ON1 Effects can apply non-destructive edits even as a Lightroom plug-in – did you know that?

ON1 Effects is a component of ON1 Photo RAW, which is itself a non-destructive editor, storing all your editing adjustments as metadata alongside your images. But if you choose to use the ON1 Effects plug-in alongside Lightroom instead, surely you lose that non-destructive capability? No!

Normally, plug-in software is ‘destructive’. It edits image pixels directly and returns a fully processed image to your host software with all those edits baked in for good. But with ON1 Effects, if you choose the PSD file format when sending images from Lightroom Classic, something very different happens.

You might look at all the Lightroom file format options when you use the Edit in command and assume that the JPEG, TIFF and PSD format options will all work in the same way – you send the plug-in the image and you get a processed version back. Maybe you imagine, like I did, that the PSD option is simply a convenience for people who prefer the PSD format for whatever reason.

Well there’s a jolly good reason for doing it this time, because ON1 Effects doesn’t just open and work with PSD files, it embeds all its editing adjustments non-destructively within the PSD file itself.

So the first time you send an image to ON1 Effects, you choose the PSD format and the image opens in ON1 Effects where you do all your edits. When you’re done, you close the file and you see your new, editing image back in Lightroom.

But let’s say you decide you should have edited it differently? You can send your edited PSD file back to ON1 Effects, but this time make sure you choose the Edit Original option, not the usual Edit a Copy. ON1 Effects will now open that PSD file it edited before but, lo and behold, all the edits you applied are still there and fully editable in the filters stack in the right sidebar. You can change the settings, add or remove filters and do what you like. When you close that file, the newly edited PSD file will be there in Lightroom, with a new set of non-destructive edits in the PSD file you can change again and as many times as you like.

If you send ON1 Effects a 16-bit PSD file – the best settings for any serious editing – it will create a fairly big file. My 20MP image in this instance started out as a 27MB RAW file that turned into a 142MB PSD file, so it’s not something you’re going to do for every photo because you’d soon run out of disk space. (I have a tip for that, by. the way – see my recent post on 16-bit TIFFs.)

Nevertheless, I think the PSD option for ON1 Effects is a game-changer. It also works from Capture One, though the ON1 Effects workflow is a bit less well developed. For years I’ve been sending ON1 Effects TIFF files thinking it was simply a ‘destructive’ plug-in like any other.

It’s not! And I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realise it…

You can get 15% off ON1 software using the discount code in the right sidebar. If you’re a Lightroom (or Capture One) user, I’d recommend ON1 Effects, sold separately but also included with the ON1 Photo RAW Max edition.

I really rate ON1 Effects as a cheaper alternative to the Nik Collection that offers a very range of effects. These two applications do things you simply can’t do it Lightroom or Capture One, my other go-to applications.