Image Edit History
Implemented
Every image should have its own history of editing steps associated with it. This would serve multiple purposes:
1. One could selectively undo edits. Currently, undoing is global so a problem arises when one discovers that the latest editing steps made to a particular image were not successful only after one has made changes to other images already. Undoing the last editing steps then becomes impossible without undoing the changes to other images as well. A local history could support its own local form of undoing and even directly jumping back to previously (possibly named) states.
2. Recent editing steps could be evaluated in a "before/after" fashion without being drowned in the dramatic changes caused by seeing all changes one has ever made being removed. Currently, a before/after comparison is only possible by reverting (resetting) to the very first unedited image of the image. Changing back to this version makes it often impossible to judge whether recent subtle editing steps were successful because so many other changes occur at the same time. A local history would support picking any prior version as the "before" state to which the "after" state is compared to.
Temporarily disabling a layer or tool is not a general solution because some editing goals require the concerted effort of multiple tools or layers.
Preparing image variants along the way for states one later wants to compare to is not an acceptable workaround because
a) one does not always anticipate that a "before" snapshot will be needed later, and
b) one would always have to clean up at some time to remove all image variants that have become obsolete (note that some variants could be legit variations and shouldn't be deleted).
3. Some people apparently like to see which tools have been used on an image. The local history could offer a "consolidated" view which omits any overriden adjustments. For instance, several adjustments to the "exposure" would be condensed into one final adjustment. Unlike the Adjustments Clipboard, a consolidated history view would show the parameter values as well.
Related to the above, there could be a "consolidate histories" feature which compacts all image histories to their condensed forms in order to keep catalog sizes manageable. This feature could be offered whenever a catalogue backup takes place.
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When I have, previously, used a system with a comprehensive "history" record I found it to be of very limited efficacy. VERY limited. Especially when using multiple layers - even though in that case a layer was related to a tool. The tool could have many "settings" variables.
Fortunately that system offered the option that C1 users know as "Variants".
When I discovered that C1 offered something very similar and possibly better I was delighted. I did not miss the edit activity history at all.
Just my observations.
Grant
-8 -
This would be very useful!
10 -
History of edits would be indispensable as one can see from the history steps what was done if one wants to disable a particular undesirable edit and cant figure out what the problem is without going back to every edit and disable to check.
10 -
If popular demand means that this option is introduced please make it optional so that one can avoid the unrequired overhead if one does not use the feature.
-7 -
I've missed having this a few times when I've accidentally copied across settings to multiple photos but by the time I find out that I had done so, it was too late to go back. It'd definitely be great to be able to back track images to a previously edited state, even if its only a certain number of steps back to keep the bloating down but it definitely is frustrating to realise you've stuffed and not being able to go back to fix it.
6 -
Hi there,
Thank you for feedback on Capture One - this is always welcomed and encouraged among our users and we appreciate the time you've taken to contribute towards the development of the software.
I have forwarded your comments and suggestions to our Product Management team as something to consider in a future release.
Whilst we cannot comment on future releases, we take all suggestions on board and hopefully your feedback contributes towards a future version of Capture One.
3 -
Thanks, Lily!
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please add history panel!!!
hello, i am switching from lightroom, and i am amazed by features in c1,
but i am really struggling with the fact there is no history panel. and i can see many other people thinking of switching from lr have issue with this, or get even put off by it.
the software already has log of editing steps, which allows it to undo one by one, so it should be not complicated to implement such a panel to it, or am i wrong?
-it would really help to keep track of ones editing process, which i find especially useful when coming back to editing image after longer time, or when editing many images at a time
-be able to undo steps not just one by one, but in larger steps, while keeping overview, and also for comparison purposes
-notice easier if some parameter was changed accidentally and be able to roll it back
-it would make transitioning from lightroom easier, which may increase your sales17 -
Yes please add a history Panel, I switched from Darktable, it is very helpfull to back to a picture you have allready edited to recreate your steps. In Darktable you can also load someone elses XMP file and see the other persons edits, very insightfull to learn from other users.
So not only a history panel is nice to straighten up your F** **ups but also to learn from your and other users previous edits.
Cheers!
