lightcraft/ROADMAP.md

LightCraft roadmap

Milestones toward full Adobe Lightroom parity (cloud Lightroom first, then every Lightroom Classic module), with wall-clock estimates for continuous (24/7) agent-driven development with 4–6 parallel agents. Estimates are calibrated on the sibling projects (DrawCraft reached its first four milestones in ≈ 4½ h) and are revised as milestones land.

Where we stand

Honest assessment, 2026-10-05. Agents: read this before picking work. The checklist in docs/parity.md counts features that exist; this section is about whether a photographer can switch from Lightroom. Update it when a gap below closes.

In one line: the checklist says 79% (P0 98.5%, P1 95.9%, P2 39%), but measured by whether a working photographer could replace Lightroom without noticing, we are at roughly 60–70%. The remaining gap is mostly quality of results and camera coverage, not missing buttons.

Caveat on the checklist: ✅ is set by whoever lands a feature, and nobody has systematically checked rows against Lightroom's behaviour or output. Bugs keep turning up in ✅ areas (CR2 colour-filter phase on some Canon models #85, duplicate Local entries #22, black GPU exports on an Intel iGPU #78).

By dimension

Dimension	Estimate	What's true today	Biggest gaps
Feature checklist	79%	P0 core and P1 nearly complete: import (Add / Copy / Move, templates, devices), library, grid/loupe/compare/survey, every Edit slider, curves, colour grading, masking tools, crop/Upright, heal/clone, presets/profiles, versions/history, sync, export, menus, shortcuts	P1: lens-profile database, content-aware fill (patch synthesis), video playback/trim
RAW coverage (formats people shoot)	~50%	DNG (all kinds), CR2, ARW, NEF (uncompressed + Huffman lossless/lossy), uncompressed RAF/ORF, packed RW2, PEF; every container's embedded preview (incl. CR3)	CR3 (every Canon since ~2018), compressed RAF/ORF, RW2 v4, Nikon lossy-after-split, Canon sRAW, HEIC/AVIF. Per-model verification is thin (~40 corpus files vs >1,000 models)
Colour & image quality	~55–65%	Pipeline is complete and fast; GPU path CPU-exact within 1/255	No measured camera calibration database: ARW has a guarded per-file embedded-JPEG colour estimate (docs/camera-preview-colour.md); other non-DNG raws and rejected estimates use a neutral matrix. Colour fidelity remains incomplete. No lens-profile database. No measured fidelity against Lightroom (tone, highlights, texture/clarity, NR, sharpening are tuned by eye)
AI & computational	~15–20%	Assisted culling (focus, bursts), auto tone, HDR/panorama merge; subject/sky/background masks as classical heuristics	Real segmentation masks (subject, sky, people, objects, landscape, depth), AI denoise, super resolution, lens blur, generative remove, faces/people, natural-language search. Blocked on a model strategy (licensable weights or our own training; pure-Rust inference is feasible)
Workflow & library	~85% (single machine)	Robust catalog (journal + snapshots, background compaction, crash-tested), 85k-photo libraries stay responsive, Local browsing with automatic cleanup, XMP interop, keywords, smart albums, Move import	Opening an 85k library takes 1.7–4.7 s; no cloud sync (out of scope), no tablet companion (#74, roadmap), shared albums, publish services, tethering
Classic modules	~30%	Geotagging from GPX track logs, soft proofing (partial), slideshow (basic)	Map view, Book, Print, Slideshow module, Web, publish services: ~40 tracker rows ⬜
HDR & video	0%		HDR edit/display/export; video play/trim/edit/export
Platform & robustness	~70%	macOS native; Windows/Linux builds; web via WASM; no-panic lints workspace-wide, unsafe confined to crates/sysmem; failed saves are reported; GPU errors fall back to CPU	Windows installer UI unverified on Windows (PR #79); GPU path proven only on Apple + user reports; Japanese/English UI (see docs/localization-ja.md); remaining technical errors and other languages; accessibility partial; headless UI tests time out under machine load

