merging HDR brackets. They are created automatically when you return to Browse after doing something like that.
Once you have a .ONPHOTO file this is the file that you need to open to continue editing with layers etc.
If you had made changes to your original file and saved these changes by going back to Browse, then you can also reopen the original file and see and modify these changes. However if you make changes and don't save them before creating the .ONPHOTO file then they will be included in the .ONPHOTO file but not in the original file.
By design On1 does not save edit history steps outside of the current editing session, once you go back to Browse they are lost. But, of course the edit settings are retained so you can still go back and make adjustments to these settings. If you get to a point where you think that you might want to get back to or revisit in a later editing session then you can save that state in the middle of an editing session by creating a version. This can be done via the Settings/Create Version menu option or via CMD/CNTRL ' keyboard short cut (CMD on Mac and CNTRL on Windows)
(Another application did maintain all history states for images without a way to clear them, if one did a lot of masking etc this could cause the size of stored history to ballon to multi-Gigabytes!)
Can't help with why the reopening of image has failed.
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If you try to open an image in Edit and get the 'no image' icon...
... just go back to Browse and try again. I don't know why, but sometimes the image gets stuck loading even though there is nothing wrong with it.
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I have not thoroughly read through all of the responses yet but I am using the Standalone version. It seems when I work on the image and add a layer and then "leave" via going to browse mode, the program always offers to save as *psd and I did not see a way to prevent that. So are you saying I should NOT save as a psd? Also I am sort of figuring it out a bit now since I just opened a jpg, made an adjustment WITHOUT adding a layer, went to browse and then quit. When I open On1 again the jpg shows up in the browser WITH the adjustment I had made but if I look at the jpg with FastStone or another jpg viewer the original image shows up WITHOUT the On1 adjustments. So as you had previously indicated the only way the On1 adjustments show up is in On1 which is by design. That is starting to make more sense to me.
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Although I just discovered when adding a layer and then going to browse the program seems to force me to create a psd--not sure why.
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Just to make sure, what program and version are we talking about? You shouldn't need to deal with a PSD.
I just opened a jpg, made an adjustment WITHOUT adding a layer, went to browse and then quit. When I open On1 again the jpg shows up in the browser WITH the adjustment I had made but if I look at the jpg with FastStone or another jpg viewer the original image shows up WITHOUT the On1 adjustments.
Yes, of course. Photo Raw is a NON DESTRUCTIVE editor. That means it won't ever change your original image. In order to see an image with your edits applied to it outside of Photo Raw, you have to Export it. Exporting takes the original image and creates a new image with your edits applied.
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I have never seen the program ask me if I want to save anything when returning to the Browser. It simply returns, creating the new .onphoto in the process if needed.
Are you sure you are not clicking Export or using the Control-Shift-S Quick Export… shortcut?
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It was doing that for a while--every time I opened a jpg and added a layer and then went to browser it asked me to save a psd and there was NO onphoto image created. So just now I tried the same thing in my 2019 version and it worked as it was supposed to (onphoto created and NO asking to save psd) so I went back to my 2021.5 version and that also now seems to work okay (i.e., open jpg, add layer, hit browser, onphoto created). HOWEVER I do see that for later editing to that image I need to hit Edit for the *.onphoto version and NOT the *.jpg version. I guess that makes sense but is this actually explained in any user guide or did I just miss it?
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There is chapter on working with layers on page 168 of User Guide that includes statement that adding a layer will create a new .ONPHOTO file leaving original intact.
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So I guess when coming back to work on the photo that has had a layer added requires that you open the .ONPHOTO file and NOT the .jpg file--yes? I couldn't find anywhere in the User Guide that describes this and my impression is that the Guide assumes you are going to work on an image from start-to-finish and not in stages. Also it is not obvious when in the brower which files are jpg, which are ONPHOTO, etc unless you highlight each one which shows the name of the image. Is there some way in preferences to have the browser more obviously indicate which files are which types?
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Yes, when On1 creates an onphoto file, you continue working with that file. The onphoto file is mentioned 18 times in the user guide (according to Acrobat Reader).
Page 9 under Workflow, says...
At any point, you can go back to Develop, Effects, Local Adjustments
or Portrait and change any or all settings you have made. What’s more, when you’re working with layers,
Photo RAW will save your work in a non-destructive format as well, using a Photo RAW-specific ‘onphoto’
file format.In the View menu, turn on Always show Filename. From View menu description page 220...
Always Show Filename: Keeps the filename label turned on in the thumbnails while in Grid view.
If you keep the user Guide open in Acrobat while working in Photo Raw, then you can search for anything as you work.
Acrobat Reader...
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