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Author Topic: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...  (Read 186714 times)

Stone

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #40 on: May 11, 2013, 02:01:23 am »

I've been a long time lurker here and I think this is an excellent discussion and the perfect time to begin such a conversation.  As a long time user of Photoshop, most of the features I would want to see in a "reboot" have already been mentioned so I won't restate what has already been said.

One thing I'd like to see, and I hope I can express it properly is the default use of the Smart Objects concept.  The seamless (or as seamless as possible) back and forth between LR and the pixel editor.  Double clicking a Smart Object currently opens ACR, I'd like it to take you back to LR to continue the raw-based edits.  Honestly, I'd like the new pixel editor to be a plugin to LR and not contain ACR functionality at all, I don't think the overhead of including "bridge-like" or ACR functionality would be beneficial, LR already does a wonderful job of file and catalog management.

Hope I was able to explain that clearly.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2013, 02:04:04 am by Stone »
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John Cothron

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #41 on: May 11, 2013, 02:03:40 am »

I've been a long time lurker here and I think this is an excellent discussion and the perfect time to begin such a conversation.  As a long time user of Photoshop, most of the features I would want to see in a "reboot" have already been mentioned so I won't restate what has already been said.

One thing I'd like to see and I hope I can express it properly is the default use of the Smart Objects concept.  The seamless (or as seamless as possible) back and forth between LR and the pixel editor.  Double clicking a Smart Object currently opens ACR, I'd like it to take you back to LR to continue the raw-based edits.  Honestly, I'd like the new pixel editor to be a plugin to LR and not contain ACR functionality at all, I don't think the overhead of including "bridge-like" or ACR functionality would be beneficial, LR already does a wonderful job of file and catalog management.

Hope I was able to explain that clearly.

Makes perfect sense to me
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Schewe

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #42 on: May 11, 2013, 02:09:49 am »

Does anyone think it would be a good idea to come up with say.. 10 things that we just HAVE to have (I personally don't need that many), and perhaps 5 things we would like to have, and maybe another 5 we don't want to see?

What I think would be most useful to to come up a list of must have functions for the top tasks photographers need to do that Lightroom can't, here's mine...

Retouching...how it's accomplished, I'm less concerned with how it's done and more concerned and how easy and efficiently it would be done. Will that require Photoshop tools? I don't know, but if you need to make selections to do accurate retouching of areas, then a lot of the features will be almost self evident. Clone/heal/content aware/blur/smooth/control texture and replace elements which leads to compositing.

Compositing...yes, we need to swap out heads/faces, skies, add photo elements together to combine them. Does this need layers? Actually, I'm not at all sure. Yes, if you think in Photoshop terms, but maybe not if a new compositing engine could be developed.

Yes, to HDR, Photomerge and focus bracketing...must haves. And there are third party developers who have made really nice small scale apps to be able to accomplish these tasks far better than Photoshop.

Image detailing. LR's capture sharpening and noise reduction is very good (I helped create it). Lightroom's output sharpening is very good (I helped create it) but "creative sharpening" is still very primitive in Lightroom. And for one really good reason–all Lightroom processing must be done parametrically. To do substantial and radical creative sharpening needs to be able to get access to pixels and return rendered pixels. Photoshop CC's Shake Reduction is an example...it's pretty cool and does a good job determining the required point spread function and applying an optimal deconvolution kernel sharping. Could this be done in raw? Maybe, but it already works with pixels. LR's -Sharpness does a pretty good lens blur of limited radius and strength but doing stiff beyond that is tough to do parametrically. So, capture and output sharpening is pretty good now, it's the creative stage that is currently weak in LR.

Yes, 8, 16, 32 bit functionality a given...yes channels and masks a given. For precision, paths for making selection as well as color/tone ranged selections ala Color Range (but on steroids) because Auto Mask is ok but limited...ideally this sort of masking should be available both parametrically and also for pixel based selections and adjustments.

So, the point here to to encourage thinking about what we need to do, not to get wrapped up in how to do it.
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John Cothron

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #43 on: May 11, 2013, 02:21:35 am »

What I think would be most useful to to come up a list of must have functions for the top tasks photographers need to do that Lightroom can't, here's mine...

Retouching...how it's accomplished, I'm less concerned with how it's done and more concerned and how easy and efficiently it would be done. Will that require Photoshop tools? I don't know, but if you need to make selections to do accurate retouching of areas, then a lot of the features will be almost self evident. Clone/heal/content aware/blur/smooth/control texture and replace elements which leads to compositing.

Compositing...yes, we need to swap out heads/faces, skies, add photo elements together to combine them. Does this need layers? Actually, I'm not at all sure. Yes, if you think in Photoshop terms, but maybe not if a new compositing engine could be developed.

