Basic feature suggestions

[Jeff Randall]

After spending most of today test driving PixInsight, I'd like to share my initial thoughts and suggestions for additional features to enhanse the basic photoediting capabilities of the program.

First I'd like to say -- Great, feature rich program with a clean and clear GUI.  Excellent.  These are suggestions-although they are written in "command style"  <smile>

1) File|Open & File|Open Copy

-- Add a thumbnail viewer to window [can be as simple as a single thumbnail of the currently highlighted/selected image ranging up to a new thumbnail viewer and image selection feature].

2) Edit|Undo

-- Add multi-level undo here and in Edit|Preferences

2) Edit|Preferences

-- Add Real Time Preview Lossy value.

-- Add Real Time Preview window size. [Options should include:same window size and zoom of the parent window; and same window size and zoom to fit]

3) Tool bar

-- Add  "Undo" & "Redo" buttons.

4) Curves

-- Add a "Reset All" button.

-- Add a button to rapidly toggle between the current real time preview window and the original real time preview window.  Looking back and forth between the preview and image windows is not as effective.

-- Add a "Load" and "Save All" settings feature. [Same comment for other advanced filters/processes.]

5) Histograms

-- Add a "Reset All" button.  [Reset does not work if Auto Clip is clicked.]

-- Add a button to rapidly toggle between the current real time preview window and the original real time preview window.  Looking back and forth between the preview and image windows is not as effective.

-- Add square root and log options to the histogram scale to allow better visability of histograms with clipped b/w points.

-- Add a "Load" and "Save All" settings feature.

Jeff Randall
Preston, Washington
USA

[Carlos Milovic]

Hi Jeff

First of all, thank you VERY much for your comments, suggestions. This is exactly what we need from the PixInsight users: feedback. I think that Juan will be very happy with your post, and will add more things later.

Well, here we go... let's answer one by one your comments:


>1) File|Open & File|Open Copy
>-- Add a thumbnail viewer to window

That is a great suggestion! I don't know why it hasn't been implemented yet. Juan?

>2) Edit|Undo
>-- Add multi-level undo here and in Edit|Preferences

This will be quite long to answer. First, there is an issue due to the weight of the images. With PixInsight's pixel accuracy, many images weight more than 100MB, or even gigabytes the larger ones. If you create a multi-level undo/redo you have to store each one of the intermediate steps, and physical memory will be depleted very fast.
Also, we have another important fact about PixInsight: preview's powerfull capabilities. You can create as much previews you want, with the size you requiere. This, combined with the "store" capability, makes innecesary to have a multi-level undo/redo system. You can apply a process to a preview, and if you like the results, just store it. Then, apply the next and do the same as many times as you want. If at a given step, you feel like you want to go back a few steps, just open the processing history for that given preview. You will see a list with the complete set of processes applied to it. You can create a new process icon with the history, and "save" the steps you followed. Now, reset the preview, and doble-click on the process icon. A process container will be opened with the list of processes applied to the preview before you reseted it (if you open the process history of it, it will be empty right now). You can edit the process container, and delete or disable the processes you don't want to apply... You just have to apply the processes to the image only when you are almost sure that it is a correct process, or process container. Another good idea is to save the image before some critical procedures, or steps.


>2) Edit|Preferences
>-- Add Real Time Preview Lossy value.
>-- Add Real Time Preview window size. [...]

Nice suggestions, thanks.
BTW, you can change the size of the RT preview by changing the size of the window.

>3) Tool bar
>-- Add "Undo" & "Redo" buttons.

They are under the "edit" toolbar. If you can't see them (well, it is just a simple Undo/Redo button), go to Window|Toolbars|Edit in the main menu and active it.

>4) Curves
>-- Add a "Reset All" button.

Press the Ctrl key and the Reset button will change into Reset All. This, and many other features are described in the documentation.

>-- Add a button to rapidly toggle between the current real >time preview window and the original real time preview >window. Looking back and forth between the preview and >image windows is not as effective.

