Working on Version 5 - Status and hopeful beta of new UI

[sagelight]

There is one silver lining about taking a break with Sagelight. Before I had to stop working on it for a while, I was in the middle of writing Version 5, and taking a break has given me a lot of objectivity about Sagelight: what works well, what doesn't, and so-forth.

The Power of Sagelight and Limitations of the UI

Sagelight is very powerful editor, and I really made two editors in one: a simple UI with some great functions, and an advanced editor with even more power. That merging of two styles, I think, ultimately limits Sagelight. Functions like the Light Blender, UI, Tone Blender, etc. are super-powerful, but they have so many options they tend to get confusing.

These should be separate programs called out to from Sagelight. It makes much more sense when a separate program has a lot of options, but when its in the body of a singular framework, it comes off as cluttered and too complicated.

The Light Blender is a good example. It is a really nice function, but there is a lot to it. In the context of a function in Sagelight, it can be overwhelming. As a separate program/filter it makes more sense to have the more advanced options.

With the new UI, I have distilled a lot of the great parts of these functions and put them in the Quick Edit mode, and then I will later on make standalone versions of them for more professional applications (that can be called from Sagelight as an external filter).

I like the new UI more than I thought

This is where taking a break turned into a silver lining. I've been working on updating Sagelight and making the new UI (Version 5) as a beta. When I switch from the new UI to the current version, I feel a little lost! The new UI, for me, is that much better.

I basically over-powered Sagelight and the current UI does limit that power. The new UI shows it off that much more, and adds a much better context for using the external functions (i.e. HDR, Retinex, etc.).

A Beta of the new UI

I am working on a beta of the new UI and will be making some videos. I am just restarting the website right now, and will get this as soon as I can.


What's new in Version 5

There's quite a few new things in Version 5, which represent a definite advance for Sagelight.


1. A New UI. As mentioned, this makes Sagelight much easier to use and shows its power off even better.
2. Noise Reduction. Though I haven't been able to develop Sagelight as much as I like in the past 3 years, I have been working on development of various image-processing algorithms. Version 5 feature a more simplified noise reduction that also works with the preview correctly when viewed at less than 100%,
3. Noise Reduction in Quick Edit Mode. I also have an algorithm to finally put noise reduction in the Quick Edit Mode. I am really looking forward to this, as its been needed for a while and gets it much closer to competing with Lightroom.
4. Wavelet-based Surface Blur, other functions, revamped functions. I added a nice wavelet-based Surface Blur function, and there are a number of functions coming from that as well. One of the main elements of Version 5 is revamping the UI on many functions, to make them more easy to use and more powerful. I am also removing a number of functions that no longer make sense.


Version 5 is 70% complete, and I will be developing it again soon, as soon as the website picks up. I am going to let donations fund the development until I get back to selling Sagelight with Version 5. (If the donation model goes well, then I can also give Version 5 away for free, too, but we'll have to see what happens. Traditionally free models for software as large as Sagelight don't work to fund all expenses, but you never know)

Version 6.

Much of version 6 is already planned and is in development. I would put these things in version 5, but I since I am almost done with Version 5, I can get to Version 6 pretty quickly once Version 5 is out.

Version 6 features the following:


1. Neural-networking based functions. This is already in development, and the neural networking engine has already been written. This features things like 'neural style transfer', where you can apply styles of one image onto another. It will also include HDR functionality and whatever development comes from it.
2. Masking revamp. The masking in Sagelight is powerful but also suffers from the UI holding it back. I have scissor functions and other masking routines already written, and am designing an overall revamp of the masking to make it more fluid within Sagelight.
3. Cloning, Dodge And Burn, anything with brushes revamp. Anything using brushes needs to have a better undo/redo structure. This is being re-designed with unlimited undo/redo (^Z,^Y). These are also great functions that have been held back by the current UI.
4. Cloning, Patching in the Quick Edit Mode. This has been asked for, and it's easy to do since I've worked on the main interface. There will be more aggressive cloning and patching as separate functions, as well as these new functions that are the same method used in Lightroom.
5. Undo/Redo, Blend Images. This is being completely redone. The current implementation is an effect of trying to merge more pro-functions with a simplified interface. With the masking, this will have a new structure that makes much more sense. I am thinking something closer to how Adobe manages layers, where you have masking layer, opacity on the layers, etc. which will be much more independently controllable and easier to understand and change.
6. TBD. Other things are TBD, based on what I am hearing people would like. If I can get Sagelight back on track, I should have the room to get all of this done now that I am not dealing with family issues.



