Workflows: What's Next?

[Bob Walker]

Kiril and Jonathan have, as promised, made some really nice enhancements to PWP 5.0's ability to process images in batch mode using workflows. For example, I am very happy with the ability to save workflows from hand-processed image streams, and there are some very nice new widgets that we can use in workflows -- especially the 2-zone and 3-zone widgets. Those new transforms (and widgets) go a very long way towards being able to apply den's multi-tone methods to images.

So, what's next? I start this because of the question thover asked in this thread: http://www.dl-c.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=47.

The main thing I would like to be able to do is to generate image-based masks and apply them in a workflow. I wrote a long-winded example (sorry) of how the copyright imprint workflow that thover referred to could be made better. You can download a copy of the pdf file from http://internet.cybermesa.com/~rwalker/ ... wStory.pdf. I think the request is non-trivial, but allows for very powerful workflows to be created.

If any of you have an interest in talking about what new workflow features would help you, perhaps this is a time to talk about it.

Bob Walker

[Dieter Mayr]

Another useful (at least for me) new feature would be to be able to make manual inputs during the workflow runs.
Like for example to have a Text widget and input a new text (lets say a description of the picture for a calendar) every time a new picture runs through the workflow.
For longer texts, or lots of pictures, maybe the text could be in a Excel-file.
Or, second example, to make a border with a color taken from somewhere within the picture, a bunch of flower pictures where the border should have the color from the flower.
So the workflow would stop at the Border widget and the color could be selected individually.

[tomczak]

Dieter,

You can already do it (mostly): if you change 'All except rejected' to 'Selected images only', you can select a single image (or a group), and then go through widgets and adjust the settings (edit text, change the frame colour etc), just for this image/group. Then you select another image and do the same.

[tomczak]

Bob,

Having a 'Mask Widget' could solve another potential problem - the size of the workflows. Small is nice. The premade masks may not be that heavy, but they are (were?) stored in the workflows. I recall reporting during the beta that once when using Composite Widget, I ended up with 60+Mb workflow file just because the overlay image was a large 48bit TIFF - and I didn't noticed it untill way after trying to figure out why a workflow (a recipe) could possibly be so big.