Photo Pro on the way...

[corywoolf]

I didn't see this anywhere else:

"While Think Secret sources said they have heard rumblings of such an Apple product—which would more resemble iPhoto on steroids than a Photoshop competitor—none could confirm the product's development status.

The Adobe survey presented Photo Pro as a product geared towards photographers who handle numerous images regularly, offering extensive batch processing features and several automated features.

Among those listed were one-click importing with automatic backup to a second location, batch processing of metadata on import, rapid image browsing, support for multiple RAW settings per image, integrated high-quality camera raw processing, automated multi-page prints, and flexible contact sheet creation."

Source: Think Secret

This could turn out really cool if they can make photoshop plug ins work in Photo Pro.

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0508adobe.html

 

[Lacero]

I hope it's not like Pages.

Photo Pro: Professional image editing for idiots.

 

[cc bcc]

Supposedly it's not a photoshop competitor, but more a professional iPhoto-like application.

 

[bbarnhart]

Like iView MediaPro

 

[AmigoMac]

and then photo express...
Bring the thing on and let us complain about the features it needs

 

[corywoolf]

and then photo express...
Bring the thing on and let us complain about the features it needs

Well as long as Apple plays it off like it's iPhoto Pro then it should do well. It depends on the pricing as well. If it is in the sub $100 range it could be great for using it along with photoshop. But if they try to play it out as a photoshop alternative (much like iWork is to M$ Office) then it will not do well much like how iWork isn't doing very well (I suspect it isn't due to the mediocre pages and the bundles with iWork). The key to Photo Pro is to make it seamlessly integrate with Photoshop. It would make sense to have basic color correction tools like in iPhoto just to make it at least equal to iPhoto. If raw is supported better then it is in iPhoto then that could be a plus. I still don't see a very big niche to fill between iPhoto and photoshop. My bet is on that it starts off being a organization tool but later trys to become a photoshop alternative. Adobe could easily make a better photo browser and include it with CS3 and then it would crush Photo Pro. This could get interesting, it's kind of the last frontier for Apple. They have Audio (garageband, logic express, logic pro), Video (iMovie, FC Express, FCP), DVD (iDVD, DVD Studio Pro), and an incomplete Image design (iPhoto) covered. They have probably been working on Photo Pro for years, if they want it to be taken seriously.

 

[mduser63]

It looks interesting. One thing that makes iPhoto less suitable for some things than Photoshop is that it's not document based, it's library based. You can't really just open a photo in iPhoto, edit it, resave, etc without adding it to the library. I wonder if Photo Pro will be a file based editor that makes photo editing easy like iPhoto, but includes some of the document management things that make Photoshop powerful.

 

[Freg3000]

But if they try to play it out as a photoshop alternative (much like iWork is to M$ Office)

When Steve announced iWork '05 at MWSF this past January he made it clear that iWork is not a replacement for Office. He even made a comparison to Appleworks 6 saying that it has existed as a software title with Office in the past, and iWork will do the same.

I do agree though that most people do view it as an Office replacement, which is why it is not doing well.

 

[Daveway]

I didn't see this anywhere else:

Actually this was part of yesterday's MacByte about CS3.

 

[MisterMe]

....

Source: Think Secret

This could turn out really cool if they can make photoshop plug ins work in Photo Pro.

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0508adobe.html

Think Secret is way behind the curve on this one. The picture of the Photo Pro box was discovered on the website of a marketing research firm months ago. IIRC, it was compared to Adobe Photoshop CS2. The best theory is that it was part of an Adobe-commissioned test to see how well Photoshop would hold up against a competing offering from Apple. But the bottomline is that Adobe Photo Pro is not a real product. It is the product of a marketing researcher's imagination.

 

[JFreak]

i can see photo pro happening. it has all the same reasons to exist than logic pro has on the audio world. one of them being apple core technologies.

(if there wasn't logic pro by apple, then audio units would be considered a joke among us audio professionals. i mean - if logic was still developed by emagic, i think it would still greatly depend on windows customers and therefore the transition to audio units would have been practically impossible for such a small company.)

now if apple really creates photo pro and makes image units serious......

 

[JFreak]

This could turn out really cool if they can make photoshop plug ins work in Photo Pro.

why on earth would apple want to do that? first of all, enabling photoshop plugs would piss off folks at adobe, which is something apple don't want to do. second, enabling photoshop plugs would give developers a reason not to support apple image units, which (imho) would be the #1 reason for photo pro to exist in the first place.

AND, apple has already done much of the standard photoshop plugs as image units, so plugin catalog is not a reason at all for supporting photoshop plugs. the people who depend on certain custom photoshop plugins will use photoshop for their work anyway.

it would however be cool if photo pro would be somewhat similar to use than photoshop but instead of proprietary implementation the whole app would depend on the open and well-documented core image. that should boost shareware development just the same way we now can see happening in the audio world.

http://developer.apple.com/macosx/coreimage.html

 

[Epicurus]

The key to Photo Pro is to make it seamlessly integrate with Photoshop.

One thing I've believed about Apple ever since they moved to UNIX was that standards are important. in the photography world there is Photoshop and very little else. If Apple wants to make iPhoto better, better enough to warrant a totally new product separate from iLife, then they have to learn to play ball with Photoshop (plus, with Adobe being nice enough to spend the time and eneryg to transition to Intel it wouldn't make much sense to cut them out of the business too soon). Beyond being able to move back and forth between Photoshop for editing and Photo Pro for organizing, some of the basic editing features found in Core Image should be added. Photoshop is amazing, even Photoshop Elements, and Core Image can't really compete with that, but not having to move out of Photo Pro to play with the tint should be a given requirement.

Beyond Core Image and Photoshop, I'd like to see some basic database controls akin to FileMaker. if I'm running a website and I need thumbnail 150x150, medium 600x600, and full screen 1280x854 resolution versions of a single image, I want to be able to make adjustments to all three versions simultaneously. Batch editing should be a standard feature, and one that is easy to implement, but grouping related images should also be a standard feature. Photo Pro could benefit from a lot of FileMaker features.