I was somewhat bemused to see that this change is being touted as a positive feature of PLv7 …
It might make for some simpler internal coding - - but I fail to see any advantages (to the result of conflating global Sat & Vib with the HSL tool) from a user’s perspective.
When they were separate tools - like this, in PLv6:
It was quick and simple to evaluate the impact of Vib & Sat settings … just by toggling the “Color Accentuation” tool.
It was quick and simple to evaluate the impact of HSL settings (without contamination by global Vib & Sat settings) … either by toggling the HSL tool - OR - by toggling the Compare button (whilst the HSL’s Hue Picker is active).
Now that that all these settings have been merged into the one HSL(HSL-VB ?)tool;
How likely is it that the average user will readily understand that equivalence of the simple settings for Color Accentuation (as shown in the example above), is now achieved like this … - - Not readily, is my guess.
How likely is it that the average user may well think “Mmm - I’m not using HSL for this image … I’ll switch it OFF” … and not readily understanding that global Sat & Vib settings have been disabled too.
As for evaluating the result of HSL settings for an image;
– There’s a new feature (to go along with this overall change in the User Interface);
–This is an excellent enhancement, and I will be making use of this feature (in other use-cases) … BUT, it’s not an alternative for independent evaluation of the impact of HSL settings, because;
“clicking and holding”, say, the Blue-channel will show the before & after impact of settings for the Blue-channel … BUT, both before & after views are now also contaminated by global Sat & Vib settings … 'cos it’s no longer possible to switch these off independently.
And, note that this provides only for evaluation of changes to the Blue-channel. How about when we wish to evaluate the combined impact of changes to more than one channel … ?
No problem, you may initially think, we can always just toggle the HSL tool (like we used to) - BUT, in doing so, we’re now ALSO toggling our global Vib & Sat settings too !! !!
In the spirit of making PhotoLab’s user interface intuitive and easy-to-understand, I don’t see how this “new feature” contributes to that aim in any way at all.
I fully agree with the moving Vibrancy and Saturation is anther poor thing. I spent some time looking for them when trying to redo some old imiges and I muct admit it was only on seeing your post I found them How may others will be doing the same but not see your post! They do apeare to have done some odd things with this new version and if I hadn’t paid for it would give seven a miss as its so poor.
The ablity to turn off the effects took some time to work out how to do as well!
Also, from my point of view, another small step backwards in usability.
Because in practice, Vibrancy and Saturation are probably used much more often than HSL (at least for me), which means that now this high panel has to be unfolded to get to the settings (for individual workspaces).
Just because the settings belong together in theory doesn’t mean it has to be that way in practical use.
But if there hadn’t been the previous division into 2 panels, I probably wouldn’t be missing anything now. In that respect, I think we will/must all get used to it.
This is not a reason to think it is a poor thing. Description of new feature on DxO site specify this change.
here is the link :
Nobody reads what has changed when updating ? Of course this can make things a little bit complicated.
Can we multiselect channels, or can we only select one channel at a time ?
Without possible multiselection, this will not be good if multiple color channels are used. And some things won’t be easy to check.
This is the major problem with the concept of “turning a feature OFF” to see the effects.
Say you had made several subtle changes in the HLS panel and wanted to see the effect of your last two changes? Turning OFF the HLS panel will not help.
This is why we need a proper History so that we can back-step to see the changes.
A proper History function will address your concerns.
Seems like usability has been abandoned just to make coding easier! What has happened to catering for user requirement and usability? This is fundamental to application development - give the users what they want/need!
I am in a quandary - I like the local adjustments in the side panel but absolutely hate the new Saturation and Vibrance location, so do I upgrade or not?
If many people avoid PL7 then DxO may get the message because it will hurt their bottom line.
I admit I wish I had not upgraded I have spent most of the day trying to find old things and use changed ones. The biggest down side is the local adjustments that now take much longer than in V6 but there are others. I have been with DxO well before PL and this is really the only time I regret upgrading enough to wonder if I just take it off and go back to 6 but the new layout is much better which is why I made the errer of jumping.
I have basically never used “local adjustments” since their introduction in PL 1, except for the linear gradient! I feel that the new structure, even if it takes the experts a little longer to use, is way better for me and I might actually use what has been on offer for some time and extended with the new menu structure but the “on/off” toggles are missing from this new implementation and they should have been included.
‘Saturation and Vibrancy’ should have remained as a separate feature, in my opinion.
HSL is a feature I have played with and never used in “anger” but ‘Saturation and Vibrancy’ I do use so personally I would rather have been able to continue to “ignore” HSL but use a separate ‘S and V’!
Step back with history is not the full solution.
It is good when progressing a work.
But when done, maybe I’ll need to disable 2 color channels only to check something.
I they are not the last in the history list, I’ll can’t do that without disabling every step done after those color channel modifications.
This is often the good solution.
Give users CHOICE.
There are lot of worflows. Good software I know are compatible with lot of workflows and their interfaces are very, very, very customiszable.
I just saw in the release notes that it is indeed possible to deactivate individual channels (not multiple though I guess) by holding that color circle down with the mouse key I guess. Anyone discovered that feature yet? You can’t deny that there exists a lot of creativity to create new user interface experiences
• The Color accentuation controls, Saturation and Vibrancy, have been moved to the HSL subpalette. • New option to temporarily deactivate Global Saturation and Vibrancy, or any color channel, by clicking and holding its accompanying color-well icon.
Yes it works for me, but only in the Global HSL control. Pick a colour and make a change - I just rotated the colour wheel position. Now click and hold on the highlighted (bold white) colour channel - the change is undone while the mouse button remains depressed, then on release the change is reapplied. Just to be sure I also checked a change to 100 saturation and the change again can be temporarily undone. Double-clicking on the relevant colour channel undoes the change permanently.
With a Local Adjustment HSL change, click and hold does nothing, but double-clicking still undoes the change as with Global HSL. It would be nice if the click and hold here also temporarily undid the change.
- - Not readily, is my guess.
