Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 22   Go Down

Author Topic: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...  (Read 186706 times)

Ian Westcough

  • Guest
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #60 on: May 11, 2013, 04:51:23 am »

I cannot express how pleased I am that you have ventured to start this thread Jeff!

I have been using LR since its inception and think it's the best software of it's type. The last few days for me, as for many others, have been a little turbulent.
Having now calmed down from my initial knee-jerk reactions I am settled on continuing with LR5 for the time being. I have investigated the alternatives and for me, Aperture (which I have) lacks core features which I would require, Capture One seems a good option but would require another financial outlay.

I do not use PS (though I have CS3 for Pc, but I'm now using Mac). I have purchased Pixelmator but this lacks 16 bit editing which I would prefer.

It has long been my opinion that LR should include an "Edit" module for those pixel-edits not available parametrically. The stock reply to such a suggestion has always been that "there is Ps for that". My argument to this is that the Book, Web and Slideshow modules (which I have no use for, along with Maps) could be catered for by external applications.

Wether or not such pixel-edits took place within LR or were a smooth round-trip to a plug-in would not really matter to me. What I would like to be able to do is HDR merge, Panorama stitching and some relatively simple compositing, such as replacing skies in landscape shots.

Quite obviously these would require layers, masking, selection tools, refine edge etc, Quick mask, brushes, cloning and content aware fill and such like.
Support for 16 bit, channels; a good deal of this you covered pretty accurately in your initial post.

I would not need all those fancy filters, video, 3D, warping and graphic art related features though Type might prove useful.

My vision would be a sort of grown-up Elements aimed at those of us who are interested in attaining a "professional" level of quality even though photography may not be a part of our income.

A package including Lr and such a module/plugin would be my ideal work tool.

Bearing in mind that I do not like the idea of renting software, I would subscribe to a cloud version if there were to be some sort of mechanism to de-activate the cloud link and thus retain a perpetual license after an acceptable period should my circumstances change and the subscription become unaffordable. I think perhaps for many it is the thought of this which causes them to reject the cloud model.

Thanks for the opportunity to air these thoughts, Jeff.  A bold move on your part considering the terse reaction I've had to such propositions.
Hope something of this nature comes off relatively soon.

regards

Ian
Logged

Tony Jay

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2965
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #61 on: May 11, 2013, 05:01:03 am »

I do not have any new suggestions to add to the list.
I would however like to express my support for the intent of this thread as articulated by Jeff Schewe.

Tony Jay
Logged

LKaven

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1060
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #62 on: May 11, 2013, 05:13:43 am »

?

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).

You made some interesting points, but they actually didn't relate to what what I posted.  

I'm talking about software architecture, and specifically, the foundational elements of it.  This does not impose much in the way of user interface constraints, and opens up some powerful possibilities.  You can see these ideas at work today.  Nuke uses a dataflow architecture and is used every day in commercial production, including major motion pictures and high-end commercials.  GEGL is being developed along the same lines.  

If all one does is ask users of photoshop what they want, the scope of their imagination is limited to things that are almost like photoshop, an outdated architecture that is collapsing under the weight of its "improvements."

Schewe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6229
    • http:www.schewephoto.com
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #63 on: May 11, 2013, 05:24:58 am »

If all one does is ask users of photoshop what they want, the scope of their imagination is limited to things that are almost like photoshop, an outdated architecture that is collapsing under the weight of its "improvements."

Which is why I am more interested in discovering the core set of tasks photographers need to accomplish rather than asking what Photoshop features are needed re se.
Logged

LKaven

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1060
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #64 on: May 11, 2013, 05:37:49 am »

Which is why I am more interested in discovering the core set of tasks photographers need to accomplish rather than asking what Photoshop features are needed re se.

More on the mark.  Again, though, look at Nuke to see what a truly generative architecture has done for stimulating the imaginations of creative producers and videographers.  With a tool like that, it's possible to seamlessly composite live images with 3D CGI models, making full use of recorded camera movements, all in video.  Image data can be split off, decomposed, and used as control inputs for generating masks on the fly, as well as being used simultaneously for image rendering.

32BT

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3095
    • Pictures
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #65 on: May 11, 2013, 06:46:55 am »

More on the mark.  Again, though, look at Nuke to see what a truly generative architecture has done for stimulating the imaginations of creative producers and videographers.  With a tool like that, it's possible to seamlessly composite live images with 3D CGI models, making full use of recorded camera movements, all in video.  Image data can be split off, decomposed, and used as control inputs for generating masks on the fly, as well as being used simultaneously for image rendering.

Not trying to be dismissive, just wondering out loud: isn't there a significant difference between the number of pixels being processed? Again, the question is meant for photographers, and not videographers. Or is the convergence forcing us to rethink that paradigm as well?

