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Ability to pre-process source frames

Feature Request

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.

Posted by Ryan Cush ·
10 comments

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Comments10

  • [email protected]

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    Aug 16

    I would love this feature. For my workflow, I would mainly want to adjust one source frame — for example exposure and white balance — and then apply those adjustments to all the selected source frames before stacking.

    I would still want Macro Studio to remain focused on what it does best: stacking, retouching and fine-tuning the finished stack. I wouldn't want it to become another Lightroom.

    You don't want Macro Studio to compete with Lightroom. You just want it to have the one small piece of functionality that makes preparing a stack much easier.

    I would still use Lightroom for my normal editing and final adjustments. For me, this would be a very useful pre-processing step rather than Macro Studio becoming a full Lightroom-style editing program.

    • Ryan Cush

      Team•

      Aug 16

      Thank you, @[email protected]! I agree, I do not want to compete with Lightroom. I want it to have just enough functionality that non-power-users can us it for all of their editing, and power users will still want Lightroom or other editors.

      Also, as soon as I release the LrC plugin, you’ll be able to make your adjustments in LrC and then send those to Macro Studio to stack. And as long as you don’t use masks in LrC (just global adjustment sliders like exposure and white balance), your edits will carry through losslessly to Macro Studio. That might be a better approach for LrC users.

  • jaxjqa

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    Aug 26

    I agree with Sue.North and think some simple adjustments to one source frame and then a blanket application to the rest of the frames is really useful, especially since I’m not a LrC user, but use ON1. I’ll still use ON1 after the stack is done and Retouched, but given that an ON1 plug-in probably isn’t that high of a priority given the limited number of users, the pre-process in a batch sense is high value and I think it would be used a lot. Of course, if a very high percentage of your users are already using LrC, I guess us non-LrC users might have to wait…

  • Dave Goldberg

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    Oct 13

    New guy here. I had reached out directly to ask a similar question and what I had asked might be slightly different. I wanted to know if there could be a way to autocorrect every shot so every image matches in exposure and white balance.

    This can be a problem in natural light, where even when shooting in full manual mode, clouds or tree branches in the wind could change lighting conditions from shot to shot. If this happens then I can correct each from in my editor and then stack the images. It would be helpful if that capability exists in Macro Studio,

    • Ryan Cush

      Team•

      Oct 13

      @Dave Goldberg welcome, new guy! :D I see what you are saying — rather than “give me an editor where I can edit all of these things”, I’m reading your request as “give me an easy button to make the images match in exposure and white balance”. And if it matches poorly, then you can always do it manually in your editor. Is that right? I’d have to do some exploration into the algorithm for this, but it would definitely make the UI simpler/cleaner, which is a top priority for me.

      • Dave Goldberg

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        Oct 14

        Yes, exactly. But it’s not simply a matter of apply one WB setting across all images. Just as one example, Darktable has the means to sample exposure and WB from one image and match to others.

        Given that subtle differences in exposure can create stack artifacts, I think this could be a great feature for Macro Studio.

      • Dave Goldberg

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        Oct 14

        Also, where do I go if I have a question about the program, but it’s not a feature request? Is there a general support forum or Facebook page for that?

        Dave G.

      • Mark Laurendet

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        Oct 31

        Depending on the way you wish to go with Macro Studio this may be a good compromise.

        It could loose its ease of use pretty quickly if too many features are added. A very hard balance. I see Dark Table mentioned. A very powerfull editor but for the faint hearted.

        Keeping advanced and beginners all happy will be very hard to do. Currently you use Advanced to turn on editing features, there maybe an option to turn off certain features depending on how complex you want the app to get.

  • Scott Fairbairn

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    Oct 26

    I think it would be quite helpful to do some limited editing before stacking. For example, I’ve had times when my exposure was a bit too high, or the white balance was off, and I found better stacking when I corrected those problems before stacking.