By kind of user

User	Readiness	What blocks them
JPEG / DNG shooter, single machine	~85%	Fidelity polish, AI masks
Nikon / Sony / older-Canon raw shooter	~65%	Camera colour fidelity and coverage (ARW preview estimates are only a starting point)
Canon CR3 / Fujifilm / Olympus shooter	~35%	Their raws open as embedded previews only
Lightroom Classic power user	~45%	Print, Book, Map, publish, tethering
Relies on AI (masks, denoise)	~25%	No segmentation or AI denoise models

Where we're going

Priorities, in order. Each points at tracker rows in docs/parity.md → Top gaps.

1. Camera colour calibration of our own (LR-PROF-CAMERACOLOR, P0): fit each camera to its own embedded JPEG, use matrices the files carry themselves, then chart shots. Sony ARW's file-local fit (matrix + tone curve from its own JPEG) is the first step; generalise it to the other makes' raws (NEF, RW2, PEF, ORF…), then validate fidelity.
2. Raw formats, clean-room (LR-IMP-FORMATS, P0): CR3 first, then compressed RAF / ORF, RW2 v4, NEF lossy-after-split, sRAW. Decided 2026-10-05: write our own decoders from prose descriptions (never decoder source, no LGPL dependency); compressed NEF (#86) is the template.
3. Verified camera coverage (LR-IMP-CAMERA-COVERAGE, P0): a CC0 sample per model in the corpus, each decoded and checked for plausible colour; fix per-model bugs (#85).
4. Render fidelity suite (LR-BEHAV-RENDER-FIDELITY, P1): measure our output against Lightroom on the same CC0 raws (references stay in the local plan/), then tune against the numbers.
5. Lens profiles of our own (LR-EDIT-OPTICS-PROFILE, P1).
6. AI model strategy (maintainer decision): which permissively licensed models (or our own training) for segmentation masks and denoise; then pure-Rust inference. Unblocks M12 and Enhance.
7. Then: HDR (Q), the Classic output modules (Print first, then Map view, Book, Slideshow), video (R), localisation and accessibility.

Already closed in the week of 2026-10-03: compressed NEF (#10), Move import (#29), per-library smart-preview folder, Local roots / cleanup, grid and catalog performance at 85k photos (#35, #37), failed-save reporting, GPU export hardening (#78), copyright metadata (#51), GPX geotagging (#60), import tag help and folder templates (#31, #32).

