PhotoPlus X6 Wishlist

[AlfredP]

Now that PhotoPlus X5 has been released, here's a new PhotoPlus X6 wishlist. If there's anything you would like to see in the next release, please post here.

If there are any suggestions from the previous wishlist which didn't make it into X5, please feel free to repost them here if you'd still like to see them implemented in X6.

Alfred

[AlfredP]

Post copied from the PhotoPlus X5 wishlist:

Originally Posted by Quark Something else I would like to see is a descreen filter.

[soul-73m]

opps ... delete this

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Almost the same list as last time — Shortcuts for brush size were implemented in PhP X5.

1. Increase the maximum zoom level to 5000% like other Serif apps, needed for editing icons
2. Add large icon set for toolbars
3. Let PhotoPlus edit its own toolbar icons
4. Improve export size/quality for JPG images
5. Add support for progressive JPG images
6. Improve PNG compression filters for optimal file size
7. Import and export APNG animated PNG images. Create from single images or convert from animated GIF.
8. Support import/export of multipage TIF images
9. Support the ICO image format
10. Completely rewrite the Batch operations dialogue so that it is usable
11. Improve handling of very large images — 100 Megapixels should not be a problem to load and edit with 1 Gbyte of RAM. Applying artistic effects to such large images might well be a problem, but simple conversion and resampling tasks should be possible.
12. Enable batch scanning.
13. Add option to resume from last time.

[colin_e]

PhotoPlus' handling of Image alpha, layer masks, and layer channels is both restricted AND over-complex.

I got excited when I saw PP X5 had added support for alpha channels, but then I discovered that what Serif calls an alpha channel isn't what I think of as an alpha channel, the Serif implementation is more like a "scratchpad channel", which is fine as far as it goes but doesn't help with the underlying confusion in the user interface.

So, starting from scratch here is my wishlist to comprehensively clean up the current messy situation-

1. Colour Channels
2. Include CMYK, HSV and HLS views of the colour channels as well as RGB.
3. Colour channels should be fully editable in any colour view, i.e. you could apply a smoothing filter to the Hue channel only in HLS view.
   
   Image Alpha, Layer Mask
4. Currently Photoplus is all over the place with this, the concept of image alpha, layer mask, and now with X5 alpha channels are hopelessly confused. The layer alpha channel is (or should be) THE SAME THING as the layer mask! Lets get this sorted out, have one name for one concept, clean up the code, and make the naming in the program and the documentation consistent.

   1. Rename the layer mask as layer alpha (note today, if you import an image with transparency, say a TIFF, the alpha channel data from the file ends up in the layer mask not the so-called "alpha channel" X5 supports).
   2. Rename the "alpha channels" introduced in X5 as something like "saved mask channels" or "scratchpad channels". (Again, note that today if you use the "create selection from layer alpha" command, it actually uses the data from the layer mask, NOT the alpha channel!).
   3. Make the real layer alpha channel (currently called the layer mask) available as a channel in the channels tab.

   Consistency / Orthogonality
   By "orthogonal" I mean that, as far as any "channel type thing" in the system goes, all operations should work the same way, and it should be easy (one step) to move data between any two channels.
5. At design time for PP X6 Serif should create a 2-dimensional matrix of all the channel types that the application supports, including-

   1. RGB, CMYK, HSV, HLS colour channel representations
   2. Selection masks
   3. Alpha (transparency) channels
   4. "scratchpad" channels
   5. anything else I haven't thought of...

6. With a matrix showing these channels types down both sides, the designer should then consider how the application supports direct moving/copying of data from and to every other channel type. At the moment this is not consistent, some things (like "create selection from layer alpha", although this actually uses the layer mask!) are directly supported by a command, others don't seem to be possible at all, or require extra intermediate steps.
7. This same matrix would be a really useful thing to have in the PP manual and help!
8. Any operation should work on the currently selected channel(s) and/or masks in a consistent fashion. Again today PP is not consistent in this area, for example you can only paste channel data into a channel mask if you have previously defined a selection (why??).
   
