photocraft/docs/roadmap.md

Roadmap

Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-10 · Change: minor (Photomerge implementation status corrected; real-world quality validation remains open) · Target: Adobe Photoshop 2026

Forward-looking plan: milestones, the Current focus list, and what's next with estimates. Where we stand today is in target-app-parity.md (two numbers, by dimension and area) and the ranked work list in gaps.md; the one-page summary is ROADMAP.md. Measured numbers: scorecard.md (cargo xtask scorecard: performance budgets, corpus floors, per-area checklists, dead preferences) and parity-checklist.md (cargo xtask parity: menu wiring, 628/628, which says nothing about behaviour).

Status legend: ✅ done · 🟡 in progress · ⬜ not started. Hours are Opus 5.5 agent wall-clock hours for one agent working sequentially (calibration in target-app-parity.md).

Stage: alpha (ready for real work ~45%). Beta needs ~75% and reliable PSD: ~1,100–1,800 h.

Alpha gate

The core workflows a typical Photoshop professional runs every day, checked end to end on the main platform (macOS, 0.6.0), including saving and reopening the work. Any no, or a partial that blocks the workflow, would make PhotoCraft pre-alpha.

Core workflow	Works end to end?	Evidence	Hours to pass
Photo retouch: open JPEG/raw, heal/clone/remove, adjustment layers, export JPEG, save and reopen	yes	Spot Healing, Healing, Clone, Patch, Remove tools; 16 adjustment layers; raw for DNG/CR2/NEF/ARW/RAF; JPEG export; MCP workflow tests (automation/tests/agent_tasks.rs). Quality complaints (#1092, #2104) and no CR3 don't stop the workflow	0
Composite: layers, masks, selections, blend modes, smart objects; save as PSD and .pcraft and reopen	yes	PSD round trip ≥ 169/170, 308/309, 258/256 corpus files; .pcraft atomic save and crash recovery. Multi-layer Smart Object conversion (#2604) and mask targeting (#2458) are partial but have workarounds	0
Cut-out: select a subject, refine the edge, mask, export PNG with transparency	partial (not blocking)	Object/Quick Selection, Select Subject (classical), Refine Edge dialog, layer masks, PNG export. Select and Mask is a dialog, not the workspace; no Refine Hair (#2671)	0 (depth: 80–140 h, G7)
Design: type, shapes, layer styles, artboards; export PNG/JPEG; save and reopen	partial (not blocking)	Point/paragraph type, shapes with stroke controls, all 10 layer effects, artboards, Export As. One macOS report of a 60 s freeze on choosing the Type tool (#2518, not reproduced); no type on a path	0 (fix #2518: 2–6 h)
Paint with a pen tablet: pressure brushes, layers, save and reopen	partial (not blocking)	Pressure, tilt, rotation on macOS (AppKit monitor); every Brush Settings section. Lag with big brushes (#2619) and feel gaps (brush-parity.md)	0 (feel: 100–180 h, G4)
Exchange PSDs with Photoshop users: open a client PSD, edit, send a PSD back	partial (not blocking for alpha; blocking for beta)	Photoshop-authored oracle 133/256 render as Photoshop does; most exports open in Photoshop (smart objects verified), but some don't (#1281, #2469)	0 for alpha; 150–250 h for beta (G1)

Result: passes. Every core workflow completes end to end and the work saves and reopens in PhotoCraft; the partial rows are depth and fidelity gaps with workarounds, not blockers. Ready for real work is ~45%, inside the alpha band (~40–75%), but close to its floor.

