Houses on Brearley Lane, Calderdale

This image was taken as a bracketed HDR set at 1pm on the 11th October 2025 and later developed with On1 Photo RAW.

Gill and I went on our usual walk from Mytholmroyd train station along the footpath, across the bridge and back along the Rochdale Canal towpath. The walk passes through Brearley, and I usually take a photo of the lane if no cars are parked.

Thankfully there were no cars parked, and the weather was sunny too!

The bright sunshine meant the scene had a wide dynamic range, so I shot a bracketed set of 3 RAW files to give me the best chance of developing the whole scene effectively.

Software

Having had the mad RAM usage problems with On1 Photo RAW’s December 2024 update, making the software totally unusable, I’ve been using Luminar Neo in 2025 with some success. The software has some great virtues, but I still much prefer Photo RAW – when it’s working properly.

When I saw the previews of Photo RAW 2026, I researched whether the stability and RAM problems had been resolved, and it looked as though all was well. So I installed the trial version with a view to a monthly subscription meaning I could return to it without committing to a full year.

Why I prefer On1 Photo RAW

Unrestricted workflow:

With Photo RAW, you can freely switch from Develop, Local Adjustments and Effects at any point, switch each edit on and off independently, adjust any of the sliders and see the effect on your image’s preview instantly.

You can also rename Local Adjustments and Effects according to how you’ve applied them in respect of masking etc, so you know exactly where a certain adjustment is without having to hunt for it.

You can’t do any of the above in Luminar Neo. All the adjustments are applied in a fixed sequence. You can go back in time through the sequence, but if you have say 20 edits, and you go back to edit 10, you lose the preview of all the edits above in the stack.

Also, when using the Develop tool over and over locally via masking, you have no idea which is which in retrospect, because you can’t name them.

Photo RAW has worked faultlessly while developing this image. And 2026 has vastly improved masking. Hopefully it will remain smooth and stable 🐴