Yes, to HDR, Photomerge and focus bracketing...must haves. And there are third party developers who have made really nice small scale apps to be able to accomplish these tasks far better than Photoshop.

Image detailing. LR's capture sharpening and noise reduction is very good (I helped create it). Lightroom's output sharpening is very good (I helped create it) but "creative sharpening" is still very primitive in Lightroom. And for one really good reason–all Lightroom processing must be done parametrically. To do substantial and radical creative sharpening needs to be able to get access to pixels and return rendered pixels. Photoshop CC's Shake Reduction is an example...it's pretty cool and does a good job determining the required point spread function and applying an optimal deconvolution kernel sharping. Could this be done in raw? Maybe, but it already works with pixels. LR's -Sharpness does a pretty good lens blur of limited radius and strength but doing stiff beyond that is tough to do parametrically. So, capture and output sharpening is pretty good now, it's the creative stage that is currently weak in LR.

Yes, 8, 16, 32 bit functionality a given...yes channels and masks a given. For precision, paths for making selection as well as color/tone ranged selections ala Color Range (but on steroids) because Auto Mask is ok but limited...ideally this sort of masking should be available both parametrically and also for pixel based selections and adjustments.

So, the point here to to encourage thinking about what we need to do, not to get wrapped up in how to do it.

Agreed, not concerned about how they work just that they do in fact work.  I added Creative Sharpening/Image Detailing (actually replaced Unsharp Mask as I suspect that would be part of it), and Compositing.
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yaredna

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #44 on: May 11, 2013, 02:29:18 am »

Well, that bring up an interesting point...if this new fangled Photoshop were designed to be a companion to Lightroom (to be used pretty much only in conjunction with Lightroom) it would be like a plug-in for Lightroom to edit pixels for when the task at hand can't be done parametrically.

So, if this wasn't a stand long but a bundle, something like Lightroom Pro, then you wouldn't need to duplicate anything in LR...and things like soft proofing, and printing wouldn't be needed because, well, the presumption would be you would round trip into the pixel editing sister app with the intention of bring that back to Lightroom for the rest of what Lightroom can do (which is pretty much what I use Photoshop for now).

Exactly my dream workflow... Now you're talking... As long as Adobe does pull another bogey and makes lightroom a rental sw....
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yaredna

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #45 on: May 11, 2013, 02:34:58 am »

Yep...but here's the think, if some your talent writes some code that can cherry pick the functionality that photographers need and offer it on terms photographers want, more power to him/her...

....

So, if not Thomas, then if some hot talent comes up with some cool concepts and execution I think that is a good thing. While people paint me as an Adobe apologist, I'm really not...I am however a big fan of the engineering talent Adobe has and the skills and knowledge they have for writing really useful code. If Photoshop isn't the best tool for photographers, I have no problem working towards advancing a tool that is. But if I would bet on anybody, it's the likes of Thomas Knoll and Eric Chan. If they decide to take a whack at doing something, it'll be pretty friggin' cool.

I would love to INVEST in Thomas Knoll's new venture... A real tool for real photographers, PROs and amateurs.
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CoyoteButtes

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #46 on: May 11, 2013, 02:43:50 am »

Jeff, thanks for the best thread I've read on ANY forum for the last few days.

Rather than get detailed with hopeful features, I'd like to see the Elves for Son of Photoshop be innovative and algorithmically creative. That could just be the best thing that ever happened to Photoshop.

But I would like to see Son of Photoshop be done specifically for digital photographers - even us hobbyists. And I would like a non-subscription option - as will apparently be the case with Lightroom.

Thanks...Stan
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kencameron

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #47 on: May 11, 2013, 02:48:49 am »

One consideration is the extent to which a new program should do things that are already well done by third party programs that integrate with LR. I go out of LR mainly to do HDR, Stitching and B&W conversion, and the NP would have to do these things much better than PS currently does before I would be tempted to use it for them. The other main reasons I leave LR are for localised retouching, which would be aided by a great leap forward in selection, for which there is room, and warping/transforming, where PS is very good, IMO. The gap to be filled is between what LR does and what the best third party programs do. Overlap with either would be a waste.

Or maybe Adobe could use some of the buckets of money it is going to make out of CC to buy some of the best third party programs and put them together.  Google might be prepared to sell it the mainstream Nik products, keeping only the cell phone program which I understand is what it wanted.
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Schewe

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #48 on: May 11, 2013, 02:53:33 am »

But I would like to see Son of Photoshop be done specifically for digital photographers - even us hobbyists.

Yep...but, as I worked on The Digital Print, I decided to incorporate scans from film as a component to the book. The Digital Negative is all about raw image processing, but The Digital Print will cover scans and capture. And, I think that's an important consideration. The more I work with scans in Lightroom the better I like working on scans in Lightroom vs. Photoshop.