Milestones

M	Status	Where we are
M0 Skeleton	✅	workspace, xtask (layers / wasm / ci / stats / corpus / parity), CI workflow
M1 Foundation	✅	geom, color (27 blend modes), raster (COW tiles, any depth), doc, ops, cms (ICC)
M2 PSD v1	✅	photocraft-psd: 134/135 real files byte-exact round trip
M3 Viewer app	✅	egui shell (Pro / Studio / Classic themes), 13+ codecs, native and web (trunk) builds
M4 Native format + engine	✅	~700 commands, .pcraft (incremental, autosave, crash recovery), CLI, persistent preferences
M5 GPU compositor	🟡	wgpu compositor drives the canvas, layer effects, vector masks, artboards, pattern fills and every clip case included (≤1/255 vs CPU); Multichannel documents fall back to the CPU
M6 Paint + select	🟡	brush engine, all selection tools, multi-layer selection, snapping + smart guides, free transform + warp; stylus pressure on Windows (WM_POINTER via winit), the web (Pointer Events, with tilt/twist), macOS (AppKit event monitor: pressure, tilt, rotation, eraser end) and Linux X11 (XInput2 raw valuators); on Linux Wayland a pen opens the window through Xwayland (native tablet-v2 still open, #79)
M7 Adjust + filters	🟡	16 adjustment layers + destructive-only adjustments, 70+ filters incl. Blur Gallery, Actions record/replay, Fade
M8 PSD v2	🟡	adjustments (incl. Selective Color, Color Lookup), fills, effects, patterns, text, shapes, smart objects, alpha channels; oracle floors 146/170 (io), 236/309 (psd-tools), 133/256 (Photoshop-authored)
M9 Text, vector, styles	🟡	type engine + Warp Text, shapes / pen / paths, all 10 effects on CPU and GPU (parity ≤1/255, 30/31 corpus effect files on the GPU)
M10 Smart features	🟡	classical Select Subject / Object, content-aware fill and scale, healing, auto-align / auto-blend; ML backend not started
M11 Automation + formats	🟡	MCP (headless + live bridge), batch, Image Processor, prefs over MCP; DoD test passes (10 agent tasks over MCP, automation/tests/agent_tasks.rs); since 2026-10-07 the CLI rejects unknown flags and answers <subcommand> --help, batch runs report same-name outputs instead of overwriting them, MCP command_batch steps can start background jobs, and headless saves never flatten over the opened file; JP2 / DICOM / DPX / C2PA pending
M12 Pro parity	🟡	CMYK / Lab / Indexed / Bitmap / Duotone, ICC + soft proofing, channels + Quick Mask, smart-object stack modes, artboards, layer comps; print, HDR, timeline pending; Photomerge is implemented, with real-world quality validation still open

Releases: 0.1.0 (2026-10-02), 0.2.0 (2026-10-05, first signed and notarized), 0.3.0 (10-07), 0.5.0 (10-08), 0.6.0 (10-10).

Current focus

Ranked; each item links to its gap entry. Pick from the top unless an issue is assigned to you.

1. PSD that Photoshop trusts (G1): fix Photoshop refusing our files (#1281, #2469; text-layer case #2374 closed); add a Photoshop re-open check (FILE-216-4); Photoshop-oracle floor 133/256 → 200+. 150–250 h.
2. Performance budgets (G2): the 22 over-budget scenarios, the P12 GPU crash at 150 layers, brush and cursor lag (#2619, #2566). 200–350 h.
3. User bug backlog (G3): 579 open issues, most from 0.5/0.6 users; triage weekly, fix regressions first. 250–400 h.
4. Brush and transform feel (G4, G5): brush-parity.md and ui-parity.md rows marked partial or missing. 150–250 h.
5. Missing tools (G6): 15 of Photoshop's 68. 60–100 h.

What's next, with estimates

Next milestone	Scope	Estimate
0.7 "files you can trust"	Current focus 1 plus JPEG Options, AVIF read, Photoshop PDF read	200–320 h
0.8 "fast enough"	Current focus 2; GPU tiling past the texture limit (#49); complex layout documents	200–350 h
0.9 "feels like Photoshop"	Current focus 4 and 5; transform context menu; floating panels; Color panel	300–500 h
Beta	All of the above, type depth, Select and Mask / Content-Aware Fill workspaces, Hindi/Arabic/Vietnamese + RTL, bug backlog under 100	1,100–1,800 h total
Later, needs owner decisions	AI backend (#41), plug-in hosting (.8BF / UXP), scripting compatibility	550–1,050 h

Milestone definitions

Each milestone has a definition of done (DoD) and must leave main green on all Tier-1 platforms plus a wasm build.