Milestones

Status legend: ✅ done · 🚧 in progress · ⬜ not started

#	Milestone	Scope (summary)	Estimate (h)	Status
M0	Skeleton + visual shell	workspace, xtask CI + layering, geom/color/raster, develop model, pipeline v0, catalog v0, engine commands, Lightroom-look UI (grid, loupe, filmstrip, Edit panel), control channel, MCP, web build	3–5	✅
M1	Library core	import (JPEG/PNG/TIFF/WebP), EXIF/XMP, persistent catalog (op log + snapshots), albums, ratings/flags/labels, filter/search/sort, thumbnail cache, 100k-photo grid	6–10	✅ (100k-photo grid scale test pending)
M2	Pipeline v1 (quality)	WB temp/tint, profiles, local tone mapping (highlights/shadows), curves, HSL, point colour, colour grading, texture/clarity/dehaze, vignette, grain, B&W, auto tone/WB, histogram, before/after	10–15	✅ (look tuning vs our references ongoing)
M3	RAW I	TIFF/DNG (LJ92, deflate, tiles, opcodes), demosaic (AHD/PPG/bilinear), highlight recovery, DNG colour model, CR2, NEF, ARW, embedded previews	10–15	🚧 (DNG, CR2, ARW, NEF uncompressed + Huffman lossless/lossy, embedded previews ✅; NEF lossy-after-split ⬜)
M4	Crop, geometry, optics	crop tool + overlays, straighten, Upright (auto/level/vertical/full/guided), manual transforms, CA, defringe, manual lens corrections	6–10	✅
M5	Performance	source pyramids, wgpu compute pipeline (CPU oracle), draft/full renders, prefetch, budgets (16 ms slider updates on 24 MP)	10–15	🚧 (stage cache, source pyramid, wgpu pipeline, prefetch, memory budget ✅; colour NR at half resolution, GPU histogram ⬜)
M6	Masking	brush, linear/radial gradients, colour/luminance/depth range, add/subtract/intersect/invert, all local adjustments, masks panel	8–12	🚧 (brush/linear/radial/colour/luminance range, add/subtract/intersect, masks panel ✅; depth range, AI masks ⬜)
M7	Detail	sharpening + masking preview, luminance/colour NR, Denoise, Raw Details, Super Resolution	6–10	🚧 (sharpening, luminance/colour NR ✅; AI Denoise, Raw Details, Super Resolution ⬜)
M8	Heal / Remove	content-aware remove (PatchMatch), heal, clone, brush spots, visualize spots, red/pet eye	6–10	🚧 (heal, clone, auto source, visualize spots, red/pet eye ✅; PatchMatch remove ⬜)
M9	Presets, profiles, versions, sync	preset browser + amount, create/import presets, profile browser, versions, history, copy/paste/sync settings	5–8	✅
M10	Export & share	export dialog (JPEG/PNG/TIFF/DNG/AVIF/JXL/original), sizing, sharpening, metadata, watermark, naming, batch jobs, XMP sidecars, HDR export	6–10	🚧 (all formats incl. DNG/original, sizing, presets, background jobs ✅; JXL encode, HDR export ⬜)
M11	RAW II	CR3, RAF (X-Trans), ORF, RW2, PEF, SRW, 3FR, IIQ + long tail; camera calibration DB; HEIC/AVIF/JXL import	20–35	🚧 (RAF uncompressed, RW2 packed, PEF, ORF uncompressed ✅; camera colour calibration 🚧 (guarded ARW preview fitting; measured database still missing), CR3, compressed ORF/RAF ⬜)
M12	AI & smart features	subject/sky/background/people/object masks, semantic search, faces/People (permissively licensed models, pure-Rust inference)	20–40	⬜
M13	Merge	HDR merge (deghost), panorama (projections, boundary warp, fill edges), HDR panorama	10–15	✅
M14	Video	import/playback/trim via FilmCraft crates, global edits + presets on video, video export	6–10	⬜
M15	Classic modules	Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, Web; smart collections, stacks, virtual copies, publish services, tethering	25–40	🚧 (smart albums, stacks, virtual copies, compare/survey ✅; Map/Book/Slideshow/Print/Web ⬜)
M16	1.0 polish	preferences, shortcut editor, accessibility, localization, packaging (dmg/msi/AppImage/web), hardening	10–20	🚧 (settings, keyboard shortcuts sheet, packaging basics ✅; Japanese/English localisation 🟡; accessibility and other locales ⬜)

Parity estimate (feature count updated 2026-10-05; effort estimate from 2026-10-02)

By feature count — from docs/parity.md (one row per Lightroom feature, menu item and shortcut; cargo xtask parity prints this line on every run, so it stays current):

Scope	Weighted completion	Rows	2026-10-02
P0 (core)	98.5%	200	98.7%
P1 (important parity)	95.9%	147	94.4%
P2 (later / AI / niche, incl. Classic modules)	39.2%	158	29.4%
All in-scope rows	79.2%	505	75.6%

The 2026-10-05 count includes three new 🟡 rows that make quality gaps visible (camera colour calibration, verified camera coverage, render fidelity), which is why P0 dipped slightly.

✅ counts 1, 🟡 ½, ⬜ 0; out-of-scope rows (cloud sharing, Adobe accounts…) are left out.

