How is the Demosaicing in On1 for Mac?

[Glen Barrington]

Moving to Mac mini m4 from Windows! Me and Microsoft just aren't headed in the same direction.

I'm casting about, looking for possible replacements for my Windows photo software, and On1s Mac version SOUNDS like a strong contender. However, in doing research, I've encountered many Youtube videos that claim On1 was the greatest photo software ever written. Color me cynical, so l started looking for some negative reviews

I encountered a somewhat negative review where the reviewer claims On1 has a really bad demosaicing algorithm, resulting in compromised output since proper demosaicing is the foundation for all subsequent actions. He recommended DXO Photo Lab 8.

Can anyone confirm or refute this position with some authority?

 

[ishwanu]

... I encountered a somewhat negative review where the reviewer claims On1 has a really bad demosaicing algorithm, resulting in compromised output since proper demosaicing is the foundation for all subsequent actions. He recommended DXO Photo Lab 8.

Some people swear that every major (or minor) conversion app has the best demosaicing, and some people swear that every major (or minor) conversion app has poor demosaicing.

Can anyone confirm or refute this position with some authority?

I have the authority to say this: As a user of both DxO PhotoLab and ON1 Photo RAW, I don't know of, and have never observed, any practical difference in their demosaicing. I am well aware of differences in the gear they support and their feature sets, though. Those are things that matter to me.

 

[Glen Barrington]

Thanks! Both On1 and DXO are on my shortlist for different reasons. And my Windows experience with them would not support this vBlogger's claim. But Mac is a new environment for me and I have nothing to go on, experience wise.

 

[charlyw64]

Thanks! Both On1 and DXO are on my shortlist for different reasons. And my Windows experience with them would not support this vBlogger's claim. But Mac is a new environment for me and I have nothing to go on, experience wise.

If you want to make use of the excellent demosaicing that the OS itself incorporates (which was the basis for Aperture) then maybe the tools from Gentlemen Codes would be of interest to you, Nitro (and it's predecessor/plugin type RAW Power) IMHO are worth a look.

But to get really excellent independent demosaicing you have to look at the triumvirate of Adobe Lightroom, DxO or Capture One. Adobe is the swiss army knife (no real outliers in terms of under or overperformance), DxO has it's strength if lens corrections are a must (but only if the provided lens profiles are correct, they not always are) and Capture One shines for portrait photography, especially when tethered. On1 to some degree and especially Luminar IMHO are far far behind in quality.

 

[s_grins]

From the beginning, I want to say that I use ON1 on PC.

Now to the business. Different programs use different wording for identical things. I use ON1 software for many years, and never met a tool called "demosaicing". Instead, ON1 has tool named "structure" that may or may not be a demosaicing somewhere else - I am not sure.

I use this "structure" often, and it works beautifully for me. I apologize if I waste your time

Regards

S.

 

[CrisL]

From the beginning, I want to say that I use ON1 on PC.

Now to the business. Different programs use different wording for identical things. I use ON1 software for many years, and never met a tool called "demosaicing". Instead, ON1 has tool named "structure" that may or may not be a demosaicing somewhere else - I am not sure.

I use this "structure" often, and it works beautifully for me. I apologize if I waste your time

Regards

S.

Demosaicing is not an option . It’ mandatory and implicit to view an image from raw data.so this is an hiden algorhytm which is now associates with denoising inside last versions of the best softwares.

I am familiar and like to use ON1 UNDER WINDOWS but their demosaic result is not on par with the best ones , a lot of artefacts so I am always using DXO PL to demosaic, lens correct and denoise all my RAW file . only working in ON1 with TIF from DXO PL.

 

[charlyw64]

From the beginning, I want to say that I use ON1 on PC.

Now to the business. Different programs use different wording for identical things. I use ON1 software for many years, and never met a tool called "demosaicing". Instead, ON1 has tool named "structure" that may or may not be a demosaicing somewhere else - I am not sure.

Demosaicing is the basic process that converts the RAW file into a full color image file - and the On1 demosaicing process is nothing to write home about, it's rather crude and the results bear witness to this shortfall.

 

[s_grins]

From the beginning, I want to say that I use ON1 on PC.

Now to the business. Different programs use different wording for identical things. I use ON1 software for many years, and never met a tool called "demosaicing". Instead, ON1 has tool named "structure" that may or may not be a demosaicing somewhere else - I am not sure.

I use this "structure" often, and it works beautifully for me. I apologize if I waste your time

Regards

S.

Demosaicing is not an option . It’ mandatory and implicit to view an image from raw data.so this is an hiden algorhytm which is now associates with denoising inside last versions of the best softwares.

I am familiar and like to use ON1 UNDER WINDOWS but their demosaic result is not on par with the best ones , a lot of artefacts so I am always using DXO PL to demosaic, lens correct and denoise all my RAW file . only working in ON1 with TIF from DXO PL.

Thank you very much for the explanation.