   Extras
9. Allow any channel, including scratchpad channels, to be used as effects masks.
10. A powerful addition would be extend the channel mixer capability to include non-colour channels as well, i.e. allowing data from a scratchpad channel to be mixed into a colour channel in the output of a channel mixer filter.

[Arun Sarkar]

1) CMYK colour channels
2) Large Canvas support
3) CMYK TIFF/JPEG export
4) Freame Text tool
5) A Drawplus like pen tool feature

[Dodgy]

1. Pressure sensitivity toggles for size/opacity in the toolbar, so you don't have to go into the tool settings turn it off
2. More path editing options, like the ability to duplicate paths/sections of paths, the ability to select multiple nodes and drag them

[colin_e]

I have just started looking at the new Photoplus Organiser in PP X5 and it looks quite good, certainly a great improvement on the previous AlbumPlus product which was pretty feeble.

However it turns out it doesn't work with images that are on a network share. Any attempt to add (watch) a folder on a UNC path (as in \\SERVERNAME\folder\folder) fails. No error message, it just doesn't work. This has been confirmed by Serif support as a limitation.

In my setup at home all my user home directories (My Documents) plus all the media files (audio, images, video) are shared from my Network Attached Storage box. This limitation makes Organiser unusable for me.

Full network support in PhotoPlus Organiser please!

[Ali]

Originally Posted by colin_e I have just started looking at the new Photoplus Organiser in PP X5 and it looks quite good, certainly a great improvement on the previous AlbumPlus product which was pretty feeble. However it turns out it doesn't work with images that are on a network share. Any attempt to add (watch) a folder on a UNC path (as in \\SERVERNAME\folder\folder) fails. No error message, it just doesn't work. This has been confirmed by Serif support as a limitation. In my setup at home all my user home directories (My Documents) plus all the media files (audio, images, video) are shared from my Network Attached Storage box. This limitation makes Organiser unusable for me. Full network support in PhotoPlus Organiser please!

I think there is a workaround to your problem, and that is to map the network drive(s) to a drive letter on the system with Organiser on it. Mine is the Z drive. I agree with your request, however.

[colin_e]

Originally Posted by Ali I think there is a workaround to your problem, and that is to map the network drive(s) to a drive letter on the system with Organiser on it. Mine is the Z drive. I agree with your request, however.

Yes I realise I can map a drive letter, but my PC has multiple disks with multiple partitions on each, and the NAS exports multiple shares. I have put a lot of work into avoiding having proliferation of drive letters, and i really don't want to have to break that for an image filing tool.

If only Windows let you mount remote shares onto folders like NFS on Unix you could work around this in the OS, but at the moment you can't

[jc4d]

I´ll repost my wish by order of importance:

1- When using the clone tool, brush tool and eraser tool the preview of the brush tip selected.
2- Add gradient, solid color, pattern, shadows and highlights as adjustment layer.
3- Boost redraw speed when zooming in and out, etc. and general speed.
4- Defringe layer.
5- Right click in the drawing if eraser, brush, clone tool is on use open a mini dialog for quick brush edit.
6- Improve the maximum brush size.
7- Import Brushes and Actions from PS.
8- Better plugin support.
8- When eraser, brush, clone are on use hold Ctrl and drag click change the size of the brush interactive.

I hope Serif can add some wishes for the next update and not have to wait until next year for the next upgrade... Just see what happened (at least for me) with the new PSE10, nothing new for real just more facebook and organizing things , but nothing new to offer that can worth the upgrade.

Cheers
JC

[Ali]

Originally Posted by colin_e Yes I realise I can map a drive letter, but my PC has multiple disks with multiple partitions on each, and the NAS exports multiple shares. I have put a lot of work into avoiding having proliferation of drive letters, and i really don't want to have to break that for an image filing tool. If only Windows let you mount remote shares onto folders like NFS on Unix you could work around this in the OS, but at the moment you can't

I did say that I agreed with your request. I was merely offering a temporary workaround, but you are already aware of this.

[colin_e]

The Trust Canvas Widescreen tablet works well with PhotoPlus as far as it's basic functions. However it would be nice if PP recognised the tablet fully, including the full set of express keys.

