ON1 launches ON1 Sky Swap AI as a standalone and plug-in for $29.99

Sky Swap AI is one of the big features in ON1 Photo RAW 2023, but ON1 has now split it out to also offer it as a standalone program and plug-in. You can open ON1 Sky Swap AI as an app, or launch it from Capture One, Affinity Photo, Corel Paintshop Pro, Apple Photos, Photoshop or Lightroom Classic.

This means you can use ON1’s clever AI-powered sky swapping technology without having to launch (or buy) the full ON1 Photo RAW 2023 application. It’s also a lot cheaper, costing just $29.99 for what ON1 says is a “limited” time. You can check out the ON1 store via the links below, but note that ON1 Sky Swap AI is also available as a free 14-day trial, so you have plenty of time to try it out and decide for yourself. (Note that the Life after Photoshop 20% discount code does not currently apply to this product.)

Sky Swap AI works in much the same way as the AI Sky Replacement first introduced in Skylum Luminar and now part of Luminar Neo. It uses machine-learning algorithms to automatically identify the sky in any scene, and then offers no fewer that 231 different ‘skies’ to drop in instead. These include 125 skies from premium supplier OcuDrone.

In many instances the sky replacement will work fine straight out of the box, but ON1 Sky Swap AI has a collection of masking tools for fine-tuning the results. The Sky Swap AI technology can also ‘relight’ the rest of the scene to match the color of the new sky, and even add reflections to water in the foreground.

Normally, effects created by external editors like Sky Swap AI cannot be undone later, but ON1 says you can re-edit your images using its Smart Photos plugin technology.

The Sky Swap AI feature in ON1 Photo RAW 2023 is still there, but by separating this feature as a standalone app, ON1 has made it available to photographers who use other software and workflows. Lightroom users in particular will benefit from the ability to swap out skies in outdoor shots, a job you can’t do within Lightroom.

ON1 sells its software both as standalone ‘perpetual’ licenses and as subscription plans. ON1 subscription plans always include the latest versions of the ON1 Plugins and ON1 Photo RAW for computers and mobile, and up to 1TB of cloud sync storage. Starting subscription plans are as low as $7.99 per month or $89.99 per year.