Phocus feature requests

[bdp]

I suppose this post is directed at Paul or any other Hasselblad rep who can give direct feedback to Hasselblad.

I am a new user of Phocus who has come from Lightroom 4, and although I like Phocus a lot, especially the out-of-box colours and tethered speed, I feel there could be a few small improvements.

FIrstly, the clarity tool. LR4 has a great clarity tool, and I found myself using it quite a bit for some shoots. Phocus's clarity tool doesn't perform in quite the same way - it's almost like it has a much larger radius, and is creating large soft dark halos around objects in my pictures. LR would target the edges much more, and did it without creating halos.

I also miss the ability to quickly compare several pictures. LR has 'survey view' where you can click on any number of pictures and have them all displayed for a client to see. Phocus only allows comparison between 2 pictures. If there is a quick way to select 4 or 5 pictures and hit a key to have them all displayed at once in Phocus then can someone let me know?

Another thing is some creative tools, like post-crop vignetting and grain. Yes, I can do this in Photoshop after export, but it's so much nicer and quicker to do it to the raw file.

Preview images at the fit-to-window size look a little soft. Some clients ask 'is it sharp?'. Can a little sharpening be added to the preview like in LR and now in Capture One 7?

Lastly, the keyboard shortcuts for some things in Phocus are so complicated. For example the highlight warning is three keys, and in LR you just press 'j'. Can we customise the shortcuts?

Thanks,
Ben

[NickT]

I also miss the ability to quickly compare several pictures. LR has 'survey view' where you can click on any number of pictures and have them all displayed for a client to see. Phocus only allows comparison between 2 pictures. If there is a quick way to select 4 or 5 pictures and hit a key to have them all displayed at once in Phocus then can someone let me know?

Hi Ben
Just quickly before I jump into my day, in the browser window, select the 5 images you want and hit "1' to give it one star, then in the toolbar click the first star to filter down to one stars only. Then you can drag out to resize the thumbnails a bit bigger.. Not quite as elegant as Lightroom but it works.
Cheers
Nick-T

[bdp]

Hey, thanks Nick, that's great. I thought something like that might work but I have to get the hang of the keystrokes to make it quick enough to be practical.

Ben

[Simon Bran]

Hi everybody,
It would also be nice if they updated their support for the current view camera shutters, like the rodenstock shutter.  which you can use, (in flash sync mode), but not through Phocus and  not in 4 shot mode. and yes there is the tilt and shift, which I have, and use, (and have absolutely no intention of selling as its very useful), but it does have its limitations, so you still need to use  the view camera at times. So ....pretty please Hasselblad:)
all the best Simon.

[bdp]

OK, I take it back. After using it for a couple of weeks, I like the clarity tool.

I never use the recovery tool though - it just seems to flatten highlights too much by the time it has recovered the clipped bits. This is one area of LR that is good, the highlights slider seems to protect the contrast in the upper range while it recovers blown highlights. The Phocus version could use some work imho. And while I'm being picky, the NR of high ISO shots seems to create a lot of banding or blotchiness. Makes anything above 400 ISO unusable at high magnifications. Neat Image or Noise Ninja do a much better job.

Also I don't know if it's me or a bug, but if I set the camera to a 2 sec self timer to avoid mirror vibrations, it works fine shooting from the camera, but if I shoot from the computer it takes several exposures! Sometimes 3 (bracketed) and sometimes just 2 (same exposure). Is this some sort of setting on my camera I have stuffed up?

Gotta say I'm loving it in general, the speed and especially the colour compared to what I was used to in Lightroom!

[KeithL]

I'm a big fan of Phocus. Having said that the one feature I would love to see is the ability to make selective adjustments before export.

Excuse me if I've mentioned this before but it would make a tremendous difference to my - and I expect others - workflow.

Pretty please!

[mharvey65]

You are kidding right?

You want Phocus to do what Photoshop does?

Why?

It is a raw image processor. Full Stop.

Do you honestly believe that Hasselblad have the resources to develop this kind of request?

Do you see Nikon and Canon offering this kind of software for FREE with their cameras?

What kind of selective adjustments are you talking about?

MikeH

I'm a big fan of Phocus. Having said that the one feature I would love to see is the ability to make selective adjustments before export.

Excuse me if I've mentioned this before but it would make a tremendous difference to my - and I expect others - workflow.

Pretty please!

[bdp]

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to keep most image manipulation within the raw processor. Lightroom and Capture One have basic brushes, gradations, keystone correction, grain and vignetting. It's not surprising to me that Hasselblad users want to see development of Phocus to keep up with those feature-rich processors. Yes, Hasselblad's resources may be smaller than Adobe and Phase One, but if you don't ask, you don't get! It's a question of an efficient workflow for me. I rarely need to open Photoshop after a job, just export my keepers, print the proof and deliver the tiffs to the client. The only time I need Photoshop is to do selective adjustments and then you have to save a copy, with layers etc etc. More efficient to do those adjustments at the same time as processing the raw.

[jeff.grant@pobox.com]

Time to get that prescription checked again, Mike. It's not working!

You are kidding right?

You want Phocus to do what Photoshop does?

Why?

It is a raw image processor. Full Stop.

Do you honestly believe that Hasselblad have the resources to develop this kind of request?

Do you see Nikon and Canon offering this kind of software for FREE with their cameras?

What kind of selective adjustments are you talking about?

MikeH

I'm a big fan of Phocus. Having said that the one feature I would love to see is the ability to make selective adjustments before export.

Excuse me if I've mentioned this before but it would make a tremendous difference to my - and I expect others - workflow.

Pretty please!

[Dustbak]

I second the ability to do local adjustments. To be able to alter EV locally for instance would be awesome!!

[mharvey65]

You know it's never going to happen  .

MikeH

Time to get that prescription checked again, Mike. It's not working!

You are kidding right?

You want Phocus to do what Photoshop does?

Why?

It is a raw image processor. Full Stop.

Do you honestly believe that Hasselblad have the resources to develop this kind of request?

Do you see Nikon and Canon offering this kind of software for FREE with their cameras?

What kind of selective adjustments are you talking about?

MikeH

I'm a big fan of Phocus. Having said that the one feature I would love to see is the ability to make selective adjustments before export.

Excuse me if I've mentioned this before but it would make a tremendous difference to my - and I expect others - workflow.

Pretty please!

[Douglas Fairbank @ Classic V]

Never say never! They said that there would never be third party image support but there is and there are other examples. Have faith and keep up the feedback.

[KeithL]

You know it's never going to happen  .

A trusted source told me it was "on the list".

[jeff.grant@pobox.com]

He didn't happen to mention that a selectable background colour might happen anytime soon?

[KeithL]

In your dreams