@afre
I have found and fixed a crash that occurred when deleting a layer, specifically when a tool dialog of one of the mask layer associated to the deleted one was opened.
There are probably other sources of crashes, but that was a clear one…
I have also added a “close” button to the tool dialogs, and fixed the propagation of keyboard events that prevented the Esc button to work properly in the case of the curves dialog. If other dialogs show a similar problem please let me know, I will fix them as well.
I still don’t know why the “x” button does not properly close the tool dialogs on Win, and also why it is not showing when using Wayland, but I’m investigating.
One less bug is still an improvement. I haven’t downloaded the latest commit yet. I am being more careful about staying within my monthly bandwidth limits.
In the prior commit, this is what the windows look like. Top is PF’s main window. You have minimize, maximize and close. Middle is the module parameters window. Notice that the x is really and permanently faded; means that it is disabled. Mouse over doesn’t light it up either. The next one is an active open window. Active buttons are bright. If you could make the parameters window behave the same way as the open window, that would be great.
PS I downloaded the latest commit. It took a much longer to decompress; might be the way it was packaged or due to Defender (my recent thread Reasons the app isn't running well on Windows). The startup time is much quicker now.
I like the close button. Unfortunately, it is out of sight, in the bottom right corner.
PPS Might be too soon to try [tools/OCIO transform] initial implementation]. When I create the layer, the preview gets distorted with all sorts of things, depending on what I select; e.g., tiles, dots, etc. Clicking on one of the boxes in the GUI crashes the app. Each time I try again, the distortion is very different in appearance.
Two new improvements are available in the latest PhF version:
Color correction load/save function
The “color correction” tool, which implements the ASC-CDL controls, now has two buttons for loading and saving standard CDL files. It is therefore now possible to inter-change color grading presets between applications that support ASC-CDL.
Notice that the CDL file format does not specify the colorspace and encoding expected by the adjustments, and it is therefore the responsibility f the use to prepare the data in the correct colorspace (via a colorspace conversion layer prior to the color correction) and tick the “log encoding” checkbox if needed.
The range of the sliders has also been modified/improved. The sliders now directly reflect the value being applied in the CDL, except for the offset where a x10 scaling is introduced to allow a finer tuning. This makes the tool more standard.
Notice that the change in the sliders only affects the values exposed by the UI, not those used internally in the calculations. Therefore all previous edits will still look the same.
I have introduced a new version of the dynamic range compressor tool, which uses the guided filter instead of bilateral blur for the local contrast adjustment. The guided filter should be faster and more accurate around edges.
Again, old edits will not be affected and will still use the previous version of the tool. However, for new edits only the new version is available.
an improved shadows/highlights tool is available. It is meant to replace both the old shadows/highlights as well as the dynamic range compressor. More info can be found here and here (the blog post is still work in progress).
the RAW black levels can now be adjusted separately, and the controls have been moved to a separate “advanced” tab in the RAW processor GUI. The other controls have been also re-shuffled:
“input” tab: WB, exposure and demosaicing
“corrections” tab: hot pixels filter and lens corrections
“output” tab: colorspace conversions and DCP profile selection
“advanced” tab: black and white level corrections
the tone mapping tool has now an additional slider to control the saturation of the shadows, similar to the already existing highlights saturation control
The title of the main application window now shows the branch, commit hash and build date
the new UI layout has landed in the stable branch, and is available in the latest packages.
The UI still works optimally only for GTK2, I am still working on the GTK3 version.
The main goal is to provide a maximum of space for the image preview, and also to provide better looking UI controls (like sliders).
A new feature has also been added to the shadows/highlights tool: a local contrast control, that, as the name suggests, allows to boost the local contrast while avoiding over-brightened highlights. The concept behind was partly introduced here, but I will write some better description in my blog very soon.
Here is how the new UI and the latest shadows/highlights interface look like (notice the new “local contrast” slider):
I’m no PhotoFlow expert but it feels nicer than before. As a rare user of PhotoFlow I have a few suggestions. In no particular order but numbered anyway. Please take the suggestions with a pinch of salt.
The top left buttons do not respond to the width of the panel. Including getting cut off as there is no minimum width. Some sort of reflow or scaling would feel better and a min width that prevent the buttons from being cut would be great.
The first and second row of buttons are different types but follow the same visual logic. The first row is what typically goes in a File menu.
The export to raster button has both a position and icon that is hard to find whilst being one of the most important buttons. Perhaps move it to the position of the “exit” button?
The camera info lacks padding around the text but has excessive line-height placing the whitespace (greyspace in this case) in such a way that the information is visually scattered. The center alignment could perhaps also be reconsidered in favour of left aligned?
The “new layer” button becomes aligned with the mask, sticky, info icons. Some sort of vertical border splitting the tools off perhaps. Or a different vertical alignment.
I’ve always felt that PhotoFlow and in particular the new layer dialog would benefit from a dmenu type hud. Using type ahead to filter the list of possible layers hit enter to create.
Enable spacebar (gimp) for panning and double click for toggle 1:1 <> zoom to fit
I agree with everything you have said. I either mentioned it before or have experiened the same qualms.
1-3. The appearance, design and placement of these icons need some consideration. I avert my eyes until I need to use them.
4. Moreover, I am beginning to think that it may be a good idea to make it into a tab after histogram and samplers since it is static information. Would save vertical space.
5. More padding would help. Nothing else, besides the camera info, is that tight. Consistency is important. Mask, sticky and info should be on the right side.
6. My frequently asked request. Needs a search function!
7. Yes, better panning and zooming, and edge examination is important to me.
You are absolutely right, and that was part of the “glitches” of the new UI layout that I still had to work on. Fixed in current git.
I am indeed planning to implement a proper File menu, which will replace the first row of buttons. So I prefer to keep things like this until the menu will be ready…
See above: it will go into a File menu.
Improved in current git:
Still requires additional work, and more information displayed. To save vertical space, it is now moved into an additional tab, after “histogram” and “samplers”
I’ll keep that in mind. Will look into that once the File menu is ready.
Pan is buggy to me. If I click and release while accelerating in one direction, it scrolls for a distance. If I hold that click and move the mouse across the screen, the preview moves back and forth along the x or y axis but not gradually and ultimately to whatever direction the mouse is guiding it.
I do think the camera info could have even less line-height. Looks like near 2em at the moment. For info such as that 1.2em or even 1em could work. (1em is a relative measure equal to the point size of the type)
The new arrangement of the new layer icon and the rest looks way cleaner!
Unless there’s a reason I’d consider skipping the ctrl for the “viewport” and copy the behaviour from existing software people are likely to have used which one is the best I can’t say. I suggested gimp for oss familiarity.
I have just introduced a couple of interesting usability improvements in the image export process, namely:
a dialog that informs the user if the destination file already exists, and asks whether to overwrite it or not. Selecting “NO” brings you back to the export dialog, where the output file name can be changed
a warning dialog the informs the user if the export fails, although it does not yet provide hints about the reasons of the failure
Here is a little update about what’s going on in PhotoFlow’s development.
Recently, after a short break, I have been working on the integration of LibRTprocess into PhF.
At the moment, only the Amaze demosaicing is taken from the librtprocess code, the rest still uses PhF internal code. However, this is a first step towards the integration of a common raw demosaicing and processing library, that will allow PhF to stay up-to-date with other projects using the same code.
The change should be completely transparent to the user. Nevertheless, I had to modify a number of source files, so if you encounter any new issue/bug, please report it here, I will take care of it as quickly as possible!