Pipeline UI direction should be reversed

[pedrorrodriguez]

• Most cultures read top to bottom.
• The direction of our pipeline is displayed bottom to top for some reason.
• This has naturally confused users over the years leading to questions in forums/chat.
• We should have raw at the top > processing modules > export at the bottom

[Gamosphere]

First I will give you a real scenario with the Scopes module. After using DT for a while I realized that I tend to leave the module opened but it slowly started to annoy me that it was reducing the number of modules visible in the pipeline without needing to scroll down.

For fun I downloaded an earlier version of Ansel to see that it was decided to switch it to the left panel......cool! Even if the option was there to switch, I would leave it on the left side.

So even if I find the bottom to top approach logical it would be interesting to work with the top to bottom approach for a little while to see how I would adapt, considering that what I really found difficult initially, was the fact that the modules don't appear in the pipeline in the same order I was using them.

Question: From a software point, is it easy to switch the direction without impacting the modules orders in the pipeline? If it is not I would say just forget about it. A pipeline dedicated tutorial is enough to get you going,

Hey, my first photos editing software was Phtoshop elements and I had no choice but to read and find tutorials about the Masking concept and its use.

[Jiyone]

in photoshop and gimp, the pipe goes bottom to top 🤷🏻

[aurelienpierre]

Pipeline nodes are layers. Layers are stacked bottom to top. It's like that in painting, it's like that in Krita, Gimp, Photoshop, Affinity, etc. Unless you use a node graph and a node editor (with explicit arrows mapping ins and outs) it has to stay a layer stack : effects are applied on top of each other.

It's one of those cases where reading direction is irrelevant and what makes sense to uneducated users is irrelevant too.

[pedrorrodriguez]

Photoshop, gimp, Krita, an oil painting.. They all start with one base layer upon which you add successive ones until you have your final image.

Ansel starts with a full pipeline. The comparison is not appropriate. A pipeline (and I know this well, since I'm renovating my house) consists of pipe sections and joints. Water goes in, water goes out.

The metaphor can't be both a pipeline and a layer stack if you want users to understand (whether educated or not). Having to answer repeatedly in which direction modules are applied suggests to me that this is an issue.

TLDR:

• Layer stack suggests bottom to top to me (because we're used to it by now).
• Pipeline suggests top to bottom and follows reading patterns.

[pedrorrodriguez]

It can. It's harder to understand than top to bottom, though. The only exception I am aware of is layers.

• DAW's go top to bottom.
• Lightroom and capture one go top to bottom.
• Pretty much any web app goes top to bottom.
• Davinci (and other node editors) goes left to right.

Who doesn't? Photoshop, gimp, Krita, affinity, premiere pro, final cut... They all rely on the "layers" metaphor. They also start from a base layer and you keep adding effects on top of it. That's why I think that doesn't work for us.

So for me it makes sense to either fully embrace the layers concept (in the docs), or present the information in a sequential way from top to bottom. I find the latter more intuitive, but you may think otherwise.

[Jiyone]

It's harder to understand than top to bottom, though.

Uhm ok. Well ... lost people will survive yo this 😐

When I was young, I first used photoshop and I didn't get at first that it was bottom to top. But once you know it ...
It's education.

"Pipeline" is used in 3D rendering among other stuff, and doesn't specify in what orientation it should be represented. The idea is a following chain of calculations in a specific order.

What I think could be misleading at first —before even considering the pipe’s orientation— is the very existence of a pipeline. I suspect people assume there’s no module order, as in Lightroom where modules don’t seem to affect each other in sequence.

Education, once again...

[pedrorrodriguez]

I partially agree with you in some things

It's harder to understand than top to bottom, though.

Uhm ok. Well ... lost people will survive yo this 😐

When I was young, I first used photoshop and I didn't get at first that it was bottom to top. But once you know it ... It's education.

Yes, the layers model is well established by now. If it's layers, let's call modules layers and the pipeline layer stack. I find it problematic since we don't start from a blank canvas/base layer in Ansel, but it can work, as long as the nomenclature is clear.

"Pipeline" is used in 3D rendering among other stuff, and doesn't specify in what orientation it should be represented. The idea is a following chain of calculations in a specific order.

Pipeline doesn't imply direction, I agree. We do expect to be presented information in a logical order, from top to bottom, though, since that's how the majority of cultures around the world read/write. We could put the most important parts of a website in the footer, and people could get used to it, but we don't, because it's silly.

What I think could be misleading at first —before even considering the pipe’s orientation— is the very existence of a pipeline. I suspect people assume there’s no module order, as in Lightroom where modules don’t seem to affect each other in sequence.

Education, once again...

Precisely my point. There is a module order, and following that module order is a safe/sane order of operations, which in my opinion we should encourage from the UI. I don't think users should go read a manual to figure that out.

Also, as with anything I may suggest, it doesn't mean that it has to be done right away and exactly how I say. I'm merely pointing out something that's inconsistent, that has led to the same question a few times over the years since I've been a user.

[aurelienpierre]

"Pipeline" vs. "layers" is semantic wordplay. It's 2 abstractions to represent sligtly different things, and in Ansel, they merge together.

Pipeline because it's a bank of filters processing inputs to produce outputs. And each module uses as input the output of the previous.

Layer because we use alpha compositing at the output of each module, and the default alpha mode is "over". "Over" what ? The previous module.

So we borrow concepts from both abstractions and it's equally wrong to delete one to favour the other. Ansel has a pipeline that abides by layer logic.

I'm all for intuitive GUI and abiding by commonly-understood semantics, but this is not about interacting with files or mouse or keyboard, it's the core of the job. Ansel is much closer to Photoshop and its effects layers than to LR or Capture One. Trying to mimic one or the other is cargo cult : we don't do the same thing.

[pedrorrodriguez]

Pipeline because it's a bank of filters processing inputs to produce outputs. And each module uses as input the output of the previous.

Layer because we use alpha compositing at the output of each module, and the default alpha mode is "over". "Over" what ? The previous module.

Davinci resolve does exactly the same thing, per node blend modes included (only we can't do parallel nodes). Since a horizontal node graph doesn't make sense for us, in a vertical layout I would present elements from top to bottom, since it follows common reading/writing patterns.

DAW mixers do vertical layout top to bottom.

I agree Ansel is more similar to photoshop than to capture one, but to me it's even more similar to Davinci resolve tbh.

Trying to mimic one or the other is cargo cult : we don't do the same thing.

Agreed. We do a very similar thing to one of the most popular and well regarded video editor/color grading suite, though. From working in a large linear color space and managing the input/output color space conversions, to CAT, to having lut support, to tone mapping, to having a pipeline with modules that work in a specific order, to being relatively technical and requiring a certain level of knowledge to be able to use it effectively...

Really the similarities with Photoshop at this point aren't that many tbh and the layers paradigm does not add that much in my opinion. Perhaps it started this way, but it no longer seems to be the case.

TLDR. We don't need to blindly copy any one application, but at this point Ansel has more similarities with a high end scene referred video editor than Photoshop/Lightroom in my opinion

[dnlyko]

My 2 cents... The module UI is exactly as it should be. The only suggestion I could make is to reduce the height. Let's assume in the near future 4K is the norm. I think ALL modules should display on a 4K at 100%

[Annabel2]

My 2 cents... there is lots of juicy and important work that potentially can be done. Inverting the pipeline is a tiny matter in comparison, and would probably annoy lots of people if done.