March 2, 2014
We’ve received a number of emails asking where we are and a few complaints that the current update is taking a long time, so I wanted to give everyone an update on where we are. Development continues, and we’re getting closer to the final revision. So why is it taking so long? Because we’re focusing on making it right – no exceptions. We understand that people’s photography workflow actually defines how they work. For us to ship Photosmith out at this point with known bugs or even without pieces of functionality that complete the workflow is simply unacceptable. And so we’re making the time to make it right.
So what exactly is taking so much time? For those interested in the details, I’ll hit on a few points that have been unexpected time sinks.
Image Orientation
Rotate an image clockwise or counterclockwise. Easy stuff, right? Right? One would think. And, as always, the devil is in the details. And we’re not the first developers to hit the orientation trap. See this page for an interesting read on how most services can’t handle various embedded image orientations.
Yes, the image orientation (rotation) is contained in the image’s EXIF, set by the camera when the picture was taken. But keep in mind that there’s typically a thumbnail image, usually a full-resolution jpg, sometimes a medium-sized jpg, and the raw data, each with their own orientation. Each needs to be calculated separately so the GPU can rotate based on the image that’s being displayed.
Now add in the user’s custom rotation for when they want to modify the orientation – we now have 3 (thumbnail, screensize, full res), plus a user orientation modifier.
But for more fun, it turns out that Apple doesn’t quite follow the norm with EXIF orientation. It took some time to realize that Apple’s implementation, albeit unconventional, was valid. Given that this is an iPad app, we can’t just ignore iOS-generated images.
And to make things more fun, Lightroom exports images without an orientation. But only if the plugin doesn’t use the previews database…
All of a sudden, there’s about two dozen different combinations of orientations that have to be handled in different ways. We claim to be a photo management app, so we have no choice other than to make it right. And that burned up several weeks of two developers’ time.
But… it’s finally all working. The torture set linked above now completely works in Photosmith:
RAW+JPG Support
The current version of Photosmith supports RAW+JPG, and because of some technical details, we can’t easily support all formats (DNG, for example), so RAW+JPG remains the only viable way to support those formats. This version of Photosmith is being completely revamped so that all images are handled within the app, rather than pointing back to Photos app. And while RAW+JPG was one of the items on our list, it took about two weeks of work to bring the app back up to support it everywhere (import, image extraction, display, export, sync) and thoroughly test the changes.
It now works as before – if we can’t extract everything we need from the raw file and there’s an associated jpg, then we get what we can from the jpg. It’s just now, the files sit in our own repository.
Nothing complex about this one – just a lot of small rework items spread throughout the app to get things working right.
Transferring Photos from Link to Copy
If you’ve been following our blog posts, you’ll know that the upcoming app will be able to either Copy the pictures directly into the app, for full control under Photosmith, or Link them back to Photos.app. In fact, here’s a screenshot of the import process:
However, during testing, we found a hole in the workflow: what happens if you link a picture from Photos.app, apply a bunch of metadata updates, and then decide you want to move it into Photosmith and clear out your Photos.app? Without some kind of transfer method, you’d essentially have to remove the linked references (and thus your metadata), and then run the import process again to Copy the images in. That would just plain suck for workflow management – badly enough that we created a new dialog to allow users to do exactly this – transfer linked images from Photos.app into Photosmith without losing their existing data. Design, coding, testing, and refining all combined to take several weeks for that one too.
Remaining Items
All new development items have been completed at this point – we’re working on bugs and cleaning up some things throughout the app: Collection image counts that don’t update from a background import. You can’t change a selected album in the import dialog after making a selection / deselection. Facebook re-upload isn’t working right. Delete dialog sometimes hangs when it’s done. And about a dozen others of those kinds of items.
We’ve been doing a lot of in-house testing as we go, so we’re pretty confident that it’s getting close.
OK, dammit – when will you ship?
When it’s ready. And not a moment sooner.
Believe us when we say that we want it out to you guys as quickly as possible – we’ve spent the past 7 months’ worth of nights and weekends designing/coding/testing, and are eager to see it complete as well. But we’re committed to making it right, from beginning to end. (And we really appreciate of all those who understand this!)
Details matter. It’s worth waiting to get it right – Steve Jobs
Posted in: Current Progress | 16 Comments
Shipping when it’s ready is the right thing to do. It’s the only option.
Of all the ways to tag/name/group photos, my iPad is where I want to do this. Taking my iPad with me to dump photos remotely instead of a laptop is a lot more convenient to me. Sadly, the current version of Photosmith doesn’t work at all for me. My workflow was attempting to be Camera->iPad->Photosmith->Lightroom. Dumping 32GB of RAW photos and trying to open them in PSmith was a nightmare, and PSmith finally just gave up and crapped itself. Haven’t used it since.
This new update (due to the way it handles pictures in-app instead of through Photos.app) sounds like it will fix it. I REALLY want this app to work. So take as long as you need to for the new version to release — because it really needs to Just Work.