Logged
Regards,
~ O ~
If you can stomach it: pictures

32BT

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3095
    • Pictures
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #66 on: May 11, 2013, 07:01:54 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?

I would like to repeat the question:

Do LR users generally prefer 1 image with adjustments, or do they also think about the potential final composition?

Note that HDR, or stacks, can also be thought of as a composition. When using HDR, do people:
- want RAW stacks, and a single  RAW conversion?
- want several RAW conversions and then combine the converted images to a stack?
- don't care as long as the result is as expected?

idem for panorama "stacks"?

What about adjustment layers, do you want adjustment layers because it is equivalent to parameter adjustments?

Logged
Regards,
~ O ~
If you can stomach it: pictures

32BT

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3095
    • Pictures
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #67 on: May 11, 2013, 07:07:49 am »

The reason I ask is this:

You can think of LR as some closed parametrized black-box in which you can conceive a photoshop-pixel-module,

or you can think of a photoshop image editor for which a RAW converter is a module.

If we really think about our needs, which would we prefer? (If DAM is separated entirely).



Logged
Regards,
~ O ~
If you can stomach it: pictures

davidedric

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 85
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #68 on: May 11, 2013, 07:32:03 am »

As a brand Newbie, directed here from another forum, just wanted to add that a "Lightroom Pro", preferably with a perpetual licence, of course, would suit me just fine.   I'll leave it to those better qualified to say what it might contain.

In effect, it is kind of the way that I work now, doing most of my editing in LR4 and handing off to PSE (not Ps), for some stuff.   Of course it would be lovely to have something like the content aware healing brush operating parametrically.

FWIW my plan for now is to upgrade to LR5 when it comes, to upgrade PSE to whatever version is around later this summer, get on with shooting and PPing, and see what happens.

Dave
Logged

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #69 on: May 11, 2013, 08:57:06 am »

Jeff,

After reading through the many interesting and useful insights on this thread, I thought it perhaps worthwhile stepping back a bit to consider the matter from the perspective of general principles, for example:

(1) The current episode with Adobe is a telling illustration of why competition in markets is important. A great deal of abuse can be leveraged on the strength of incumbency without actually breaking laws, and competition is really the only effective tool we have to constrain it. So if a group of highly intelligent and well-healed people are conjuring-up the idea of expanding choice in the market place, I think this is long overdue and deserves wholehearted support from all members of the imaging community who care about such matters.

(2) We have been educated - in good part by folks such as the late Bruce Fraser, yourself, others, of the major advantages of parametric editing. Ever since the introduction of LR1, the progress of LR has been to push the "boundaries of the possible" in respect of the things one can do with images parametrically. We know this is an evolutionary process that has occupied the talents of the best mathematical, programming and design minds in the imaging business, and I for one have no knowledge or reason to believe that humankind has necessarily reached the wall in respect of this evolution.

(3) So in light of (2) above, as general guidance on the overall technological thrust of a new initiative, I would like to see it focus primarily on parametric functionality, combined with modules that can convert the image to pixels and perform pixel-based editing for those things that people consider essential and cannot be done (yet) in a parametric manner. Then, as the new application progresses, part of its "design motivation" would be to gradually eat-through those pixel-editing requirements by incrementally doing more and more parametrically.

(4) You will doubtless recall that the genesis of LR was to create an application for photographers that would shed the PS baggage photographers don't really need, and be a "simple" bare-bones photo editing application. Well, Mark Hamburg said he may have failed when he was called upon to commend us to Martin's excellent 600 page manual on the basic and creative use of LR! But of course he didn't fail. It was brilliant and still is. There is actually nothing in LR that I don't use, and by now my trips to Photoshop are truly very limited. The incentive for me to upgrade Photoshop whether on subscription or not is close to zilch. So the bar that needs to be exceeded by those creating a new application is "LR 5 and some added stuff that rounds it out". Many good ideas have been posted above on what some of those things should be.

(5) On the functional/commercial aspect of it, I think some general principles of the commercial and technical arrangements would need to be established up-front, well communicated to the potential client base, and then respected in the implementation as rigorously and for as long as circumstances permit, because TRUST is going to be a very essential core value in the success of a fledgling enterprise. I frankly don't have any druthers about whether the marketing basis would be by subscription or perpetual license, but the one fundamental aspect of it that must be respected is that if it goes the subscription route, at the end of a contracted subscription period the subscriber will have the right, even if for an added fee, to obtain a permanent license key to the last version he/she used at the end of their subscription, in order to preserve all the access and editing capability they had up to that point, so that all the work they did on those images would not be at the mercy of a process and future cost path beyond their control. This is the core sticking point with the current Adobe scheme, hence a new company marketing a new application just needs to be smart about this.