5 -
Yes, Please at a history panel! Switched also from lightroom... and i used it a lot! So it makes editing and goning back to a previous setting a lot asier!!! Thanks
6 -
I agree, I've recently switched to Capture One and I find it incredibly frustrating not having a history panel like on LR and Photoshop. Sure I can undo what I've done but more times than not I can't tell what I'm actually undoing. Did I go back far enough? Too far? History is a record of what I've done with an image. If I go down a wrong path it is easy to go back in LR. I even have thumbnails of previous states if I want them, and many times I do.
I actually consider this pretty basic and essential for anyone editing images everyday. If some find it another unnecessary option, let there be an option to hide it. Personally I want to have it always there on my screen. How hard could it be to add this?
7 -
I have just switched from Lightroom and Photoshop (fed up with paying for PS which I very rarely used, although I liked LR a lot), and have only just realised that there is no history of my edits. Oh dear, have I made mistake giving up LR? (I also miss stitching and a basic HDR tool). Hopefully C! people will include all these in a future edition.
5 -
I will put in a vote for this one, too! I tend to backup a few steps and to be able to see a list and determine just how far I want to go back would be wonderful! And, to include a snapshot feature so you can collect the history at a specific point.
Thank you!
3 -
Capture One is great, but yes it really needs an edit history list! Guessing by sight how many times to press undo (Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z) is a deal breaker. Fix this!
4 -
It is with sadness that I have decided to stop using Capture 1. I was hoping for the various tools previously suggested in this Forum to be included in v21, but in vain. The v21 seems to be targeting a different type of photographer to myself: I am not a pro wedding or similar, just a bog-standard very keen amateur. I am reverting (through gritted teeth) to Lightroom Classic on monthly payments and ignoring Photoshop that comes with it and I don't need for my landscape work.
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I also think this is an important feature Capture One is missing.
Could you please consider it?
Even, if it it only a global history list (over all files) that would still help a lot.
I work with keyboard shortcuts a lot (Exposure +1 and so on), in particular with external devices providing an actual knob which I can turn back/forth. If I try that out (+/- exposure, and so on) and decide that I want the original value before turning the knob there is no way for me to get back to the value.
I could press Ctrl-Z for a long time but I would go past the point of exposure changes and come into various other undos. That is totally unmanageable...
Please consider such a list!
Thanks in advance!
4 -
Similarly, I would love this feature to be added. I keep trying Capture One and there's a lot to like about it, but the lack of the history panel means I keep going back to Adobe.
3 -
I would love to have that functionality as well. Trying to switch from LR for a long time but certain things like this one are putting that on hold.
3 -
I keep trying to switch to Capture One because I do believe the raw converter is superior to LR... however, the lack of a history panel and no way to create HDR files from bracketed images are basic necessities in a post production application. Come on Capture One... connect all the dots, this shouldn't be that hard!!!
3 -
I also miss the history function. I need to see at a glance on an image if something has been edited and what! I don't want to look through all the tabs to see what has been changed. This is an elementary and necessary function to work professionally with this program! I could not believe that C1 does not have one. Almost all the competition has this function! But C1 thinks it can do without a history function? Of course, it is not easy for the programmers to implement. But many functions are built in, which are not really necessary.
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I agree and this has been the one single issue with C1 that frustrates me to no end!!!
It's beyond incomprehensible that C1 has no history function. This kept me from switching from LR for years.
PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, implement a history feature. We can put a man on the moon, but you can't add this to C1????
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David,
Just for some balance here, I use (very rarely these days) an application that has a complete history of changes for an edit.
I found it to be completely useless for anything other than the simplest of processing - especially if I wanted to rely on it to get back to a specific previous point in the chain.
Fortunately, it also has a much better option (for me) of saving an edit point which one could then keep and instantly return to. Very similar to a Capture One variant and probably something like a feature LightRoom has offered for a while I believe - is it called Snapshots? I don't recall exactly. I have never used it.
If the developers do decide to include a full history track (even assuming that is realistically possible if all functionality of to be included) something else would need to be deferred whilst the resource and cash are invested in a "me too" addition. An addition that I would want to be able to disable by default. And I mean completely disable to avoid the resource use and disk writes that would be involved.
