I am looking for a way to create a custom crop overlay. The few that Lightroom offer don't work when trying to do consistant head sizing in the program.
Nor do I appreciate being told how "simple" it is to accomplish hard work.
This is not something that is going to be written in a day. A quick estimate says it would take several weeks of coding, a few weeks of UI design, plus a few months of testing.
If you want a feature request to be taken seriously, insulting the people implementing the features isn't the best way to start. You're much better off explaining what you need, what problem it's supposed to solve and who else might benefit from such a feature. Then it can be prioritized against the other thousands of feature requests.
Thank you for your participation in the thread Chris. I do not know what you do you for Adobe but I will guess you are involved with Lightroom.
Could I ask if you could explain the very long timeframe for getting something like this in the program?
To our view, this is a rather simple graphic that will only show up in the Develop module when the Crop tool is activated. It would be the same implementation as the "golden spiral", "grid" or "thirds" that are already in the program.
Could these graphic overlays be built upon and just altered?
Two lines could be eliminated from the "thirds" overlay and the two left could just be moved outward a bit to be at the 8x10 ratio.
Please let us know why two months of testig would be needed for this?
I just want to know if this EVER has a chance of getting in the program as seriously, with digital delivery, my whole business revolved around this kind of processing!
I'm not a member of the Adobe team, but even that doesn't seem simple to me. All of the existing crop overlays scale with the aspect ratio of the photo, but you're asking for one that doesn't. That alone adds some complication.
And yours is one of a thousand possible crop overlays; the complete solution is to allow users to use one of their own design, which would be considerably more complicated.
Thanks Mark but nobody has mentioned anything about scaling. I want the 8x10 guides to behave exactly like the existing overlays. They would scale inside of an 8x12 ratio crop or whatever crop was selected.
Simple might get this in the program faster. Having a user designable feature is where it gets complicated imho.
8x10 is the "problem" here. This is the ratio we have to look out for whenever we shoot. This is really only about delivering in 8x12 ratio and needing to watch out for 8x10. That is it and it really is that simple. One overlay would change everything for my workflow.
Well, except that we now have custom overlays (View - Layout Overlay) new to LR4, just not in this one specific location (Crop tool). In my view, it was needed in Crop before the other locations where it's available now.
You've missed my point. If you look at the rule-of-thirds overlay, the middle rectangle does not keep the same aspect ratio all the time. It's ot as simple as moving the lines, as you suggest. You want the middle ratio to always retain a 4:5 ratio regardless of the outer ratio, but the current implementation is not capable of that.
I am using LR 3 and maybe LR 4 is different but when I have crop set to original and I turn on the Thirds overlay it scales as I crop the photo.
It keeps whatever size I move the crop to split into three equal parts.
All I want is to select original from the crop aspect and have lines that represent where and 8x10 would fall inside that "original" photo. As I move the crop I would want the two 8x10 lines to move with it. Just as all of the overlays do now.?
I guess I am missing something because this seems quite basic to me.
Take a file into the Crop tool with the rule of thirds overlay. In this example, the middle rectangle will have the same aspect ratio as the file. Now set the aspect ratio to something different (say, square). Now the middle rectangle is square.
What I think you're asking for is a crop overlay where this doesn't happen -- where the middle rectangle retains a 4:5 aspect ratio no matter what the aspect ratio of the outer crop is.
If what you're specifically asking for is an overlay that has a 4:5 inner ratio if and only if the outer ratio is 3:2, then this would be technically much easier. But try explaining that in the documentation; it's too confusing and therefore not likely to be implemented this way.
If you're having trouble understanding what I'm saying, you should accept this as evidence that you don't understand how complicated it might be to implement something that seems simple to you.
Please, lets try to keep this calm. What I see with the rule of thirds is no matter what crop ratio I select, the two horizontal lines will always divide the photo into three equal parts.
What I and I think others want is these two lines to be positioned where an 8x10 would fall relative to the original photo (8x12 for most cameras). Always on just two sides so when you went horizontal or vertical they would always represent the long side of the ratio.
If I pick square or 16x9 or whatever I would no longer need to see where an 8x10 is because you have left traditional printing ratios.
So this is a quite basic overlay and is specific to one need. But it is a traditional photographic need that is very important to the business of photography. This request does not need to be all things to all people by being over complicated.
I disagree about your opinion that this would be too confusing to document. As a working photogrpaher, this makes perfect sense to me. (isn't LR designed for professional photographers?) If I don't want to turn the overlay on there are others to chose from.
I'm a senior engineer at Adobe. Mostly I work on Photoshop, but I also answer questions here in the forums and work with many other teams as needed.
Long time frame: features take time. What you're proposing isn't changing graphics, but adding new functionality that needs UI plus significant implementation work to make it work reasonably fast. Because it's so general and needs user input, plus because it'll probably use OpenGL to do the drawing, it will need significant testing. Drawing a few lines is much easier (and faster) than drawing a user supplied image over other images.
