It is clear to me that the "Improvements Road Map" is aimed at the beauty/fashion/studio commercial photographer crowd. I have sent "suggestions" in the past that I think would be helpful for us landscape photographers, but the responses are akin to "Thanks, we value user impute...blah, blah, blah...".
There are two items I would like, that PS has, that would better my work flow; 1) stitching, and 2) focus stacking. Oh well, while I am dreaming, how about luminosity masking?
James,
I'm sorry you feel left out, but, in fact many of the improvements made in the last 18 months have been with landscape photography in mind. It might help to read my
post here first about the type of development model Phase One is using now. You shouldn't expect X.0 releases to have a dozen new features, and, in my opinion that's a very good thing.
But in the last 18 months:
Batch Create Masked Layer from Selection is hugely helpful for masking blues or greens in a landscape; especially helpful when dealing with prior-to-stitched panos
Diffraction sharpening: HUGE in landscape where you are frequently up against the diffraction wall to get sweeping depth of field.
1-click Eizo Calibration: Most landscape photographers I work with care massively about nuanced color but don't work in a large studio where someone else handles all the color management. Having simple calibration with Eizo (arguably the leader in this space) makes their life easier.
LCC improvements for 100mp: Pretty much only applies to landscape and architecture shooters and extends the usability of the image circle a couple mm (a big deal given it doesn't require buying new lenses to accomplish).
Improved Color Editor: Probably the single most powerful tool for a landscape photographer. Great for helping to even out a sky or create a more uniform look of green or blue across several images.
Masking Improvements: Self explanatory. Working with masks is just as common in landscape, especially for those diving deep into the color editor.
Luminance Curves: It was one of the largest complaints I received from landscape shooters; with standard RGB curves any change in contrast massively affected perceived saturation. This was especially problematic if you were working on a cohesive series (e.g. The Desert) and wanted to have a consistent color pallet across a variety of images which called for different curves.
Enhanced Proofing and 3 stage sharpening: If your landscape work goes both to print and to screen (i.e. website) then this is a dramatic improvement to where and how you can sharpen the image for each purpose. There are stand alone software packages that do this (and this only) but do it less well, in a less useful workflow, that cost far more than the upgrade cost of C1.
And of course any improvement to overall speed and stability benefits everyone.
The two specific feature requests you've mentioned are definitely hot topics of discussion at Phase One. I'm sure you understand they can't engage in a long-form debate with a particular customer as to the likelihood/prioritization/schedule for new features. But they absolutely positively for-sure listening to that feedback. Customer requests via dealers and support cases are the #1 source of prioritization at HQ for feature planning. If you'd like, we have at least a couple events every year in our NYC and LA offices where high-up R+D guys (typically the head of a particular division, i.e. the head of software, or the head of camera hardware, or the head of firmware development, or chief color scientist) come to present and to listen to feedback from our customers. You don't need to attend to have your feedback heard (as I said feedback via dealer or support case are absolutely read, tabulated, and tracked) but there is something nice about talking face-to-face directly to the person in charge of the final decision. It's also a nice reminder that it's not a faceless black-box corporation; Phase One gets its engineers out into the field
far more than any other camera company I've ever worked with.
We expect to add at least two events like that to our
Phase One Events Calendar in the next few weeks.
