Could be great...but isnt

I want to like Lucid more than I actually do. Its got a LOT of powerful and incredibly useful stuff going on under the hood. The power there certainly merits 5 stars. And the inclusion of additions like a crop tool means not needing to lose more image quality after subsequent reopening of a JPG in a second app. Often now, all the tools I need are in a single app. (The prior Perfectly Clear app lacked that.) These things and the other new filters are all really great. Powerful and useful stuff.

That said, the execution of it all is so bad I find myself opting for the old app as well as the image reduction loss resulting from having to use multiple apps. I find that preferable to the work flow here. The way tools are now buried multiple steps below in separate screens that leave the image one is working on is just not good for workflow. The prior apps sidebar was MUCH better. One cant jump back and forth between sliders here to hone in on the image theyre going after quickly/easily.

The speed of this software is also a big problem. Running changes to an image on this version of their software results in MUCH more lag than the same tweak in the prior Perfectly Clear. With a seconds or more long lag between some adjustments and when the user actually sees the end result on the screen its a really miserable experience to tweak the image...especially at the fine tuning level which is what this app should be about. This either didnt happen under the prior app OR it was short enough a delay as to be inconsequential. But this borders on unusable at moments. Bad enough that at times Ill question whether the image needs the fix enough to justify the hassle of Lucid.

Perhaps if Id never owned the prior app Id notice nothing but the power here and be pleased, but because I did own it and know this company can do better (love their desktop plugins for Lightroom and Photoshop as well) the app just feels a huge letdown. Hopefully these problems are fixable. But my concern is that in the past Perfectly Clear was left with problems unaddressed for extended periods of time. At one point it felt as though it was no longer even being supported.

Anyway, Id REALLY like to like Lucid more. Was such a fan of the prior app I convinced multiple others they needed it. Not anywhere close to feeling that way at this point with the current app and just grateful I still have the older versions to work with as I think theyre no longer available in the store. A shame to remove those when this offering just really doesnt feel ready. (Actually, it feels as though its 95% of the way to being a great...maybe even the BEST, must have...image cleanup program on the App Store, but the issues with speed and the bad front end are so bad they just completely drag it down. Those aspects are THAT bad...bad enough in my opinion to turn something almost perfect into something to avoid.) For all the additional filters and tools this has it just isnt as good a product as what they offered prior despite whats under the hood being great. Hope that changes.

CAS3000 about LUCiD by Perfectly Clear