(6) Sorry - one more point - learn from the more egregious aspects of Adobe's license agreement for CC, how NOT to deal with people.

Cheers,

Mark
« Last Edit: May 11, 2013, 09:00:59 am by Mark D Segal »
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

Gordon Buck

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 458
    • LightDescription
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #70 on: May 11, 2013, 09:19:20 am »

Thomas Knoll designed Photoshop over 27 years ago ...

Many thanks, Jeff.  What a good idea and thread!

It seems to me that, things being the way they are in the corporate world, all sorts of agreements and permissions are necessary between Thomas and Adobe.  Therefore, the "win-win" agreement is probably a photographer's plug-in to LR.  I like the idea as it makes sense from a corporate point of view as well as expediency.  I bet it happens.

Can a "plug-in" accept other plug-ins?

I'd like to see the new program available as both a LR plug-in and standalone version.  The LR plug-in would probably be offered first and then evolve to a standalone as well.
Logged
Gordon
 [url=http://lightdescription.blog

jrsforums

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1288
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #71 on: May 11, 2013, 09:43:27 am »

Jeff,

After reading through the many interesting and useful insights on this thread, I thought it perhaps worthwhile stepping back a bit to consider the matter from the perspective of general principles, for example:

(remainder  deleted to save space)

Mark

Mark, what a wonderful, well thought out post.

John
Logged
John

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #72 on: May 11, 2013, 09:45:38 am »

Thanks John.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

KevinMcD

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 32
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #73 on: May 11, 2013, 09:47:35 am »

This is great thread to discover.  I will say that for photographers who shoot people for magazines or commercial work, the Liquify tool is a great tool to give clients photos they want.  So I will put a vote in to include a Liquify tool.  
« Last Edit: May 11, 2013, 10:35:43 am by KevinMcD »
Logged

Rory

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 528
    • Recent images
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #74 on: May 11, 2013, 10:01:37 am »

I would like to see the rendering pipeline opened up for third party support.  I want a photo application that is not dependent on a few developers with limited resources, where we have to campaign for years for specific functionality.  If it has value then someone will invent it.  Maybe an integrated pixel editor is the step required to make this a reality.
Logged
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/roryhi

Rand47

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1882
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #75 on: May 11, 2013, 10:51:40 am »

John's compilation really fits my needs perfectly:

1.  Cloning/Retouching
2.  Stitching (which would include layering?)
3.  Stacking (focus stacking)
4.  HDR Merge
5.  Creative Sharpening/Image Detailing
6.  Several mentions of the warp/transform tools
7.  Several mentions of masking/selection tools
8.  Compositing
.....there were several printing related desires, but someone else throw those in.

Rand
Logged
Rand Scott Adams

mdijb

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
    • mdiimaging.com
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #76 on: May 11, 2013, 11:13:32 am »

The ideas here are very good but what i see as the problem is that why would ADOBE not do a LR PRO, what they are now doing to Photoshop.  Putting all our eggs in the LR basket, to have Adobe do the licensing thing again just prolongs the agony.

MDIJB
Logged
mdiimaging.com

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #77 on: May 11, 2013, 11:37:54 am »

The ideas here are very good but what i see as the problem is that why would ADOBE not do a LR PRO, what they are now doing to Photoshop.  Putting all our eggs in the LR basket, to have Adobe do the licensing thing again just prolongs the agony.

MDIJB

This would all be dealt-with in Reply #70 above.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

Ed B

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 178
    • Light Conspiracy
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #78 on: May 11, 2013, 11:57:05 am »

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned here yet. I don't really know a lot about how software works but I am wondering if this new project will be compatible with "older" PS files that have layers? What would happen if you opened a layered psd that included some parameter that this new plugin/program does/does not have?
Logged

Bart_van_der_Wolf

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8913
Re: If Thomas designed a new Photoshop for photographers now...
« Reply #79 on: May 11, 2013, 12:01:28 pm »

This would all be dealt-with in Reply #70 above.

Hi Mark,

You've made some good comments, but they may fall on deaf ears.

Before any effort can reach any level of achievability, the broken trust issue is blocking a lot of potential progress. I for one, do not suffer from the Stockholm syndrome. I've stopped my activity of developing a couple of Plug-ins that I just began with. I'm seriously pissed off, not only for myself but also because of the negative effects it will have on the spin-off industry as a whole (plug-ins, tutorials, books, education, etc.).

I'm looking for some seriously credible (re)action before forking over more of my money.

Cheers,
Bart
Logged
== If you do what you did, you'll get what you got. ==
Pages: 1 2 3 [4] 5 6 ... 22   Go Up