Target audience?

[MJP Profile]

I am wondering who the target audience is for this software? I am currently using Lightroom and Photoshop and to be honest I am finding it difficult to get into it. There seems to be an overwhelming emphasis on effects and I cannot see the wood for the trees.

[admin]

The target audience is really any photographer. The aim is to be able to get any photographer to improve their photos faster and easier than they could in Photoshop (similarly to what we aim for in Portrait Professional, with portrait photos). Now, we might not be there yet, but that's where you beta testers come in to tell us where we are failing. Now, you say the emphasis is on effects, but effects is just our shorthand way of saying "any change to a photograph". At the risk of putting works into your mouth, do you mean you don't like the kind of changes that are currently offered? Are there particular things you would like to do to your photos that you can't do quickly? We appreciate that a gallery sometimes isn't the best way of approaching certain types of change (like cropping), which is why these are offered as separate tools in the software.

[MJP Profile]

I ask the question because I think it has an affect on the features you provide and the price you are likely to charge. Take one thing I've noticed - it seems I can only handle one image at a time with SPE and yet I typically take a number of shots of one subject/scene. I frequently adjust one shot and synchronise other similar ones with this. I think this a fairly typical use of photo editing software given the use of digital cameras. If I cannot synchronise I want to be able to handle multiple images side by side. Now, I can see that you might rule out this capability because of the nature of use (and the target audience) you are aiming at. That is okay but I do not think I am in that target audience.

Anyway, all of this doesn't mean that I won't continue with my use of SPE. If you don't mind I will take a fairly critical approach until I understand the niche into which SPE fits.

[admin]

The price we are likely to charge will either be low or free. We are hoping to make it easy enough to use to get a lot of people interested. That said, we hope it might be of use to people prepared to spend more than it costs too, because it will allow them to explore a range of looks quicker than they would do in traditional software because of the gallery approach, the new way we do selections and a few other things that are being added to the software. Now there will always be a balance between giving the user control over every aspect of an edit, (which you can get in advanced mode, but it requires learning) and ease of use, but we hope to be able to do most things people will want without exposing the gory details!

The adjusting one shot and syncronising with others is perhaps something that we do already cover though. If you adjust a photo, then choose File>Batch Apply Effect you can apply the same adjustments to any set of photos. This works for any change you make that doesn't require selections (and we can add selections too in the future if people wanted).

Criticism is much more valuable to us than praise, so keep it coming!

[MJP Profile]

admin, your answer tells me a lot. It means I can compare it with a low price or free "editor" and see how it measures up. Before your answer I had no idea where you were pitching it and my comparison was with Lightroom/Photoshop. I wonder why you don't call it Smart Photo Effects!