So, I think the blend of analog legacy and digital can work together...once you start working on pixels instead of parameters, I've found that the differences are inconsequential–when you have "pixels", pixels are pixels regardless of how they were created or where they came from.

Raw is a different animal because the raw can be reinterpreted infinitely without inherent loss. But once a film is scanned into a gamma encoded fixed color space, editing is destructive.
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #49 on: May 11, 2013, 02:57:02 am »

Well, that bring up an interesting point...if this new fangled Photoshop were designed to be a companion to Lightroom (to be used pretty much only in conjunction with Lightroom) it would be like a plug-in for Lightroom to edit pixels for when the task at hand can't be done parametrically.

Jeff, I think that is precisely what's needed.

My specific suggestion? Content-aware fill.

Jeremy
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Oldfox

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #50 on: May 11, 2013, 03:14:37 am »

- Layers, Masks
- Curves
- Selections
- Clone
- Gradient
- Brush
- Crop (CS5)
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LKaven

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #51 on: May 11, 2013, 03:18:49 am »

Talk of "features" is interesting, but to me the question is architecture.  A new still photography tool kit should be based upon a completely redesigned architecture, and on that new architecture, new features can be reimagined, and some "old fashioned" features can be implemented as compatibility modules.

Dataflow architecture -- of the sort that is used every day in Nuke, of the sort that is being built into GEGL -- is /a virtual machine architecture/ that is suitable for the task.  Upon that architecture, you can build an entire range of "facilities" as conveniences, including -- if you so wish -- old fashioned layers.  But given this architecture, which allows many things undreamt of in legacy photoshop, you would come up with a new wish list.  

Compositing, for example, in Nuke is much better thought out.  The very same concepts can be used for still photography as for video.  Source material can be used and reused for partial renderings or control functions, dynamically or baked-in, and non-destructively to whatever extent one desires.  The inherent parallelism can be exploited for speed increase using any number of available processors, locally, or networked.  

The third-party plugin market would explode with possibilities not imaginable in photoshop.  But for those who wanted it or needed it, a compatibility module could be provided for legacy support of photoshop's existing user base.   8)

I would like to put this front and center into the discussion, especially calling on Eric Chan.  

Without an architecture that is rich and generative, involving a virtual machine architecture that allows a broad spectrum of possibilities to be expressed, any such reconceptualization of photoshop is vulnerable to anyone who can do this.  

There might be VM architectures better than dataflow for these applications, but I haven't seen such yet.  It is a low-level abstraction upon which any number of higher-level abstractions can be built.  It allows arbitrarily complex ideas to be expressed.  It allows non-destructive editing up to the extent that one's processor and memory will permit.  It allows for inherent parallelism.  It allows for entirely new market-making ideas to take flight, as well as being an apt platform for some more traditional techniques.  You can hide the machine layer where necessary, or reveal its full expressive potential.  

This goes way beyond what most people here are considering.  Others are giving genuinely good ideas about things they'd like to be able to do as photographers using more or less a traditional model.  That is worthwhile.  But the possibilities for reaching into entirely new realms, e.g., group workflow, multimedia production, real-time processing for broadcast or client-server applications, makes this a ripe area for development.  

Nuke went far into this, but one can go farther.  You can scale up; you can even scale down for modest needs.  It's all about having the right conceptual architecture.

Eric, talk to me.  I think I can bring something to the table.

32BT

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #52 on: May 11, 2013, 03:38:42 am »

But once a film is scanned into a gamma encoded fixed color space, editing is destructive.

What do you mean "editing is destructive"?

A parametric adjustment of a digital scan is equally (non-)destructive as a parametric interpretation of RAW data,
as a matter of fact, converting RAW data to actual pixels, interpreted or otherwise, is an inherently lossy process,
while the digital scan can produce the cleanest possible high-bit source that you could ever wish for.

i.e. your source either is:
- 14bit raw + interpretation, (where the 14bits may be questionable to begin with)

or
- 32bit noise free, encoded RGB, from a multipass scan.


Okay, not the thread to start this discussion, but it does illustrate one of my wishes for a new imaging workflow:

- better separation of functionality,
- better break down of processing pipeline into discrete but optimal steps.

It is not useful to have more than 1 way to get to the same result, even though that may look like "flexibility", it merely introduces inefficient and even incorrect processing or workflows. (For example: separation of capture sharpening and output sharpening etc).

If the workflow is better separated in discrete elements (read: modules & applications), then it also becomes easier to charge people for the use of these separate elements, even through a subscription type purchasing model. I need to be able to subscribe to only those modules that I actually use. Even 1 time use should be possible. i.e. the book module is probably useful only once in a very long while for most of us.


