There are many other simple software programs; you have to choose and not ask other to do for you the work you don’t do!
I fully agree…
Lately, I was thinking about the suggestions to have several modes (workspaces) from beginners to advanced. Basically, it looks like people is asking for something similar to what you get with Photoshop elements where you can indeed select the interface (GUIs) that best fits your needs.
As regards the open source graphical softwares I am not aware of any program (Gimp, Darktable, Krita, Digikam, Inkscape etc) which allows an user to get the same choice right now (please, do correct me if I am wrong…).
Given the lack of developers working on Rawtherapee (for free on their very limited spare time) I suppose it is going to be really difficult to get this option developed in the long run…
Having more workspaces (beginners, intermediate, advanced) means having to fix bugs in all these different GUIs, writing more documentations, tooltips etc. In short, a nightmare IMHO (unless you are Adobe and thus you have hundreds of paid software developers working full time for you…)
Hugin has such options. But it is a little clunky.
Yep. I fear these options (workspaces) would be clunky too with Rawtherapee due to the lack of manpower to fine-tune them. Just imagine the time needed to fix them on all the current available platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux…
First post, so don’t beat me up please. I think the place to begin thinking about user interfaces is to define what sorts of users are the (lowest level) target audience. I suggest that someone new to RawTherapee is likely to have a serious interest in photography and who already has some level of mastery of Lightroom or Photoshop Elements. In general said user will not be a programmer (if they are, grab them) and is looking at RawTherapee because either they are sick of Adobe, they prefer open source software or freeware, or they want to up their photographic game and have heard that RawTherapee might let them do so. Such people would include some, like myself, who have spent at least a modest amount of time with the manual, as well as some who are there for the photography and really would prefer to just push a button but already know that they cannot meet their quality goals that way. The challenge for the latter type of user is that there are too many buttons that appear to all have the same ranking in utility. That’s what is scary to them: not just “where do I start” but which of these should I be using, maybe all of them? Of course not, but RawPedia could benefit from more of two things: more discussion of when a particular capability might be useful (and which tools are there primarily as legacy options), and some example of when and where said tool might be used in a typical workflow. Keep in mind also that most users have only the most elementary knowledge of imaging and color theory and should be able to use RawPedia to learn about most of the tools at that level. Another way to put this is to be sure to provide an answer to the question “what is this tool good for and how and when do I use it?”. I completely understand the limited resources available for both programming and documenting and I applaud what has already been done in both areas. I see the above as aspirational and will think about how I can contribute on the documentation side. The last time I programmed anything was before many of you were born (1987) and was only one step above spaghetti code; I started with Fortran II, so you wouldn’t want me anywhere near the code though. Also, I think the user interface in Hugin is inconsistent and unintuitive so let’s not use that as a model.
@lstuhl welcome! If you’re new-ish to RT you should write some documentatuon! Not only will you be helping others, but writing stuff down will mean that you’ve really learned the tool well.
certainly helped me . For what it’s worth, here is a ‘getting started’ remix that I put it together for my own use and for family members and friends. It was not intended for publication so there are no doubt errors and inconsistencies and probably some misunderstandings.
Well, after all these posts, I have a few things clear:
the best way to learn how to use RT is by reading the RawPedia documentation
users have a strong bias to not read documentation unless necessary
programmers are only a few, and they better use a lot of their time creating or improving RT tools
changing/improving the UI is a lot of work (at least some of the changes being asked here)
Perhaps there’s a relatively easy solution, middle way of improving the UI:
by default all tools but maybe a couple will be collapsed on first run (as already stated)
a question mark icon could be added to the top right part of the UI: everybody knows what it is for, and it will open a browser pointing to RawPedia. Of course that will call for a documentation improvement, but that could be done by people not being programmers
So you go to the next level after how many processed images?
IMHO the RT menu structure is clear and good (I consider myself a beginner). Functions I understand I use, others I don’t. Only thing that can be improved - keep all menus collapsed. Always on opening. Have that as a option in settings.
I don’t know any other software that opens with all menus expanded.
And for the Wiki, I suggest all functions start with a single one paragraph sentence of what it does.
And then go to finer details.
I come from darktable, but I start to like RT more now.
I think it’s important to be able to find the tool in the full UI, but I don’t understand what you mean by using the tab icons as separators. Can you elaborate on that?
I was thinking like headings basically. It would limit the flexibility in arranging the tools on the favourites as they would be grouped by tab but there’s always a flexibility vs simplicity trade off to make. I tend to favour simplicity.
Not that intuitive but good to know, and it works.
Some software has a switch to advance functionality. But I think it’s good to see what’s there from the beginning. Eventually you know where something is. And frankly, the RT menu ain’t THAT complex and I find it already pretty well structures.
Back my my initial complaint: After first start the all menus expanded view sux. For beginners it’s a information overdose, for people that know RT it’s an annoyance, and my very first step is always to collapse all menus.
It’s not really RT software related, but what I like to see is some modest functions explained on examples that are designed for people that just want to edit their images and have not much interest in the deeper RT software structure or the physics of bayer sensor. For me, only the image counts.
As someone said at some point in time…Wait, what? It was @paperdigits earlier in this thread?
The ecosystem is stronger if everyone contributes to it.
At the same time, your point about those that want to just edit their images without digging into the guts or RT (or any other photography-related app) is important. Not everyone is here for the math. Explanations that describe what happens visually when a tool is used are going to resonate with a wider audience than explanations that depend on the internal logic of that tool.
And yet, by experience I can say it’s not easy at all explaining things visually for people that doesn’t give a damn about how the program works internally and why it does it that way, and at the same time for those who love/want/need to know why it does what it does.
In other words: it’s difficult to satisfy the recipe people needs, and at the same time those who wish deeper explanations. Documentation tends to be longer, needs a lot of images or screen captures, and somebody who knows what everybody wants (that is, a user willing to help other users).
Yes, it has to be done, but it’s absolutely necessary more people helping with the documentation: the more, the merrier. If you’re one of those, write @Morgan_Hardwood and explain him what you’re able and willing to do.
I hope I am not derailing this topic too much (be gentle it’s my second post here). I did use the search function before I hit reply
This discussion touches a lot of questions regarding UI- and UX-design. Using the search, I only found very brief mentions of how the UI for certain modules was improved, but not more. This reminds me a lot of the software I am/was working with in my lab at uni. UI and UX always were an afterthought in our lab. From my POV RT and DT have quite okay interfaces, but striving for a better interface can imho not be relegated to having a better documentation. I am very much pro better documentation. But also pro better UI and UX.
Of course people can for example code without syntax higlighting and weird non-monospaced fonts. But it just gets your job done faster if you have those UI/UX improvements.
Many of these design choices are not opinion driven, but based on non-arbitrary design rules. Reading through the above I had the impression that people think that this is down to designer taste.
Not overwhelming the user with choices can make everyones workflow faster. Especially with software with a huge amount of parameters. A good UI/UX does not mean catering for the beginner per se.
It is interesting that even collapsing-almost-all-modules sparks a discussion of whether this should be done or not.
I think most Foss apps fail in the “reduce cogntivie load” in that tools in both RawTherapee and Darktable have a lot of sliders and the algorithms are much closer to the research papers rather than phone app simplicity. This is on purpose, I think.
Take for example the Clarity slider in Lightroom vs the Equalizer module in darktabe, and the Wavelets tool in RawTherapee.