Just wanted to make that point for the C1 product managers considering these requests.
-6 -
@SFA
You wrote: "... I use (very rarely these days) an application that has a complete history of changes for an edit."
How many applications that embrace non-destructive editing do you use? I reckon not very many either. Non-destructive editing and having an image editing history go together very well, plus there really is no denying that many people want this feature.
You wrote: "I found it to be completely useless for anything other than the simplest of processing."
The point is that an image editing history has more usages beyond the primary purpose of allowing a user to revert earlier decisions (regardless of when they discover the need, i.e., not just immediately after they made a decision but potentially a long time later).
As I described in my initial request, some users want to be able to see at a glance what they did to an image. A (consolidated) history provides a solution. Other users want to compare the current image editing state against an earlier one ("before/after") without having to go back to completely unedited state (a limitation of the current "before/after" tool, which makes it rather pointless for all but the lightest edits).
Some users just want a safety net against unintentional changes. Currently, if you are too late to notice you applied some changes to too many images, you are stuck with the undesired changes.
Your notion of "snapshots" would be most efficiently implemented by letting multiple snapshots reference a single history. That's the approach Lightroom takes.
Obviously, there would be some storage requirements to enable image editing histories. However,- demands won't be that high, due to the efficiency with which parametric edits can be stored. Storage requirements should pale against the storage for hand-brushed masks.
- there could be a feature to "consolidate" histories, to allow the removal of earlier steps that have no bearing on the latest image appearance anymore because they have been superseded by later tweaks. While this would remove the ability to go back in time arbitrarily, it would still support many other use cases.
- there could be a feature to purge histories (which are not used by snapshots).
- as you suggested, per image editing histories, could be an "opt-in" feature, so that people who don't have any of the multiple use cases don't get hit with any additional storage demands.
4 - demands won't be that high, due to the efficiency with which parametric edits can be stored. Storage requirements should pale against the storage for hand-brushed masks.
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What does completed mean?
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@William Rosmus
See the 6th post (Lily) in this thread.
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After having spent six or seven hundred dollars on this, I'm disappointed that version 20 hasn't had this added as an upgrade for free. It's something that should have been there from the beginning. I won't be upgrading again to get features that others have had for 10 or more years. I think I will make the move to Dark Table. It is pretty much as good in terms of colour and rendering, it has more features. And is free. I can't support gimpy products that want to milk its customers with extremely high upgrade pricing. You might as well call yourselves Adobe. I used to recommend this product to others, quite highly. But will start doing the opposite. This particular lack of feature has bothered me for a long time, and just hit the boiling point today.
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I was evaluating Capture One for purchase. I thought this lack of an edit history for a photo was a bug. Deal-breaker for me.
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Same thing here, not even one of my bug reports or suggestions has been followed through over the years, they all end up with the status solved, even though they are just ignored. It's like they are just developing what they want to develop and ignoring the users and their needs.
A history function per file is a must have for such a complex tool as Capture One.
For me it stops at version 21, no more subscriptions for me....
1 -
The only history function I use in Darktable is "compress history stack" to get rid of the excessive list and in order to get back some of the performance, which is subpar in darktable anyway.
The snapshot feature is nice but if you know a priori which status of your image you want to use as a snapshot than the "clone variant" function in C1 serves this purpose very well, with full zoom functionality.
I can understand that people who are already used to a per image history function miss it in C1, I just cannot understand that the lack thereof makes them leave or not use C1, as if this function was the main differentiator between the raw converters. But each to his own.
-1 -
I'm with BeO on this.
Before C1 I used an application that was just as complex - indeed more so since it also included a lot more functionals and tools than C1. (Great fun to play with, time sapping if one had a lot of images to work on.)
It offered both history and functionality that was very similar, in effect, to C1's variant functionality.
I used both but over time realised that for my purposes (and to save time trying to work out where to "go back to" in the history, the "variant" concept was superior in several ways.
That's not to say that everyone will feel the same way nor to imply that what is available could not be improved. I'm just saying that I found the "variant" approach much more effective at the time but it took a little effort on my part to adapt my processing to get to a point where the creation and use of the "variant" became a natural part of the process.
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