Please share your suggestions for new features or improvement of the current product. Make sure to check out the Roadmap tab to see what’s currently being worked on!
Help make Macro Studio even better!
Automatic slabbing
In some cases, you want to break a stack down into substacks, and then stack those. For example we had a user stacking 73 frames that were 100MP each, which takes an enormous about of RAM and disk space. It would be great if the software could analyze your available RAM and disk space and give you the option to automatically slab it for you.
Auto Button added to Adjustment Panel
wonder if you could consider adding an auto button/option to the adjustments panel in the advanced mode in Macro Studio so that users at all levels from beginners to experienced users could get an automatic adjustments option on fixing exposure, highlights, shadows etc? This will help beginners who may not have the knowledge to adjust individual sliders or to more experienced who will get a starting point for editing the sliders in the adjustment panel to improve their images. Lightroom Classic has this feature and I wonder if this was included in Macro studio it would make Macro studio more appealing to beginners who could click the button to experienced users who could use it as a baseline or use the individual sliders independently. This is a truly fantastic resource foo far or anyone doing Macro Photography. Making the system a real winner. I am absolutely impressed how easy this programme makes stacking etc.
Ability to pre-process source frames
Users have asked for the ability to pre-process source frames, e.g. to adjust things like exposure, white balance, and maybe sharpening. In general, they want to adjust one frame and then be able to apply that to the rest of the source frames, before stacking. There might be infrequent cases where they only want to adjust one or a few frames, though. We would need to be really thoughtful about the UX here, because this is starting to blur the lines between Editor and Library.
StackCheck - delete unused images
That StackCheck is outstanding, Ryan - you outdid yourself. An additional request: once the restacked shot is done - would it be possible to add a button to the banner: “like this version better - press this button to delete the unneeded images from your computer”
Blur Brush
would it be possible to create a Blur Brush. I usually would use this on something in the background that is distracting but perhaps close to the same plane as part of the subject so there are no blurry frames to paint in over the distraction
Peaking
A visual indication for source images showing what’s in-focus akin to a camera’s Peaking Display.
Masks
Sorry, me again 😂. I must sound like a frustrated client, but the opposite is the case. I’m super happy with Macro Studio, but seeing how much you care about feedback, I might go overboard with all those feature requests 😂. However, here’s some more: To almost fully replace Lightroom, or photoshop, I feel the MASKS section would need some fine-tuning. Here’s what I’m “missing” inverting masks especially the radial gradient mask is a great tool to darken the background around your subject to draw the attention to your subject. I know you could basically do the same by reducing exposure on the full image and then raising it for the mask, but for people who are used to their workflow, that’s another train of thoughts. having multiple masks of each type It seems I can only have one radial gradient and one linear gradient. I’m used to having as much as I want. Not that I need all that many for macro photography, but I think two - one for the eye and one for the subject might be helpful at times. Consider subtracting/adding/intersecting masks. Again, I don’t see nearly as much need for that in macro, than in other areas of photography, but maybe others think different. If you allow multiple masks, consider giving the option to name them Just some food for thought in case you ever get bored 😂
Add Histogram to Editor
It would be useful to add an RGB histogram window to the editor to aid in making adjustments and showing when clipping occurs. Also it would be nice to show tone regions (lowlight, midtones, highlights) which could be adjusted on the histogram like in DXO PhotoLab 10.
Dust map / dust reference
I just got Macro Studio and am really enjoying it so far. One feature I’d really love to see added is a dust map / dust reference. At very high magnification, even tiny residual dust spots can become curly lines or trails after alignment and stacking, and these can be surprisingly difficult to remove cleanly in post-processing. Being able to provide a reference image for automatic dust correction would be a very useful addition.