DrHogie-
You’re absolutely right – there are a lot of stability problems in the current version, and our primary focus in this release is addressing every last one. Getting away from the Photos.app gave us a huge increase in stability (at the expense of having to re-write all of what Apple gave us originally).
Most of our test image sets are 2000+ raw files. We’re still hitting a wall (crash) around the 2500 images per sync – it’s one of the bugs left on the list, and has been a tough one so far – partly because it takes so long to test / update / re-test.
Thanks for hanging in there. This next release won’t *look* all that different, but the engine has been almost re-written to address the exact problems you’ve mentioned.
-chris
Totally agree with DrHogie. As much as I wish I had Photosmith 2.3 yesterday, you’ve really gotta get it right, and that’s worth waiting for. Thanks for taking the time to work out all the big bugs. Just remember, though: Bug free software is a myth, especially in an application as large and complicated as Photosmith. At some point, shipped today is better than perfect tomorrow.
Here here Brian! And thanks for the encouragement. When we start to argue about if it’s “perfect enough” we’ll ship it
We don’t have any delusions of bug-free but crash-free is an absolute requirement. (Of course, we’ve never shipped a version before with known crashes so the biggest difference is we’re getting a lot more ruthless with testing/abusing the app)
Amen to u Brian! Lets hope they take your last sentence to heart! PLEASE!!!!
Just putting in my support and agreeing with DrHogie. I have a Sony NEX7 for travel and my workflow was Camera->iPad->Photosmith->Lightroom. But, at the first version when I tried it worked nicely with JPG but it crashed when I tried to work with RAW format. Hope this new version addresses teh crashing. I look forward to the update.
It will have been more than two years, since I bought the app, when the update comes out.
Although I couldn’t really use it due to crashes during Lr->Ps sync,
I have very appreciated the openness and honesty you practice.
Thanks for your awesome support during this time.
I have seen the app grow in functionality and design over the years.
You know – I am really eager to see it work. Make the time.
Don’t forget your families and your god. Don’t do it at their expense.
Warm greetings to you all!
Hey Guys,
really looking foreward to this major release. But something that has been mentioned several times is not clear for me:
In 2.3 there is the possibility to copy the files to Photosmith. Is there also an option to choose, whether RAW + JPEG is copied or JPEG only?
This is crucial for me because I shoot in RAW + JPEG and import the data via IPad Camera Connection Kit. The Import Dialog of Photos.app gives me no option to import JPEG only. So I always have to import both, even that I don’t need RAW files on my IPad at all and they take so much disk space. So it would be a perfect workaround to import RAW + JPEG first into Photos.app BUT then Import JPEGs only into Photosmith and in this step delete the RAW files.
Is this feature included?
Thanx,
Felix
Hi Felix- I saw this suggestion come through the other night on the support site.
No, it will not be included in the upcoming release. It’s technically possible and not terribly difficult, but we’ve got to ship at some point, so some features have to be pushed off for now.
I’ve added it to our board for the following version (which won’t be nearly as big / long as this one). We certainly see the value – we just have to put a cap on what we’re delivering so that we CAN deliver.
Hi Chris,
thanx for your clarification. As I know that a lot of people suffer from the initial problem of photos.app not able to choose JPEG only, it would be a real winner to have this feature in Photosmith. Thanx for picking that on the plan.
Regards
Can’t wait to get my hands on it: but I’m glad you’re taking the time to make sure it’s the best it can be. Thanks guys!
Got excited when I saw a new post – I was hoping that this was the release announcement
I’m not a paying customer (yet), but have been watching for about 6 months,and am really hopeful that this release will provide what I’m looking for. At this stage in the development of such a major release, I don’t want to invest effort in getting to know the current version when it’s about to change significantly, so I’m very keen for 2.3 to hit the streets.
But…
I’m happy to wait until you’re happy it’s good to go. I work in IT and am all too aware of the consequences of pushing for some arbitrary date with little regard to quality. As others have said, I really appreciate your up-front honesty and commitment to your product, so do what you need to do and I’m looking forward to buying the product when it’s ready!
Thumbs up and please take your time. I bought the PhotoSmith app once I learnt about the update just to support you guys. I installed the old app, but never used it since I have zero trust on Photos.App (it cannot even remember which photos it has already imported from a mem card).
The last thing I want a beta-grade app to mess up my LR catalog. For certain there will be unexpected bugs in the first release, but quality is the right priority here. All the best!
Thanks for taking the time to make it right and not releasing it before it is up to your standards and expectations!
LR 5 beta is out – but then you guys are aware of this. Will that have any implications with the release of the 2.3?
We’ve been testing against it for the past 24 hours or so. We had to make some minor changes to the plugin, but so far it looks like everything should work fine.
We’re always careful not to chase beta versions because things can change at any point, but we’re keeping an eye on LR 5. As release gets closer, we’ll double up on LR 5 testing.