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Not well highlighted is the fact that most tools in Ps Elements are limited to editing in 8 bit. ....
I was going to suggest Affinity Photo. It's what I was using till I bit the bullet and started the CC "photo subscription" (since I was having too many issues with CaptureOne Pro—mainly crashes while doing more "simple stuff": editing metadata). Anyway, it's pretty nice, but if you are really familiar with Photoshop and will be using it much, it's probably still worth paying for the Adobe CC subscription. I found some things in Affinity Photo were slowing me down a bit too much. That said, it's been improved a bit (I hear) since I used it last.Another new program worth checking out is Affinity Photo. It was a Mac only product, but now being ported to Windows and there is a free public beta of its software for Windows users available at:
Affinity Photo for Windows FREE beta
I also own the current version of On1 and I find it helpful, especially for masking, but there are some things I find I need that just are not in On1. For example, there is no perspective control and if I want to adjust the perspective of images from my UWA lens I can not do it in On1. There is no pano or HDR functionality and, although I seldom use it, no focus stacking. There are lots of other small stuff that is just missing from On1, at least for me, and some of my workflow tools can not use jpgs produced by On1 because they include the alpha channel and there is no On1 functionality to properly flatten that to make images acceptable to some tools like Dxo's Optics Pro.
Not trying to defend the current version of On1, but the new On1 RAW (suggested above) will include some of that functionality. They are very open about what they plan to include or not, and they use a voting system to include additional features in future releases. You can find the status of the suggested new features here: Ideas – ON1, Inc.. I just found this a refreshing approach.
I have downloaded the new OnOne RAW and, as it turns out, none of the features I mentioned in my post are in it. No perspective correction, no HDR, no Panorama functionality, no focus stacking and still no way to flatten the alpha channel out of the photo.Not trying to defend the current version of On1, but the new On1 RAW (suggested above) will include some of that functionality. They are very open about what they plan to include or not, and they use a voting system to include additional features in future releases. You can find the status of the suggested new features here: Ideas – ON1, Inc.. I just found this a refreshing approach.
Adobe also has a voting system for Lightroom and Photoshop, at feedback.photoshop.com, and on that site Adobe staff actually respond to and comment on feature requests or problem reports.I would be curious if they actually stick/use the voting system.
Adobe also has a voting system for Lightroom and Photoshop, at feedback.photoshop.com, and on that site Adobe staff actually respond to and comment on feature requests or problem reports.
But no software company is going to base their upcoming features/fixes on a voting system alone. Even if a company wants to make use of their voting system, they will still balance highly voted requests against other features that fit the long-term strategic goals of the software, more immediate features Marketing wants for competitive reasons, and how soon features can be developed and tested (sometimes the architecture doesn't allow it easily). This probably applies to On1 as much as anyone.
The interesting thing about the Adobe system is that if you follow the release notes on Lightroom Journal, there's usually a section called "Customer Reported Issues Resolved" where Adobe often links bug fixes and feature requests in the list right back to their originating user posts on feedback.photoshop.com. Lightroom and Photoshop might still not do everything the way we want, but at least Adobe seems to make an effort in this area.
You are correct, and that is probably why they called it a preview release. Their roadmap for the implementation of new features in 2017 is here: Coming Soon to ON1 Photo RAW – ON1, Inc.I have downloaded the new OnOne RAW and, as it turns out, none of the features I mentioned in my post are in it. No perspective correction, no HDR, no Panorama functionality, no focus stacking and still no way to flatten the alpha channel out of the photo.
I have to say that I did not see much new in the new release other than the ability to properly edit raw photos. The rest of the stuff (layers, resize, etc) seems identical to what existed before. The one nice thing is that they have added the ability to view the selected photo and also see a filmstrip of the other photos in the folder, similar to the way tools like Lightroom and CaptureOne display photos. That is nice.
I need a good software program to compliment LR5 for masking and layers all suggestions would be highly appreciated, what do you folks use.
Thanks Randy