M	Name	Scope (key items)	DoD / acceptance
M0	Skeleton	Workspace, all crate stubs, lints, xtask (layers check, ci), CI matrix, testkit	cargo test --workspace green; cargo check --target wasm32-unknown-unknown -p photocraft-engine -p photocraft-ui-egui green; layering check passes
M1	Foundation	geom, color (formats, blend math for all 27 modes, sRGB/linear), raster (sparse COW tiles, U8/U16/F32), doc (full type model incl. CMYK/Lab/adjust/smart), ops (history)	Property tests (proptest) on tile COW and history; blend-mode reference tests against published formulas
M2	PSD v1	photocraft-psd: header, resources, layer records, channel data (raw/RLE/ZIP/ZIP+pred), masks, groups (lsct), unicode names, unknown-block passthrough, merged image, PSB; writer	Round-trip byte-stability tests; synthetic PSD generator tests; fuzz target; ≥150 unit tests
M3	Viewer app	codecs (png/jpeg/tiff/webp/gif/bmp/tga/pnm/qoi/exr/hdr, all read+write), CPU compositor, egui shell (menu from registry, canvas pan/zoom, layers panel, history), open/save, native + web build	Opens PNG/JPEG/PSD, shows layers, toggles visibility, undo/redo, saves PNG/PSD; web build loads a file from the browser
M4	Native format + engine	.pcraft bundle, command registry with schemas, jobs/cancellation, snapshots via arc-swap, CLI (convert, run, inspect)	CLI parity tests: every GUI command also runs headless
M5	GPU compositor	wgpu planner backend, tile residency, parity tests vs CPU (all blend modes), viewport on GPU, mips	GPU vs CPU ≤1/255; pan/zoom 60 fps on a 100 MP / 20-layer document
M6	Paint + select	platform input (pen: macOS/Windows/Linux/web), brush engine v1, eraser, marquee/lasso/wand, move, free transform, crop	Brush latency <1 frame; selection-restricted paint tests
M7	Adjust + filters	16 adjustment layers, first 30 filters, schema-generated dialogs + live preview, actions record/replay	Golden tests at 8/16/32f; action replay determinism
M8	PSD v2	adjustment layers, fill layers, lfx2 effects (descriptor parser), text (EngineData) preserve+render, smart objects, vector masks	Composite-oracle pass rate ≥90% on corpus
M9	Text, vector, styles	parley text layers, shapes/pen/paths, all 10 layer effects on GPU	Visual goldens; PSD text round-trip
M10	Smart features	ml (ort native / ort-web on the web), Select Subject/Object/Sky, Remove BG, Remove tool, content-aware fill, healing, AI denoise, RAW develop	Quality benchmarks on a public dataset; timing budgets
M11	Automation + formats	MCP server, batch, scripting, remaining formats (JP2, DICOM, DPX…), C2PA	An agent completes 10 scripted edit tasks via MCP
M12	Pro parity	CMYK/Lab UI, print, HDR display/merge, Photomerge quality validation, timeline, layer comps, artboards, symmetry, neural filters	xtask parity ≥ 90% of Photoshop menu checklist

Revision history

Date	Change	Summary
2026-10-10	minor	Photomerge is implemented; real-world quality validation remains open
2026-10-10	minor	Alpha gate table (core-workflow gate from the progress-docs standard): passes, stage stays alpha
2026-10-10	major	Progress-docs standard: honest assessment and dated measurements moved to target-app-parity.md, Affinity notes to file-format-parity.md; new Current focus and estimates; parity.md renamed parity-checklist.md
2026-10-08	minor	Tools, Affinity import and performance measurements added
2026-10-05	major	Honest parity assessment added