Summary
Highlights
The video concludes by thanking viewers and emphasizing ongoing improvements in stability and performance, particularly with local adjustments. A major refactor is planned for the next release to further enhance speed.
The video introduces ON1 Photo RAW 2026.4, highlighting two major updates: the new Home Module for organizing and accessing work, and Restore AI for photo restoration. Dan Harlacher, VP of Product, joins to discuss these features.
The Home Module provides a faster and easier starting point for the application. Users can quickly open photos, browse folders, import images, access recent work, and find learning resources and product updates. It consolidates photos, tools, and training into one convenient area.
Dan Harlacher introduces Restore AI, a new module exclusive to ON1 Photo RAW Max. Restore AI sharpens soft photos, recovers lost detail, corrects faded and shifted colors, removes noise, dust, and scratches. It works on both old digital and film photos.
A demo shows how to access and use Restore AI. The initial restoration automatically fixes wrinkles, dust, scratches, faded areas, low contrast, and lack of sharpness. The AI models run on server-grade hardware due to their complexity.
Beyond basic restoration, Restore AI can colorize black and white photos. Users can guide the AI with text prompts in the 'generations pane' to influence colorization, such as changing uniform colors.
The adjustments pane offers controls for tone correction, color correction, and detail. Users can fine-tune the amount of AI-applied corrections, and adjust temperature and saturation. The monochrome toggle allows for tinting black and white photos.
When finished, users can save the restored photo as a new file (TIFF, JPEG, Photoshop, or layered ON1 photo) and send it directly to other modules like Effects or Develop for further editing.
Another demo shows restoring a faded color print from the 1980s. Restore AI significantly improves the color and tone. The face recovery pane helps maintain the recognizability and quality of faces, with manual control over the amount of facial restoration.
Restore AI is also useful for modern film scans. In an example with a 4x5 film scan, Restore AI corrects color, reduces lens flare, and rebalances the image. The generations pane can be used to dramatically alter the scene, such as changing the time of day to a sunset.
Restore AI can perfect early digital photos by correcting tone and color. More advanced use of the generations pane allows for object removal, such as construction netting, scaffolding, wires, and poles, while maintaining the photo's original structure and adding creative elements like sunsets.
Restore AI supports batch processing. Users can select multiple photos and use the 'sync all' button to apply the auto-preset and adjustment settings to all selected images, making it efficient for large collections.
ON1 Photo RAW is described as a comprehensive photo editor combining features of Photoshop and Lightroom. It offers file management, browsing, metadata changes, batch operations, a powerful RAW processor, layered workflow, special effects, sky swap, portrait retouching, and composite photo creation (HDRs, panoramas).
Beyond Restore AI, ON1 Photo RAW 2026 includes masked layers for advanced masking, improved subject and background masking, and four new creative filters: Depth Lighting, Split Field, Double Exposure, and Motion Filter. It also features improved Resize AI, performance enhancements, and UI improvements.