By remaining effort — rows are not equal: a shortcut and the whole Book module are one row each, and what is left is the heavy part (AI, video, Classic output modules, undocumented raw codecs). Remaining work in Opus agent-hours (one agent working continuously; calibrated on this project — a single lead agent closed ≈ 45 tracker rows of UI/feature work in ≈ 5 h on 2026-10-01, and ≈ 60 more (preset import incl. .lrtemplate / DNG / zip and masks, smart-album rule editor, auto sync, keyword and label sets, import options and DNG conversion, smart previews, external-editor round trip, slideshow, auto import…) in ≈ 12 h on 2026-10-02; four to six parallel agents built M0–M13 in ≈ 25 active hours):

Work package	Tracker rows	Agent-hours	Risk
Remaining P0/P1 UI and library features (folder rename/move, keyword painter, people view…)	≈ 8	5–10	low
Raw codecs: CR3 (CRX), compressed ORF / RAF, NEF lossy-after-split, RW2 v4, HEIC/AVIF decode, JPEG XL DNG	LR-IMP-FORMATS	40–80	high — clean-room black-box analysis, no permissive specs
Lens-profile database of our own (calibration targets, fitting, data)	LR-EDIT-OPTICS-PROFILE	15–30	data collection
Video: playback, trim, edits, export (pure-Rust decode, ideally shared with FilmCraft)	R. Video	20–40	medium
AI: subject / sky / background / people / object masks, object-aware remove, AI denoise, super resolution, lens blur, people & faces, natural-language search, culling	≈ 30	80–150	high — permissively licensed weights, pure-Rust inference, maybe training
HDR editing, display, visualisation and export	Q. HDR, LR-EXP-HDR	15–25	medium
Classic modules: Map, Book, Slideshow module, Print, publish services, tethering, soft proofing	≈ 50	60–100	medium (large, well-understood)
Smaller P2 items: Enhance dialog, export to Photos, help / what's new, accessibility, localisation, sidecar variants	≈ 15	12–25	low
Look tuning, performance budgets (colour NR at half resolution on CPU + GPU, 100k-photo library), packaging, hardening	—	25–45	medium
Total remaining		≈ 270–505

Spent so far ≈ 105–145 agent-hours, so by effort the project is ≈ 20–35% of the way to complete Lightroom + Classic parity, and ≈ 45–60% of the way for cloud-Lightroom parity without AI and the Classic modules (remaining ≈ 130–255 h, most of it the raw codecs, lens data, video and HDR).

Wall clock: ≈ 270–505 h for one agent working alone; with 4–6 parallel agents (≈ 70% parallel efficiency, merges and CI under load cost the rest) ≈ 65–125 h of continuous work. The AI package and the raw codecs carry most of the uncertainty: they can finish faster if suitable permissive models / documentation turn up, or stall on licensing.

Totals

Remaining from 2026-10-02 evening (see Parity estimate above for the breakdown):

Target	Remaining agent-hours	Wall clock, 4–6 parallel agents
Cloud-Lightroom parity without AI or Classic modules	≈ 130–255 h	≈ 35–65 h
Full parity incl. AI, video and the Classic modules	≈ 270–505 h	≈ 65–125 h

The milestone estimates in the table above were made before work started and are kept for calibration (M0–M13 took ≈ 25 active hours with parallel agents against an estimate of ≈ 110–170 h for those milestones).

Risks that coding hours alone don't retire

• AI features (subject/sky/people masks, generative remove) need model weights with licences we can ship; classical fallbacks first. No permissively licensed sky-segmentation or raw-denoise model was found — we may need to train our own.
• Camera colour and lens data is a data problem: we never use Adobe's matrices, DCPs or LCPs. DNG-embedded data first, then our own calibration; long-tail camera/lens coverage grows over time.
• Raw-format sources: decided 2026-10-05: decoders are written from prose format descriptions (even ones published alongside GPL code); decoder source is never read. Still open: freedom-to-operate review for local Laplacian filters, PatchMatch and HEVC (HEIC).
• Look parity with Adobe's default rendering is tuned by eye today; the planned fidelity suite (LR-BEHAV-RENDER-FIDELITY) turns it into measured comparisons against local-only Lightroom references.