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Wayland

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #53 on: May 11, 2013, 03:43:08 am »

OK. Looking at this in a blue sky way, one of the most important things for me is the ability to revisit my work and be able to change anything at any time in the future with the software I own rights for at that point.

At the moment that is achieved with layers and smart objects. I don't care how it is done but when my skills are improved by ten or twenty years more experience I want to be able to improve on the work I do now.

It's like having an old negative of a great subject taken when you were starting out and going back to the darkroom with advanced skills and producing something far beyond the work you could have produced as a rookie.

That is why I am dead set against the CC. My back catalogue is part of my retirement plan so the last thing I want is to be cut off from it by not being able to afford a subscription.
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32BT

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #54 on: May 11, 2013, 03:52:14 am »

Without an architecture that is rich and generative, involving a virtual machine architecture that allows a broad spectrum of possibilities to be expressed, any such reconceptualization of photoshop is vulnerable to anyone who can do this.  

?

While I fully agree that a redesign at the core is necessary, for both LR and PS, I do believe it should also be user-centric. That is, it shouldn't be designed around flexibility just for the sake of flexibility or machine capabilities. The difference between PS as it used to be and graphic imaging these days is the "interpreted pipeline" because graphic card processing has become the norm. i.e. your graphics card contains a far more powerful processor than your computer does. But unfortunately "interpreted" processing still sucks for most of the functions that photographers like. (blur & sharpening techniques, which are also the basis for local contrast enhancements etc).

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Jack Hogan

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #55 on: May 11, 2013, 03:52:53 am »

Excellent constructive thread Jeff, thank you.  Many good suggestions above.  I personally mainly go to Photoshop to access plug-ins (Topaz and Nik), Stitching, HDR, layers+operations, transforms, ease of selections, all content aware edits (including warp), liquify, text, ACE color space conversions, printing.

No 3D, no video, no bridge.

A big selling point for me would be real time metadata based storage/processing: record clicks and strokes, not a new TIFF every major adjustment.  It's what allows Capture NX2 to keep complex, any-time re-editable file sizes for a D600 to 30MB, for instance, while the equivalent version in photoshop with a couple of layers is 300MB.

I think such a most excellent piece of new software should however be easily integrated with several leading raw converters' workflow, not just Lightroom's, which many of us do not use or like (what's LR's raw conversion market share?)

Cheers,
Jack
« Last Edit: May 11, 2013, 03:58:44 am by Jack Hogan »
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32BT

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #56 on: May 11, 2013, 04:00:06 am »

What about this:

Do we generally want and think in terms of 1 image with adjustments?

Or do we want and think about a composition with objects (images + text) containing adjustments?
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lhodaniel

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #57 on: May 11, 2013, 04:11:30 am »

KISS principle: Keep PS Standard. It's already developed. Perpetual license as before, or $10/month subscription. But (and I think this should apply to all the CC stuff), after 12/18/24 months you get to opt out with the current version at that time. My cell phone contract binds me for 24 months, but then I go month to month and can keep that phone. Subscribing for 1-2 years and being left with nothing does not fly.
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tho_mas

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #58 on: May 11, 2013, 04:37:16 am »

You mention Actions (or automation), Lab & retouching but you would presumably want 16 bit, channels, layers, selections, masks, paths, soft proofing, printing, a full range of color and tone correction (presumably as adjustment layers), Photoshop type filters like blur/sharpening, etc. You would need things like resize/resample, cropping & rotation, right?
yes, right. As far as layers go I do use "blend if" options a lot… so this particular functionality should be preserved. Also all the layer blending modes (luminance, color … etc.) and channels and masks.

Editable keyboard shortcuts and a customizable workspace are extremely important for me personally.
Too, I am finding the color management options in LR too limited. I need "convert to profile" (with perceptual and rel.col with and without BPC) and "assign profile". I also do need softproofing with an option to deactivate paper simulation (but an option to activate "black ink" simulation). So the full blown Photoshop CSxy softproofing options are important for me.

Photoshop CSxy Plugins should be compatible.
Cloning/healing/retouching is very important for me.

I do use Photomerge. Type, Video, 3D can go. History could be simplified to, say, 20 undo steps. Bridge can go as well as the Blur gallery, Puppet Warp and Liquify. ACR can go.

Support of the PSB file format would be mandatory as well as safe as PDF (with options).

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LesPalenik

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Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #59 on: May 11, 2013, 04:38:20 am »

Jeff, I think that is precisely what's needed.

My specific suggestion? Content-aware fill.

Jeremy

Perhaps the Content Aware Fill could be enhanced to accommodate "plugin maps" (supplied in CAF libraries with an option to add user-definable maps and learning algorithms) and "advanced parameters" for various types of images.
Open it to add-on developers who could add value by providing their own "sub-plugins"
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