Wow, what a week! I’m amazed at the response and support we received about the ON1 Photo RAW announcement. Thank-you! I’ve been combing through the news and comments around the web from the photography community and wanted to address some important questions about Photo RAW.  Anything I missed? Leave me a comment! – Dan

Will there be a public beta?
Update 8.1.16 : We will NOT have a public beta. The beta will only be available for ON1 Plus Pro Members and customers who have pre-ordered.
Is ON1 Photo RAW only available by signing up for an ON1 Plus Pro Membership?
No, ON1 Photo RAW will ALSO be available as a software-only/non-membership option. We will notify everyone once pre-orders for the software-only/non-membership option begin. Keep in mind, anyone who signs up for ON1 Plus Pro Membership will be the first to get ON1 Photo RAW this fall. ON1 Plus Pro Members also get Photo 10.5 today. Plus Pro Memberships also include perpetual software licenses, which never expire.
What’s the price for the ON1 Photo RAW software-only option?
We are still determining a price for the software-only option. We plan to officially announce the price this summer.
What will ON1 Photo RAW do that other raw processors won’t do?
Tons, but here are three key differences. First you don’t have to catalog/import your photos (we will go into further detail about this specifically in the coming weeks), you browse to them, which makes it faster to start working. Second, the editing options go way beyond the basic adjustments like color and tone. It has the adjustments other raw processors have plus a complete layer-based effects engine for developing your own unique look with filters like Lens Blur, Glow, HDR Look, and many more plus the Portrait module for automated portrait retouching with face detection. And three, with no catalog to worry about it is easier to share your photos and work on them from multiple computers. Your photos can live anywhere including network drives and cloud sync folders.
Is this ON1’s way of repackaging existing raw processing systems (DCRaw, LibRaw and ImageIO)?
Definitely NOT. This is a brand new technology written from scratch using multi-threading and vectorization technologies. It’s also blazing fast.
What internal working color space will ON1 Photo RAW use?
ProPhoto
What are the supported cameras?
ON1 Photo RAW will support over 800 cameras. This includes just about everything built over the last 15 years. We will continually add support for new cameras released during development. We will also add support for new cameras when they become available, at no charge, as part of the auto-update mechanism. For a complete list of currently supported cameras go here. Don’t worry if you don’t see your new camera on the list. We will continue to update our list as we approach the release.
Will it support the Fuji X-trans sensors, various lens distortion corrections, as well as the automatic fixed lens corrections that some cameras encode. Will ON1 support Fuji® X-Trans files (and, importantly, demosaic them better than Lightroom®) and Sigma® Merrill X3F files?
ON1 Photo RAW will support Fuji X-trans sensors and will feature fast and high-quality results from them. It will also include baseline lens and noise corrections automatically. Additional manual noise and lens correction options will be available for manual adjustments. Sigma files will also be supported.
We will also support Super CCD sensors and aim to offer the same excellent results with them as we do for all other manufactures. We are currently building and will show results in the coming months.
How are files managed (collections, keywords, etc)? Will the new Photo RAW also uses keywords for photos and is it possible to make (smart) collections?
First and foremost Photo RAW includes a browser. You can manage your files at the file and folder level. You control where they live and how they are organized with real folders on your disks. You can also create Albums, which you can think of as virtual folders. They can contain photos from any location without having to make copies. Think of an Album as a visual list of photos that you group together based on your needs. You can also create Smart Albums (our version of smart collections), which are albums that automatically fill themselves with photos based on a saved search you create. They can contain all your photos from a certain camera, or photos with a certain keyword, or photos created in a certain date range for example. You can use any metadata field to create Smart Albums including ratings, likes, keywords etc.
What about managing of photos (rating, sorting, grouping, renaming, synchronizing between different cameras, selecting photos based on settings and so on) if there isn’t a catalog or database? How is this done?
ON1 Photo RAW will use a database. Any photos you browse or any watched folders (or favorites) you add are remembered by the database to facilitate searching and sorting by metadata. The big difference is you don’t have to go through an import dialog and wait for a catalog to be completed before you can start to view and edit your photos.
Where are the non-destructive edits or instructions stored?
The instructions are stored in two locations. First, is inside a database on your computer. Second, you have the option to save sidecar files, which contain the metadata and instructions. This makes viewing and adjusting photos on a network, portable drive or cloud storage service much easier.
What happens with thousands and thousands of photos, keywords, and develop settings already in Lightroom if I move to ON1 Photo RAW? Will all of my work be lost if I use ON1 Photo RAW?
If you move to ON1 Photo RAW be sure to embed or create sidecar files that contain your metadata. These will be automatically read by ON1 Photo RAW and your metadata that conforms to the EXIF and IPTC standards will be preserved. We are adding a Lightroom migration tool to our plans and will have more news around this between now and the release.
Can I search for tagged photos? Does it read the stored XMP files of Adobe® Lightroom®? Does it read Geotagging data?
Photo RAW supports EXIF and IPTC metadata stored in TIFF and XMP tags. You can view, add and search by any metadata including keywords. Metadata stored in Adobe XMP sidecar files or DNG files is read as well. Basic geocoding metadata for location is read as well and can be used to launch Google Maps to view the location where a photo was captured.
Will I be able to convert my Lightroom® presets to ON1 Photo RAW presets?
We are adding a Lightroom migration tool to our plans and will have more news and information around this between now and the release.
Does it support other Photoshop plug-ins like Perfectly Clear® or MacPhun®? Will the ability to use external editors like Photoshop® Elements and Affinity Photo® be available?
ON1 Photo RAW can send photos to applications you specify. Be default we automatically detect Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom and the Google® Nik collection. However, you can configure as many external editors as you wish. This includes Photoshop and Lightroom plug-ins that function as external applications. Pure Photoshop plug-ins are not scheduled to be supported in the initial release.
Will tethering options in ON1 Photo RAW?
Tethered shooting is under consideration for the release, but will more likely be an update later.
Will ON1 Photo RAW have an adjustment similar to clarity? 
ON1 Photo RAW will have the amazing Dynamic Contrast filter from ON1 Effects in both the Develop and Effects module. Dynamic Contrast is like supercharged clarity and is also one of the most popular filters in ON1 Effects today.
Will ON1 Photo RAW have lens correction?
Yes, some lens correction will be applied automatically. However, there will also be manual adjustments for distortion, perspective correction and chromatic aberrations.
Will ON1 Enhance still be around?
No, the new Develop module will replace Enhance. It will work on any file type we support and does everything that Enhance can do today plus a ton more.