Yes, the request has a chance - but it has to be evaluated against all the other feature requests and might not happen instantly. And, again, insulting the developers really doesn't help your chances.
Could it be then that the general improvement with user defined overlays (i.e. ID-photo like) in the first increment would be simple 8x10 one? I.e in addition to diagonal, triangle, spiral there will be added a new option like "multiaspect"?
Thank you for your comments Chris. Just to clarify, I, a person with the specific 8x10 overlay request have not insulted anyone.
I wrote a very specific request a month or two ago which was merged in with this thread. So there are some cross-currents going on here.
I am advocating a very simple, two line approach only to see an 8x10. It could be a check box one just turns on and off to see 8x10 lines. It does not apply to non-standard crops because people do not print an 8x10 from a non-standard crop.
This is about shooting, cropping, selling & delivering without knowing if the customer will need to print 4x6, 5x7 or 8x10.
Hope this helps clarify why I am putting so much energy into this.
I understand exactly what you want, and it's a very reasonable request. But you continue to fail to understand that what you want is functionally different from the existing overlays.
I am re-visiting this topic to ask an Adobe employee if the simple version of this request (only 8x10 guide overlays) has any life or chance of getting implemented? LR4, LR5?
I see features being added to 4.1 like altitude for geotagging and I wonder if what I am asking for is just too boring or not needed by photographers that LR is catering to now?
8x10 is a pretty important part of portrait photography.
I like the new grid when using the crop tool but wish there was a version that showed lines for the various print sizes. We post images that customers can order in multiple print sizes and I would love to be able to crop the original image such that nothing gets cut if they order an 8x10. Best example is a swim team where I want to get close as possible to see the 200 or so faces, but not so close that if they order an 8x10 from an image that has a 3:2 aspect ratio that people will get cut off.
When a user selects a fixed aspect ratio, the grid would show guide lines for various print sizes that are "smaller" than that aspect ratio. The user could possibly turn on/off various size guides by check boxes.
I see my suggestion got moved to this topic, and after reading through it I'm almost afraid to comment again. The post near the top from Rikk Flohr is exactly what I (and apparently many other) photographers are looking for. It's been available in the Darkroom line of products from Express Digital for some time. Similar features (rule of thirds, golden spiral, etc.) are available, and many can be found in smartphone and iPhone camera apps that are offered for less than a dollar, if not free.
I understand that no programming change is as simple as users expect. Even the simplest change has to be coded, integrated, tested, re-tested, etc. But I also agree with the logic behind the idea that the code for the rule of thirds could be used as the base. "Thirds" is a ratio, just like the ratio between 4x6 and 8x10. No matter how you scale it, the ratio stays the same.
I also have to agree that in many ways the effort to push the envelope with HDR, 3D, custom blurring or bringing into focus, content-aware fill, mapping, geo-tagging, etc., are taking away from the work on the basic functions photographers need. The problem is that they aren't sexy for the markets companies like Adobe want to pull into the fold of Lightroom and/or Photoshop users. In short, if there isn't a business case that it will somehow make money, then there's no point in putting development dollars toward coding the function.
That stated, count me in as a user of PS CS5 and LR3 who has NO KNOWN NEED for all the gee-whiz-bang features that seem to be worth coding, but would GLADLY buy PS CS? and LR? if they updated many of the basic features that photographers are asking for.
There are a great many ideas for custom overlays for the crop feature here, so it's incorrect for me simply to say 'Me, too!' Personally, I want to be able to create my own 'armatures' - patterns of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines used by artists for composition, and apply them in LR4. I guess that would be a matter of creating an overlay in, say, PS, and importing it into LR to add as a preset to Crop?
There are a great many ideas for custom overlays for the crop feature here, so it's incorrect for me simply to say 'Me, too!' Personally, I want to be able to create my own 'armatures' - patterns of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines used by artists for composition, and apply them in LR4. I guess that would be a matter of creating an overlay in, say, PS, and importing it into LR to add as a preset to Crop?
There are a great many ideas for custom overlays for the crop feature here, so it's incorrect for me simply to say 'Me, too!' Personally, I want to be able to create my own 'armatures' - patterns of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines used by artists for composition, and apply them in LR4. I guess that would be a matter of creating an overlay in, say, PS, and importing it into LR to add as a preset to Crop?
I shoot a lot of school photos for yearbooks. The images need to all have the same head size. Not all kids have the same size head. A custom template would do the trick. I have other software that has a cropping tool for school images. It has grid lines where the top of the head and the bottom of the chin should go. Its easy to use, but lacks all the bells & whistles of LR. Therefore I am first adjusting the images in LR so why not crop them at the same time.
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