For me, it means that neither of us can control/adjust demosaicing, and all this thread is a moot.

 

[charlyw64]

From the beginning, I want to say that I use ON1 on PC.

Now to the business. Different programs use different wording for identical things. I use ON1 software for many years, and never met a tool called "demosaicing". Instead, ON1 has tool named "structure" that may or may not be a demosaicing somewhere else - I am not sure.

I use this "structure" often, and it works beautifully for me. I apologize if I waste your time

Regards

S.

Demosaicing is not an option . It’ mandatory and implicit to view an image from raw data.so this is an hiden algorhytm which is now associates with denoising inside last versions of the best softwares.

I am familiar and like to use ON1 UNDER WINDOWS but their demosaic result is not on par with the best ones , a lot of artefacts so I am always using DXO PL to demosaic, lens correct and denoise all my RAW file . only working in ON1 with TIF from DXO PL.

Thank you very much for the explanation.

For me, it means that neither of us can control/adjust demosaicing, and all this thread is a moot.

You can sort of control demosaicing by the choice of the software to do it. And there the three big companies (Adobe, DxO and Capture One) rule the roost.

 

[IanYorke]

From the beginning, I want to say that I use ON1 on PC.

Now to the business. Different programs use different wording for identical things. I use ON1 software for many years, and never met a tool called "demosaicing". Instead, ON1 has tool named "structure" that may or may not be a demosaicing somewhere else - I am not sure.

I use this "structure" often, and it works beautifully for me. I apologize if I waste your time

Regards

S.

Demosaicing is not an option . It’ mandatory and implicit to view an image from raw data.so this is an hiden algorhytm which is now associates with denoising inside last versions of the best softwares.

I am familiar and like to use ON1 UNDER WINDOWS but their demosaic result is not on par with the best ones , a lot of artefacts so I am always using DXO PL to demosaic, lens correct and denoise all my RAW file . only working in ON1 with TIF from DXO PL.

Thank you very much for the explanation.

For me, it means that neither of us can control/adjust demosaicing, and all this thread is a moot.

Of course you can control demosaicing by choosing the raw converter. Some even offer several demosaic options eg DXO-Photolab demosaic varies between the model chosen eg PRIME, XD etc.

Ian

 

[ishwanu]

I am familiar and like to use ON1 UNDER WINDOWS but their demosaic result is not on par with the best ones , a lot of artefacts so I am always using DXO PL to demosaic, lens correct and denoise all my RAW file . only working in ON1 with TIF from DXO PL.

As mentioned earlier, I use both ON1 Photo RAW and DxO PhotoLab and I haven't identified any practical differences in their demosaicing results. Maybe I just haven't looked closely enough. There are always other differences in color and tonality, of course. Why don't you post examples that show the demosaicing differences you've observed so I can see these? You would of course need to construct the comparison in a way that isolates differences in demosacing from other modifications to color, sharpening, noise reduction, etc. Although seeing the resulting difference won't influence my use of the tools (I use PL primarily and PR for files that PL doesn't fully support), it would be academically interesting.

As as example, below is a target that I often use for testing. I processed the RAW file in both apps using linear profiles and eliminating as many non-demosaicing variables as possible, such as NR, sharpening, etc., which is why the result appears a bit dull and unsharp. I don't see why I would prefer PL's demosaicing over PR's. Am I doing something wrong that prevents me from seeing that?


DxO PhotoLab


ON1 Photo RAW

Thank you very much for the explanation.

For me, it means that neither of us can control/adjust demosaicing, and all this thread is a moot.

Of course you can control demosaicing by choosing the raw converter. Some even offer several demosaic options

Indeed, there are a number of different demosaicing algorithms.

eg DXO-Photolab demosaic varies between the model chosen eg PRIME, XD etc.

Although DxO's advanced noise reduction options work during demosaicing, I've seen no documentation saying that the basic demosaicing algorithm is different when choosing among those options. The noise reduction algorithm will of course be different.

 

[Glen Barrington]

Demosaicing represents the very foundation of how a graphics software company turns the data stored in a raw file into a usable/editable image. Without that, there IS NO image. And technically (though somewhat less so, practically) some software will work better with some camera raw output than others. From my experience, I don't think one can say ANY software is the best for all camera systems. For instance Fuji cameras have consistently proven difficult for the graphics software companies to get 'right'.

So what my original post was asking was, "in general have any ON1 users felt that ON1's demosaicing algorithms have not been adequate, especially when compared to DXO PhotoLab"

In Windows, I felt ON1 worked reasonably well with my ORF files, but the Mac is something I have no experience with. My new Mac won't arrive until Saturday, so I won't be able to test it at least till then.

It may well be that I will have to use ON1 as the 'front end photo manager" for some other raw developer. That won't thrill me, but many people do that very thing with On1 and other products with a good DAM.

 

[Glen Barrington]

Thank you. This is the sort of info I am looking for.

