lightcraft/docs/roadmap.md

Roadmap: milestones, current focus and what's next

Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-10 · Change: major (created; milestones moved here from ROADMAP.md, focus re-ranked after the 2026-10-10 re-measure) · Target: Adobe Lightroom Classic 15.5 / Lightroom 9.6

Forward-looking plan. The summary with the headline numbers is ROADMAP.md; the ranked shortfalls are gaps.md; the numbers come from target-app-parity.md. LightCraft has no cargo xtask scorecard; the measured checklist is parity-checklist.md (cargo xtask parity).

Current focus

Toward beta (~340–600 Opus 5.5 agent hours; ranked, each a gap in gaps.md):

1. Camera colour of our own (gap 1, 50–90 h): chart-based calibration for the most-used models, building on the per-file JPEG fits and pooled profiles (lightcraft-cli calibrate); never Adobe data.
2. CR3 for every Canon body (gap 2, 25–45 h): the remaining CRX variants, sRAW / mRAW, HEIF CR3; clean-room from prose descriptions (decided 2026-10-05; compressed NEF is the template).
3. Render-fidelity suite (gap 3, 30–60 h): score our output against Lightroom's on the same CC0 raws (references local in plan/), then tune; a retune ships as a new process version.
4. Full-resolution zoom (gap 4, 8–15 h): visible-region rendering so 100% shows original pixels.
5. AI masks (gap 5, 40–70 h): Subject / Sky / People on licensable weights; configure the SAM 3 mirror. Needs the maintainer's model decision.
6. Compressed ORF and HE NEF (gaps 6–7, 28–55 h).
7. Lens profiles of our own (gap 8, 40–80 h).
8. Tests in CI on macOS, Windows and Linux (gap 9, 6–12 h).
9. Per-model verification (gap 10, 20–35 h).

Alpha gate

The target's core workflows: what a typical Lightroom user does every day. Alpha requires each to work end to end on the main platform (macOS) and the work to save and reopen. Checked on 2026-10-10 against the code, tests, issues and gaps.md.

Workflow	Works end to end?	Evidence	Hours to pass
1. Import a shoot (raw + JPEG) from a card or folder into the library	yes	Add / Copy / Move import with templates, duplicates, devices with DCIM, background import with cancel (crates/engine/src/import.rs, tests_import.rs, tests_import_move.rs); checklist A 83%	0
2. Cull: rate, flag, label, compare / survey, filter, check focus	yes (partial: focus check)	ratings / flags / labels with advance, Compare, Survey ≤ 48, filter bar, smart albums (checklist B–D 88–92%); 100% zoom is capped by the preview size (2,560 px default, adjustable in Settings), gap 4 — degrades focus checks on large files but does not block culling	0 (8–15 h to close gap 4, beta)
3. Develop raws non-destructively (global sliders, crop, masks, heal)	yes for most cameras (partial: Canon CR3 outside the verified variants, compressed ORF, HE NEF open as embedded previews)	Sony, Nikon (except HE), Fujifilm, Panasonic, Pentax, CR2, DNG decode from sensor data (raw-parity.md); every Edit slider, crop / Upright, brush / gradient / range masks, heal / clone (checklist F, H, K); colour estimated per file rather than measured, gaps 1–3	0 (coverage and colour gaps are beta blockers 1–3, 6–7)
4. Save, quit and reopen the work	yes	crash-safe journal + snapshots, torn-append and crash tests (crates/catalog/src/journal.rs, tests_journal.rs, tests_torn_append.rs); XMP sidecars read / write; failed saves reported	0
5. Batch-apply a look: presets, copy / paste / sync settings	yes	presets (incl. .xmp / .lrtemplate import), copy / paste / sync, auto sync (checklist L 86%, N 100%)	0
6. Export deliverables (JPEG / TIFF, size, sharpening, metadata, watermark, naming)	yes	one encoder for app, CLI and MCP (crates/engine/src/export.rs, tests_export.rs); checklist S 89%	0

Result: passes. Every core workflow runs end to end on macOS and the work survives quit and reopen; the partial rows degrade fidelity for some cameras and large files but don't stop the workflow, so LightCraft stays alpha (ready for real work ~61%, above the ~40% bar).

After beta

Enhance (Raw Details, Super Resolution, X-Trans denoise), content-aware remove, HDR display, the Classic output modules (Print, then Map, Book, Slideshow, publish services), tethering, video, plug-in ecosystem, localization to full and new scripts (RTL, shaping). Estimates in gaps.md entries 11–28; ~500–1,300 h after beta.

Milestones

Original wall-clock estimates (made before work started, 4–6 parallel agents) are kept for calibration: M0–M13 took ≈ 25 active hours against an estimate of ≈ 110–170 h.

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 incl. sRAW, ARW, NEF uncompressed / lossless / lossy / lossy after split, embedded previews)
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 🟡 (Bayer, optional weights; policy/fidelity open); 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, HDR gain map JPEG / PQ AVIF ✅; JXL encode ⬜)
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 all, RW2 every format, PEF, ORF uncompressed and 12.8 bpp, SRW uncompressed, HEIC ✅; CR3 🟡 (3 bodies verified); camera colour calibration 🚧 (per-file JPEG fits, 4 bundled profiles, 52 spectral matrices; measured database missing); compressed ORF / SRW, HE NEF, IIQ, X3F ⬜)
M12	AI & smart features	subject/sky/background/people/object masks, semantic search, faces/People (permissively licensed models, pure-Rust inference)	20–40	🚧 (faces: detection, recognition, People view ✅; Object / Describe masks via SAM 3 🟡; Subject / Sky / People masks, semantic search ⬜)
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 ✅; contact-sheet PDF 🟡; 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 ✅; English/Chinese (Simplified, Traditional)/Japanese/Brazilian Portuguese/Spanish/German/Russian/Ukrainian localisation 🟡; accessibility and further locales ⬜)

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 coverage grows over time and needs people with cameras, lenses and charts.
• Raw-format sources: decoders are written from prose format descriptions (even ones published alongside GPL code); decoder source is never read (decided 2026-10-05). 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 until the fidelity suite exists. Retuning changes existing edits, so it ships as a new process version (process-versions.md).

Design notes kept from the old ROADMAP

• Folder records: library folders have records of their own in the catalog (Catalog.folder_records, keyed by folder path; colour labels first). Photos still store full paths, so moving a whole disk relinks each photo. If that becomes a problem (an "Update Folder Location" for a renamed drive, journal growth on large moves), the next step is the Classic model: photos point to a folder id (root + relative path).
• Zoom: native pinch zoom and two-finger pan work in Detail, Compare and Reference views; the whole-image preview still has a configurable cap (2,560 px default), see gap 4.

Revision history

Date	Change	Summary
2026-10-10	minor	Beta hours 340–600; full ready ~59% in the gate note
2026-10-10	minor	Added the Alpha gate table (core-workflow gate from the revised standard): passes, stays alpha
2026-10-10	major	Created: milestones moved from ROADMAP.md (statuses refreshed: M3 ✅, M11 / M12 / M15 detail), current focus re-ranked toward beta, risks and design notes kept