As mentioned, the development will be dependent on donations until I get Version 5 completed, and I hope that turns into a good model for the future. I am going to be working on some Sagelight examples, of both the current version and version 5-in-development, once the site is back up for a few days.

Rob

[wdwilson]

I look forward to seeing version 5. In the time that has passed, I have moved on to quite a few new tools, as I could not re-install Sagelight on my new computer until just now!. In the last few months, big changes have come to my workflow. I had used some Topaz plugins in the past, but basically abandoned plugins and then Topaz AI came out. I was super impressed with Denoise and Sharpen that I bought them. ( I got a discount for being a past customer). Then Luminar came out and once again I was impressed, especially since Luminar could be invoked as a plugin. Now, all I had to do was find a plugin-in host tool that had enough file management so that I could cull through my files and on the ones I wished to keep, I could then invoke the plugins and tweak the files, round-triping them back to the file system and the viewer. I have not found that tool yet, I have tried demo's of ACDSee (and it fails on my other must have plugin, DxOViewpoint which I was a beta tester on). I am now demoing Elements 2020 but find the split between editor and organizer un-natural, but at least all my critical plugins (DxO, Topaz and Luminar) work.

This new type of workflow, greatly speeds up my processing. Have you considered making Sagelight plugin invokable?

[sagelight]

(sorry I can't reply directly until I fix the issue with the reply error)

About Topaz, etc. There are some nice tools out there, for sure. I've always liked Topaz quite a bit. There are some great noise reduction techniques out there, and with Version 5 I expect to put some new noise reduction in the quick edit mode so that you can use it as part of the Quick Edit Mode, with more advanced noise reduction as separate functions as they are now.

I'm looking forward to implementing some of the neural networking algorithms for things like the sharpen, too. It's really amazing how much we can do now, which is giving me a lot of energy for Version 5.

I do need to get the flow of Sageight going again before I can do too much more work on Version 5, and hopefully the donation model will work out on that.

About making Sagelight useable as a plugin: I've thought about this for quite some time, especially since Sagelight has a lot one-off functions like the Bokeh, HDR functions, etc. One my plans for version 5 is to upgrade Sagelight to Win64, and with that will be a good time to split out all of those functions as standalone, so they might be usable as plugins on their own. I'd like to get more exposure for those functions, so as plugins, it would be nice.

[marcmartin]

Jumping in on this, I'd certainly prefer to use Sagelight as the main application that can call plug-ins. I think the only plug-in I've been using with Sagelight lately is "Focus Magic", as I like the way that sharpens photos.

So far I've kept "photo browsing" and "photo editing" as two separate things, and use "FastPictureViewer Professional" for all my photo browsing.

[sagelight]

(01-01-2020 02:57 AM)marcmartin Wrote:  Jumping in on this, I'd certainly prefer to use Sagelight as the main application that can call plug-ins. I think the only plug-in I've been using with Sagelight lately is "Focus Magic", as I like the way that sharpens photos.

So far I've kept "photo browsing" and "photo editing" as two separate things, and use "FastPictureViewer Professional" for all my photo browsing.

Sagelight can call plugins, and there are some nice ones distributed with it. I am sure there are some even nicer ones out there now.. And it should work fine with some of the more retail ones (Topaz, etc.).

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