Over the past few days I’ve mainly been focused on moving the tool to its own domain and giving it a proper identity. The project is now called Lumen Tool.
When I originally called it LightLab, I had done very little research beforehand. At the time I also did not really expect the tool to become as public as it did. It was picked up quite quickly and I’m already seeing a decent amount of traffic coming to the site. To avoid future problems I decided to rename it to Lumen Tool. Still very recognizable and this time it doesn’t have the same name as another lighting tool (yeah, I’m stupid). It now lives on its own domain where people can actually find it easily instead of it being hidden away on a page on a small website.
I’m also looking forward to expanding the tool further. Most of that growth will likely happen inside the Advanced Mode. That is where I want to add more serious functionality over time. The first thing I’m currently thinking about is a kind of camera framing system where you can view a setup through more of a camera-style overlay. That idea still needs a lot of development and at this stage I honestly do not yet know what will be feasible and what will not.
For as long as possible I want to keep this a simple thing that just runs in your browser, without a big machine humming away behind it. At some point, if the project grows far enough, that may no longer be realistic and it may have to become something bigger than a single web page. That is something for later. There is no rush. The project is moving at its own pace and I’m fine with that.
I’m also still playing around with the site design itself. Everything is developing gradually, in between other work and in my spare time, so progress will continue step by step.
If people have thoughts about the tool or features they would genuinely like to see in the future, I’m always interested to hear them. If it fits the direction of the project and it is something I can realistically build, I’ll definitely consider it.
Roadmap ideas
These are ideas that are currently on my mind - not promises and no guarantee that all of them will be added. Some may change, some may be delayed and some may turn out to be too hard to build the way the tool works today.
The roadmap ideas are rated on a scale where the highest score indicates what is most likely to come first.
Most likely in the near term
| Idea | Score | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Camera / framing overlay | 9/10 | Portrait and landscape crop guides, vertical video framing, talking-head overlays, safe areas and alignment markers. |
| Practical analysis layer | 8/10 | More interpretation without getting overly technical - key/fill ratio, contrast clues, light-pattern detection, catchlight guidance, warnings when a setup goes flat. |
| Project save system (local) | 8/10 | Named projects, multiple setups and notes, all kept in your own browser. Realistic within the current direction. |
Good chance, but with some limits
| Idea | Score | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Background control | 7/10 | More control over background behavior, separation and falloff. The simpler version is achievable; something that truly behaves like a real studio background is a bigger step. |
| Project export / setup sheets | 6/10 | Basic exports are realistic. Polished branded exports with clean print quality would take more work but still feel possible. |
| Side-by-side compare mode | 6/10 | A simple A/B comparison feels realistic. Two live 3D views running side by side is a much bigger job. |
| Multiple subject heads | 6/10 | Different face shapes, skin responses, hair volume. The challenge is keeping every head looking good without slowing the tool down. |
Valuable, but harder to do well
| Idea | Score | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Light modifiers | 5/10 | Hard light, softbox, octa, beauty dish, striplight, grid, snoot, umbrella. Much closer to real-world use, but demanding to make genuinely convincing rather than renamed sliders. |
Important note
This list reflects current ideas, not a fixed product plan. Some features are easier to imagine than to build properly, and part of the next phase is simply finding out what works well within the current browser-based setup.
Anyway… thanks for reading and as always: I hope you enjoy the Lumen Tool!
Franck