[colin_e]

Hard one to explain this. I am not aware of any imaging editor that has this feature, but if Serif could add it, it would be a very nice enhancement.

The Issue
Let's imagine you are masking a complex shape in a photo, using your pressure sensitive tablet (although the same issue applies to mouse use BTW).

Say your maxium brush size is 100 pixels, with 50% brush hardness. This means the soft edge on the brush is 25 pixels wide, but only when the brush is at this this size.

Reduce the brush size to 10 pixels (either by pressure sensitivity, or manually if using a mouse) and your soft edge on the brush is now only 2.5 pixels wide. I.e. your "soft" brush has actually become a very hard brush!

This effect is very visible when working on a complex mask. You scale down your brush to do some fine work, and realise you have just added a bunch of razor-sharp details to the original soft edge. I find myself constantly juggling the brush softness with brush size to compensate.

I envisage a new brush scaling option where you specify a brush softness value in pixels, not percent, and then as the brush scales down from the maximum size the soft edge moves inwards, eventually making the centre of the brush less opaque.

I suspect it sounds more complicated than it is, I drew a little picture to show what I mean, as long as I can persuade the BB software to embed a link to Picasa-



Adding this type of brush scaling would definately improve the process of masking tricky images, and would probably have other uses too.

[Stefan Isaksson]

Hi,
I was advised from tech support to suggest the following:
When I process a photography I shall usually wish to give the file a more descriptive name than IMG_0007 (or whatever the original file is called :-) )
I can of course do that already, but I would still like to backtrack the original file.
One easy (although not perfect) way to do that, is if the previous file name (that is the name of the file you opened) is stored as some meta information.

I would like PhP to do this automatically.

[This is an entirely new message. The original one was meant for WP wish list, but was misposted]

Regards
Stefan

[colin_e]

Re-posting a request made previously-

An increasing proportion of Windows 7 machines are being shipped by suppliers with Windows 7 64 bit OS, partly because more machines are being configured with more than the 3GB of memory 32 bit Windows is limited to.

I'm currently running a machine with a 6 core processor and 8GB of memory, i'd like to be able to make full use of it.

What I need now is PhotoPlus to ship with a full 64 bit binary on the DVD to take full advantage of the machine.

[colin_e]

The macro feature in PPX5 is not very functional or robust.

I recently logged a call with Serif support demonstrating that simply re-ordering a single macro step (a pause) in a 4-step macro would cause the application to crash repeatably.

I have also discovered that the pause action leaves the application User Interface locked, so the user can't do anything interactively, which makes the pause feature pretty much useless!

As a minimum the macro feature needs to be tested and tidied-up so it works as documented.

However long-term the current macro facility is always going to be limited in capability because it's a not a real programming capability. In this area I think Serif should take a leaf from Adobe's book and incorporate a widely available general-purpose scripting language. JavaScript is a popular choice these days.

Regards: colin_e

[thezen]

At first, I'm so glad that they added decent Alpha Channel function finally!

Next, what I want is

1. Cropping tool with none rectangle/square
2. faster Deforming tool(draft quality is fine)
3. hopefully Vertical Text tool

1. Photoshop have Cropping tool to make none rectangle/square to rectangle/square. this is very useful when you retouch image of document or painting.
2. Deforming tool is little heavy, draft quality is fine while editing shape like Photoshop or Corel PSP.
3. Since I do work for Asians, I need vertical text typing. Photoshop and Corel PSP does it.

[Geoff Blanthorn]

Originally Posted by thezen At first, I'm so glad that they added decent Alpha Channel function finally! Next, what I want is 1. Cropping tool with none rectangle/square 2. faster Deforming tool(draft quality is fine) 3. hopefully Vertical Text tool 1. Photoshop have Cropping tool to make none rectangle/square to rectangle/square. this is very useful when you retouch image of document or painting. 2. Deforming tool is little heavy, draft quality is fine while editing shape like Photoshop or Corel PSP. 3. Since I do work for Asians, I need vertical text typing. Photoshop and Corel PSP does it.

1. I invariably use Crop to Selection. Much more versatile.

Geoff

[thezen]

Got it!
Not bad, Geoff.