# 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`](target-app-parity.md) (two numbers, by
dimension and area) and the ranked work list in [`gaps.md`](gaps.md); the one-page summary is
[`ROADMAP.md`](../ROADMAP.md). Measured numbers: [`scorecard.md`](scorecard.md)
(`cargo xtask scorecard`: performance budgets, corpus floors, per-area checklists, dead
preferences) and [`parity-checklist.md`](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`](target-app-parity.md#remaining-effort-and-calibration)).

**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](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](gaps.md#g1-psd-fidelity-and-photoshop-acceptance)):
   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](gaps.md#g2-interactive-performance)): 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](gaps.md#g3-user-reported-bug-backlog)): 579 open issues, most from
   0.5/0.6 users; triage weekly, fix regressions first. 250–400 h.
4. **Brush and transform feel** ([G4](gaps.md#g4-brush-feel), [G5](gaps.md#g5-transform-handles-and-modifiers)):
   [`brush-parity.md`](brush-parity.md) and [`ui-parity.md`](ui-parity.md) rows marked partial
   or missing. 150–250 h.
5. **Missing tools** ([G6](gaps.md#g6-missing-tools)): 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 |