 

[s_grins]

From the beginning, I want to say that I use ON1 on PC.

Now to the business. Different programs use different wording for identical things. I use ON1 software for many years, and never met a tool called "demosaicing". Instead, ON1 has tool named "structure" that may or may not be a demosaicing somewhere else - I am not sure.

I use this "structure" often, and it works beautifully for me. I apologize if I waste your time

Regards

S.

Demosaicing is not an option . It’ mandatory and implicit to view an image from raw data.so this is an hiden algorhytm which is now associates with denoising inside last versions of the best softwares.

I am familiar and like to use ON1 UNDER WINDOWS but their demosaic result is not on par with the best ones , a lot of artefacts so I am always using DXO PL to demosaic, lens correct and denoise all my RAW file . only working in ON1 with TIF from DXO PL.

Thank you very much for the explanation.

For me, it means that neither of us can control/adjust demosaicing, and all this thread is a moot.

You can sort of control demosaicing by the choice of the software to do it. And there the three big companies (Adobe, DxO and Capture One) rule the roost.

Roost belongs to roosters, and demosaicing lagely depends on sensor design and resolution

 

[ishwanu]

You can sort of control demosaicing by the choice of the software to do it. And there the three big companies (Adobe, DxO and Capture One) rule the roost.

Roost belongs to roosters, and demosaicing lagely depends on sensor design and resolution

Opinions from Internet posters on this subject are just that - opinions. But you clearly don't know much about demosaicing algorithms, considering that you only today learned what demosaicing means. Try just listening and you might learn more. There are many different ones. At least one image editor I know of allows the user to choose from among several algorithms to demosaic the same RAW file.

 

[s_grins]

You can sort of control demosaicing by the choice of the software to do it. And there the three big companies (Adobe, DxO and Capture One) rule the roost.

Roost belongs to roosters, and demosaicing lagely depends on sensor design and resolution

Opinions from Internet posters on this subject are just that - opinions. But you clearly don't know much about demosaicing algorithms, considering that you only today learned what demosaicing means. Try just listening and you might learn more. There are many different ones. At least one image editor I know of allows the user to choose from among several algorithms to demosaic the same RAW file.

All right, I am an ignorant person. But what about dependency of demosaicing on sensor design?

 

[ishwanu]

You can sort of control demosaicing by the choice of the software to do it. And there the three big companies (Adobe, DxO and Capture One) rule the roost.

Roost belongs to roosters, and demosaicing lagely depends on sensor design and resolution

Opinions from Internet posters on this subject are just that - opinions. But you clearly don't know much about demosaicing algorithms, considering that you only today learned what demosaicing means. Try just listening and you might learn more. There are many different ones. At least one image editor I know of allows the user to choose from among several algorithms to demosaic the same RAW file.

All right, I am an ignorant person. But what about dependency of demosaicing on sensor design?

Unusual sensor designs (notably some from Fujifilm and Sigma) definitely require unusual algorithms, but I don't think much variation is required among algorithms for regular Bayer designs. (I'm not talking about compensating for spectral characteristics of the specific color filters in various cameras, which is a separate subject).

 

[KWEnz]

charlyw64 wrote

Demosaicing is the basic process that converts the RAW file into a full color image file - and the On1 demosaicing process is nothing to write home about, it's rather crude and the results bear witness to this shortfall.

Looking at the results that ishwanu got above when displayed at full screen, I would say the opposite. The On1 image is brighter and the colours are more intense than the DxO PhotoLab image which is dull, especially the red and orange tones.

 

[ishwanu]

charlyw64 wrote

Demosaicing is the basic process that converts the RAW file into a full color image file - and the On1 demosaicing process is nothing to write home about, it's rather crude and the results bear witness to this shortfall.

Looking at the results that ishwanu got above when displayed at full screen, I would say the opposite. The On1 image is brighter and the colours are more intense than the DxO PhotoLab image which is dull, especially the red and orange tones.

As I said in my post, please try to ignore factors like those. I did my best to minimize any differences other than just the results of demosaicing (the process of converting RAW data to RGB data that can be viewed and manipulated) ... but it's not possible to eliminate them all. That said, my point was indeed that I see nothing crude or inferior about ON1's output.

 

[bakubo]

Thank you. This is the sort of info I am looking for.

Not that you would be interested, but darktable and rawtherapee (free programs) provide multiple demosaic algorithms that may be selected:

darktable

darktable is an open source photography workflow application and raw developer

www.darktable.org

Home

About RawTherapee is a powerful, cross-platform raw photo processing system, released as Free Software (GPLv3). It is designed for developing raw files from a broad range of digital cameras and targeted at users ranging from enthusiast newcomers who wish to broaden their understanding of how...

rawtherapee.com

Also, Lightroom allow you to select the Enhance Details demosaic algorithm which can give even better results than the standard one. You can read about it here:

https://business.adobe.com/blog/the-latest/enhance-details