Ghosting - robberfly eye facets
Hi Ryan, I made another comparison showing the eye of a robber fly. You might be interested to see how MacroStudio performs in contrast to ShineStacker and Zerene. In fact, MacroStudio shows quite some ghosting on certain portions of the eye. ShineStacker produced the cleanest image, followed by Zerene. It’s quite interesting to see how results can differ. Here’s the linke to the file, which can be opened in PS as it contains layers. Zooming in reveals the details. http://e.pc.cd/cOKotalK
In Progress
StackCheck recommendations on the fly
For a high volume workflow, it would be preferable to set StackCheck to do it’s work the first time around: dropping unproductive or counterproductive frames (and especially off-time buffer-full trailing frames!) on the fly, rather than requiring a re-stack. Ideally, the initial output image represent’s Macro Studio’s best effort, in line with the philosophy of reducing the need for user input, retouching, etc. I realize that this might not be a trivial change.
Keywords
I was recently in a conversation with Ryan about adding a keywords feature to Macro Studio. He would like to get feedback from other users as to whether it is a good idea. Please add your thoughts. Thanks Steve Sparrow
Undo options for Retouch and Spot Correct
Anybody else would love to see some kind of option to undo Retouch or Spot Correct? I’m thinking of either an erase brush, or a “Remove all Retouch” steps or “Remove all Spot Correct”. Another possibility would be undo options for each step.
Save a list of the images in a stack
I tend to take longer stacks for macro,200 or 400 images and then surch though the stack for the correct image to process. Which combination of tiny grasses look good shot through other grasses. Then move down the stack and the start image from stack one is shot through for image two. Et sequ. It would be extremely helpful to be able to record in a file the actual images used in a stack. Record by file name or number. Start end images in-between so I know which ones were omitted for technical reasons or artistic reasons. In my workflow it would also be useful to have move than one start and stop image pare in a long stack
Brush Control Requests
New user to Macro Studio, and stacking. I am mainly a close up photographer of spiders and insects at night with flash, often in dense follage. So I don’t normally have good backgrounds like in the demo videos. I do a lot of local adjustments and find the current brush adjustments are not optimal for me, refine clone & masking. When using the clone stamp on full feather and least strength the result of a clone shows a distinct edge when trying to remove say flash hot spots. In ON1 for example the brush adjustment range allow me to get the desired result. The Green inner circle on the brush is nearly invisible on follage in some cases. A option for an edge aware brush would be welcome as well. I would like to see greater brush feather, strength/opacity control adjustments for local adjustment type cloning out of hotspots and adjusting contract exposure etc as unlike the demo images I often have multiple subject and background objects to work on. Like frogs in reads.
Advanced display of edits
Currently, in the editing tab there is the "Hide adjustments" button, to hide all adjustments made. I would like to have that button for each individual setting. E.g. hide contrast, hide sharpness etc. Additionally, a "before / after" slider would be really cool, refer to the attached screenshot.
Retouch: stamp brighter or darker
While I was retouching a crane fly because the legs came out partly transparent, I think I just had one of my best ideas ever 😂😂. Most of the time, fine details like hair are over a background that is either brighter or darker than the actual source. What if we could stamp only brighter or darker - similar to the mode in the stamp tool in photoshop. Perhaps even give those brighter and darker tools some sliders so that we can fine tune them, like copy if, similar to blend if. So only copy the pixels in the source if they are darker than value x or brighter than value y. Perhaps it’s even possible to stamp if the source has more detail than the destination (but I guess then the stacking process would have realized anyway).
Planned
Option to not save Autostack finished stacks and not maintain a persistent Library
Currently, the options are to save finished stacks “Into one Autostack results folder”, or “In the same folder as the stack’s source frames”. I would like an option to not save them at all, unless they are explicitly saved via the editor. I often shoot multiple stacks of the same subject and only edit and save the best one(s). The ones I culled are wasted space at best and a source of confusion at worst. I guess my preference is not to maintain a persistent “Library” at all. I understand this depends heavily on wether the finished stacks are going on to Lightroom (or other), or if Macro Studio is the final destination. Perhaps if the user has indicated that the outputs are destined for editing in another editor with its own library (such as Adobe CC via Lightroom), then instead of a persistent “Library”, the list of outputs from autostack or loaded files can just be an output list based on temp files that disappear when the program is stopped. This is how I currently use that other (H) program. Thanks for considering.