tannerhelland
commented
4 years ago Just wanted to quickly note that I'm definitely not ignoring this issue! I've been swamped with work and haven't had much time for PhotoDemon, but I love the idea of being able to edit multiple images at once. Knowing that another piece of software nailed the experience pretty well is even better, as it gives me a reference point to study.
Thank you so much for suggesting this, @vatterspun. Your issues are always well thought-out and detailed, which I greatly appreciate.
I will report back in the coming days with more details on if/when/how we could make this happen in PhotoDemon.
vatterspun
I'm a big fan of the program so if the following suggestion doesn't strike you as either interesting or in-scope, please feel free to close the issue.
Photo manager?
I'd like to see sort of a photo manager function more focused on quickly making basic changes to multiple images by selecting a few different thumbnails and applying basic edits, whether crop, brighten, resize, etc. Currently Photodemon is focused on just making careful changes to individual images, but there are some basic functions in the batch operations menu. There's nothing wrong with the existing function, which I've used it with real success. I recently used the tool to change a group of very high resolution (15+ megs each) images and was able to bring them into a reasonable size range without a dramatic quality difference.
While there have been a number of tools available over the years for rapid photo management, but I was happiest with Microsoft's 2010 Photo Manager. Not the whole program, just the edit function, which was quick and easy, and didn't preclude the ability to make more fine-grained edits later. You could quickly update and small groups of images.
I know you're thinking someone has already solved this problem but I've done quite a bit of digging without success. The excellent digiKam and freeware cPicture come pretty close, but not quite.
The problem / what did the MS Photo Manager do right?
If you took 12 photos in a row, they're very often similar and you can apply basic edition actions to all 12. This could be a a similar crop, a similar brightness edit, or a similar rotation. Occasionally all three. Other times maybe you rotate 10 images left, brighten 3, and then compress the rest. Visually selecting and applying those functions to image thumbnails is a big time-saver and makes more sense than opening a dozen files and repeatedly applying those changes.
Solution / proposed functionality
Given that PhotoDemon is already mature and most of your users are perfectly happy with the interface, this would probably require a separate "manager" screen akin to the current batch wizard but more graphical. Some suggested functions:
Resize to default image max size dimensions (uses low-resolutions screen defaults like 1440x900, 1024x768, 800x600, and 320x480, but could be anything). I say "max" because whatever you select, it doesn't squeeze the image to fit into this format, instead reducing height and width equally.
Quickly crop, rotate, flip, and fix basic brightness/color issues
Ability to do all of the above by selecting one or more thumbnails (holding shift, CTRL, or pressing ctrl+a for all images in a given folder)
Upon close of the window, prompt to apply all selected changes with available backup option or use of non-destructive file format storage (JPEG obviously doesn't have functionality to store previous edits).
Any individual thumbnail could of course be right-clicked and selected to open in a separate Photodemon window for full edit functions
Other benefits
Speed - Applying basic photo editions to groups of photos ahead of more careful changes that are available in PhotoDemon is just a productivity boost, and a real stand-out feature over other editor tools.
Size - At least 90% of the pictures taken are by amateurs with amazingly high quality cameras, and this is only going to get worse. In reality, you very rarely need 100 megapixel quality for your friend's dog, and those files are only going to get bigger. Every time I sit down with recent photos I seem to start out with 300 megs of photos and then end up with maybe 10 megs of data. Especially when you only ever see it on a tiny display. Smaller photos mean fewer backups, less hard drive space taken, less bandwidth, etc.
Former Microsoft Photo Manager users - I've read a number of posts by people looking for a Microsoft alternative like myself. That was also a Windows-only program so you're working with a similar audience.
I realize I'm asking quite a bit with this request so if a mockup or additional information/suggestions are needed to make any progress here, please let me know.