In reply to Sam W:
Too early to recommend, but I bought ON1 Photo Raw having been looking out for something to cover my needs since last year when my pc became useless. I’m just a keen hobbyist btw so bear that in mind for my comments. I wanted something to view, catalogue, import LR catalogue, minor edits, something for noise reductions, re sizing, and possibly more complex things like layers if and when I wished to learn/use that. ON1 PR met all those needs (except in my “unique” case the importing LR cat - see below).
https://digital-photography-school.com/lightroom-vs-on1/
It’s in summer sale till 1st July btw. I actually paid more as I bought last month!
Still getting used to to it, but happy with the choice I made so far and I’ll be able to grow into for all I want to use it for.
It is stated that LR catalogue can be imported into ON1 easily, but unfortunately for me I was going from LR on a dead pc to ON1on a new pc. My now reading post buying, is I can only import the LR cat via a migration from a live LR program on the same pc (which as mine was a bought online version of LR and I’ve move from windows to Mac I don’t have access to on my new pc). I’ve still to contact their support to find out if I can use my backup LR catalogue or not somehow, so this maybe incorrect.
I am prepared to continue though without migrating/importing LR backup catalogue as ON1 can be used just as a browser/editor (with my tests so far the sidecar with keywords, etc, is still searchable without importing to ON1) and you don’t have to import photos, but can allow ON1 to catalogue the photos anyway no matter where they are stored on various external drives. I know I have lots of photos in the LR cat that are useless from my beginner days and I want to bin anyway so intend to only selectively import as time goes by.
ON1 would not be the obvious choice for a complete beginner I think looking at it, but there are many familiar aspects coming from LR so make basics feel natural. Yes, still a learning curve as they have “several ways of doing the same thing” for some aspects, but I’m enjoying the process. ON1 provide a large database of videos/e-guides etc for learning if that’s your thing. Word of warning, with the latter, some/many are through a one year payment to access, though there are free ones for all the basic stuff (if albeit shortened/more simplistic versions only of the to be paid for full versions).
If you subscribe rather than buy the PRaw I think you get everything included as part of the package, plus cloud storage and possibly to sync with mobile devices, etc. I went paid to be able to try out and if it turned out not to be what I wanted it wasn’t a lot of money I’d spent.
The only “annoyance” so far is ON1 seem to make money by selling add ons, so marketing emails come “thick and fast” even for things that are actually in my bought package. In due course I’ll be unsubscribing!!
My 2p but hope that is of some help.
Post edited at 12:30