Raw format coverage and known gaps

Decoded (CC0 corpus from raw.pixls.us, cargo xtask corpus --download, crates/raw/tests/corpus.rs): DNG (uncompressed, LJ92, lossy JPEG / Smart Previews, Deflate, float, linear), CR2, ARW (uncompressed, ARW2, LJ92), NEF/NRW uncompressed and Huffman-compressed (lossless, lossy type 1/2, 12/14-bit), RAF uncompressed (Bayer and X-Trans), RW2 packed 12/14-bit, PEF (uncompressed and Huffman), ORF uncompressed (16-bit and 12-bit packed). Every supported container also yields its embedded JPEG preview (CR3 too), and the engine shows that preview for raw variants it can't decode yet.

Not decoded yet — preview only (no permissively licensed description; black-box analysis incomplete):

• Nikon "lossy after split" NEF (non-zero split row in maker note 0x0096, e.g. some D3400/D5000/D5200/D5500/D5600 files): rows above the split decode with the regular lossy table; from the split row on a different code is used that our black-box analysis has not recovered yet (none of the four regular tables fits, also not with byte alignment or reset predictors at the split row). The other Nikon Huffman variants are decoded (crates/raw/src/vendor/nefc.rs documents the analysis).
• Panasonic RW2 raw format 4 (quantised): the block layout is known (0x4000-byte chunks rotated by 0x1ff8; 128-bit blocks of two 12-bit seeds plus four groups of a 2-bit scale and three 8-bit codes; scales 0/1 are ×1/×2 differences from the same-colour pixel two to the left), the reconstruction rule for scales 2/3 is not established.
• Olympus compressed ORF, Fujifilm compressed RAF, Canon CR3/CRX (M11.1), Canon sRAW/mRAW, lossy DNG.

Camera colour matrices: ARW files can use guarded, separate chromaticity and tone estimates from their own embedded JPEG (see docs/camera-preview-colour.md); this is a per-file camera-look estimate with relative WB, not measured calibration or absolute-Kelvin WB. Other non-DNG raws and rejected fits use the documented neutral fallback (camera RGB ≈ linear sRGB, flagged matrix_is_fallback) with the file's as-shot white-balance multipliers. Clean sources to evaluate next: manufacturer matrices stored in the files themselves (Olympus ImageProcessing ColorMatrix, Pentax/Panasonic equivalents) and our own chart-based calibration (M11.4). Adobe matrices are never used.

Log

• 2026-09-30: roadmap created; M0 in progress; research docs (Lightroom reference, Rust imaging ecosystem) complete.
• 2026-09-30 (later): app running with the full Lightroom-style UI; pipeline v0; DNG/CR2/ARW; README showcase. ≈ 8 h elapsed.
• 2026-10-02: parity estimate added (xtask parity prints weighted completion); milestone statuses refreshed.
• 2026-10-01: RAW II formats: RAF (uncompressed Bayer + X-Trans), RW2 (packed), PEF (incl. Huffman), ORF (uncompressed); embedded previews for every container incl. CR3; raw corpus test with 37 CC0 samples.
• 2026-10-03 – 10-05: community PRs (#42–#51, #60) and 25+ issues landed: compressed NEF, Move import, folder templates, Local roots and cleanup, 85k-photo grid and catalog performance, background compaction, failed-save errors, GPU export hardening, clippy 1.99. Added the honest Where we stand assessment and Where we're going priorities; added tracker rows for camera colour, camera coverage and render fidelity.

Japanese interface and text watermarks

English/Japanese interface language is persisted in UI state. Core menus have Japanese translations; untranslated panels and dialogs retain English. BIZ UDMincho is bundled under OFL for Japanese glyph coverage without system fonts. Text watermarks now accept vertical: true in export JSON/presets and expose an orientation selector. Japanese characters stay upright in top-to-bottom columns, with newlines starting columns to the left. This is basic lettering, without tate-chu-yoko, ruby, kinsoku, or general vertical OpenType shaping. The same coverage renderer serves 8/16/32-bit exports.