On1 Photo RAW 2026 Review: Absolute Bollocks

I
t’s that time of the year when all the big photo editors get their regular makeovers. Capture One, Photolab and Lightroom have all had comprehensive point releases in the last couple of months and now it’s On1’s turn.

And if you’re wondering why I took my time to release this review, it’s because I didn’t receive an early version, as I did for previous iterations, perhaps because I’ve been quite hard on this app in the past. And given how this review’s going to turn out, I don’t think I’m going to make it back onto the Christmas card list any time soon.

So, with an invitation from On1 to download the beta version apparently lost in the post, I downloaded the 30 day trial version of Photo RAW 2026 just like everyone else – and I put it through its paces. Have they addressed the issues with demosaicing, slider range, masking, brilliance AI, generative tools, AI denoise and interface that I took issue with last time around or is it just more of the same?

All I can say is that it’s progress – it’s just not in the same direction as everyone else.