I share Richard’s concerns in light of my own experiences with the first two releases of 2024. 2024.5 has finally settled down, but frankly the stability of 2025 is more important to me than Generative AI anything.

Re other AI features, I’ve found in my own work that Brilliance AI gives me useful nudges in some directions for my edits about 20% of the time, and the other 80% makes me gasp in horror and toggle Brilliance AI off immediately and go back to my standard Develop and Effects approaches. Brilliance AI does have a better hit rate for me than the old Auto button under Develop did in earlier versions of PhotoRAW, but it needs improvement.

I’m willing to try 2025 but I’m not uninstalling 2024.5 now that it’s more or less settled down and is relatively predictable.

I appreciate that ON1 is recommending that one does all Generative AI work on separate layers from the other editing. Given that different repeated applications of the same Generative AI to the same phot can produce different results, I think I’ll make extensive use of Snapshots and Versions whenever trying out anything Generative. So if after three attempts at something Generative I think the first one was better than the later ones, layers and Snapshots strike me as a pretty darn good idea so you can (I hope) go back to the better choice you saw earlier without gambling on whether the algorithm will rediscover that approach on its own … Particularly with any form of “context-sensitive” retouching, I rely heavily on snapshots when I do that.

I think that should be required.

I don’t need for ON1 to pursue AI generative features. I do need for ON1 to deliver well functioning features and overall product reliable operation.

There would appear to be the potential for a grey area where the elements are generated inside the post-processing app, but based on knowledge of external elements. An example in current ON1 software would appear to be in the NoNoiseAI app where, for example, fur and feathers are “corrected” if out of focus, based on acquired knowledge of such elements.

In the description above it might be arguable that replacing overhead wire with “sky” uses elements from the image, but this is not an argument where artefacts such as birds are added.

Photographers entering images in competitions will need to use and maybe demonstrate integrity when post-processing their images.

In passing, it is amusing that, in a reversal of the situation when Boris Eldagsen’s AI-generated image ‘The Electrician’ won the creative open category of the Sony World Photography Awards 2023, the striking image ‘Flamingone’ (of an apparently headless flamingo) won photographer Miles Astray the Peoples’ vote and a category Bronze medal in the AI section of the ‘1839 Awards’ competition, but was disqualified when it was revealed to be a genuine photograph.