Activate/desactivate the RT checkbox to see rapidly the changes between the original and the processed RT preview. Anyway, we highly recommend to preview the changes in a common preview before applying to any image, becouse the RT is only an aproximation to the image, and the results may differ a bit, specially if the changes are very aggresive.

>-- Add a "Load" and "Save All" settings feature. [Same >comment for other advanced filters/processes.]

We have a much more flexible and powerfull system than just load and save: Process Icons. Read the proper chapter on the documentation to learn more about them. You are gonna love them <vbg>

> 5) Histograms
[...]

Same as before for the "reset", "load/save" and "RT" suggestions.

>-- Add square root and log options to the histogram scale to >allow better visability of histograms with clipped b/w points.

Make use of the adjustable zoom of the histograms window. I can't remember the exact value, but you can zoom in and navigate the histogram just as if it were a image. This means, that you can zoom in up to 100(?) times, use scrolling bars or a pan mode to move on the current visualization, and much more.

BTW, we are developing another dynamical process to rapidly see the content of a image, and this includes a variable scale interpretation of the data (linear, log, square, etc), change easily the brightness/contrast, and much more, based on a system very similar to the RT preview. I don't know if this feature will be included a PixInsight LE release or only in the standard edition... but the current version of PixInsight LE is intended to be the last one avalaible for a couple of months, while we are working more exclusively on the standard version.


Thanks again for all your great suggestions and comments. We really appreciate that!

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for your kind words. Thanks also for your great feedback. Let me comment your suggestions step by step.

1) File|Open & File|Open Copy

-- Add a thumbnail viewer to window [can be as simple as a single thumbnail of the currently highlighted/selected image ranging up to a new thumbnail viewer and image selection feature].

Yes, of course. However this is not as simple as it might seem, especially for FITS images. I have also the idea of building a specialized file browsing module (like Photoshop CS's).

>2) Edit|Undo
>-- Add multi-level undo here and in Edit|Preferences

This will be implemented as an *optional* and *controlled* feature. As Carlos pointed out, the problem here is basically related to available resources. A multiple undo system is a pretty quick way to eat all of the available hard disk space, especially when working with very large images (usual in AP). A full disk in turn yields to potentially dangerous situations.

2) Edit|Preferences

-- Add Real Time Preview Lossy value.

-- Add Real Time Preview window size. [Options should include:same window size and zoom of the parent window; and same window size and zoom to fit]

OK here. I expect to build a much better real-time previewing system for incoming releases.

3) Tool bar

-- Add "Undo" & "Redo" buttons.

As Carlos said, they are on the Edit tool bar (Window > Tool Bars > Edit). Similarly, you have an undo/redo preview tool button on the Preview tool bar.

4) Curves

-- Add a "Reset All" button.

-- Add a button to rapidly toggle between the current real time preview window and the original real time preview window. Looking back and forth between the preview and image windows is not as effective.

I have nothing to add to what Carlos said regarding this. Use Ctrl-clik to reset all parameters on the Histograms and Curves windows. Also use the R-T check boxes on these windows to turn real-time preview on/off.

-- Add a "Load" and "Save All" settings feature. [Same comment for other advanced filters/processes.]

I'm not sure if I understand this. If what you want is to open a processing window with its default (factory) parameter set, do the following:

1. Right-click on the main window's work area.
2. Select "New Process" from the pop-up menu
3. Select the process you want under the corresponding process category.
4. This will create a new process icon with the whole default parameter set. Double-click the new icon to open the corresponding interface.

5) Histograms

-- Add a "Reset All" button. [Reset does not work if Auto Clip is clicked.]

You can Ctrl-click Reset to reset all, as on Curves. Note that Ctrl-clicking the Auto Clip button will launch the Histogram Auto-Clipping Setup dialog, where you can enable/disable background/highlights auto clipping, as well as the corresponding clipping fractions.

Thank you again for your help. Hope you'll find PixInsight a useful tool. Let me know.