Stone set to ship first Core Image App!!!
Introducing
iMaginator
iMaginator provides over 106 effects, transitions and filters to let you alter images in real time, providing an intuitive and easy to use interface for Mac OS X 10.4's Core Image technology. Layer images and text and apply any number of effects to achieve astounding artistic results. You can instantly save processed images to TIFF, JPEG or create QuickTime movies.
According to Stone Design CEO Andrew Stone, ?iMaginator must be seen to be believed! When Tiger ships, just download it and you?ll see that this application truly unleashes the Tiger. Users of Stone Studio and Create will recognize the easy to use features such as the Effects/Images library and the Image Drag Well for instant saving of images and chains of effects for later reuse.?
Incorporates Latest Technologies
iMaginator is a Core Image ?Image Unit? harness, and automatically loads and displays any custom image processing plug-ins you add. It comes packaged with 100 Tiger Image Units, and seven new custom plugins from Stone Design, including Crop Fade Mask, Oval Mask, Make Transparent, Colorize, Grayscale and Polka Dots. iMaginator provides interfaces for modifying the plugins which include blurs, color adjustments, distortions, styles, compositing effects, edge sharpeners and transitions. With a 200 page searchable manual covering all aspects of the program, you'll be creating masterpieces in minutes.
iMaginator incorporates SpotLight technology for instant searching and is applescriptable. iMaginator is a LinkBack server which means you can copy the resulting image and paste into a LinkBack client server, such as Stone Design?s flagship page layout and web authoring application, Create®. Then, when you want to edit the image, you simply double-click it in Create® to modify the image again in iMaginator. When you save your edits, your changes show up immediately in Create®.
Inexpensive and Shipping April 29th!
Software architect Andrew Stone continues, ?We have worked very hard to provide you with a complete and stable product at the same moment that Mac OS X 10.4 becomes available. You will be able to download and try iMaginator at full strength for two weeks free, and you?ll be amazed at what you can do. At only $49, with Free Upgrades For Life, it?s a must-have piece of software!? Don't get caught in the rush, order your copy right now! my emphasis added.
Very cool. I can't wait to see what this app can do. I'm expecting big things from a vetran like Stone.
iMaginator
iMaginator provides over 106 effects, transitions and filters to let you alter images in real time, providing an intuitive and easy to use interface for Mac OS X 10.4's Core Image technology. Layer images and text and apply any number of effects to achieve astounding artistic results. You can instantly save processed images to TIFF, JPEG or create QuickTime movies.
According to Stone Design CEO Andrew Stone, ?iMaginator must be seen to be believed! When Tiger ships, just download it and you?ll see that this application truly unleashes the Tiger. Users of Stone Studio and Create will recognize the easy to use features such as the Effects/Images library and the Image Drag Well for instant saving of images and chains of effects for later reuse.?
Incorporates Latest Technologies
iMaginator is a Core Image ?Image Unit? harness, and automatically loads and displays any custom image processing plug-ins you add. It comes packaged with 100 Tiger Image Units, and seven new custom plugins from Stone Design, including Crop Fade Mask, Oval Mask, Make Transparent, Colorize, Grayscale and Polka Dots. iMaginator provides interfaces for modifying the plugins which include blurs, color adjustments, distortions, styles, compositing effects, edge sharpeners and transitions. With a 200 page searchable manual covering all aspects of the program, you'll be creating masterpieces in minutes.
iMaginator incorporates SpotLight technology for instant searching and is applescriptable. iMaginator is a LinkBack server which means you can copy the resulting image and paste into a LinkBack client server, such as Stone Design?s flagship page layout and web authoring application, Create®. Then, when you want to edit the image, you simply double-click it in Create® to modify the image again in iMaginator. When you save your edits, your changes show up immediately in Create®.
Inexpensive and Shipping April 29th!
Software architect Andrew Stone continues, ?We have worked very hard to provide you with a complete and stable product at the same moment that Mac OS X 10.4 becomes available. You will be able to download and try iMaginator at full strength for two weeks free, and you?ll be amazed at what you can do. At only $49, with Free Upgrades For Life, it?s a must-have piece of software!? Don't get caught in the rush, order your copy right now! my emphasis added.
Very cool. I can't wait to see what this app can do. I'm expecting big things from a vetran like Stone.
Comments
Just to, uh, keep people's expectations in line, it's not a Photoshop killer and isn't meant to be.
Sorry the web pages aren't up yet. Screenies of Tiger, even if it's a third party app, aren't technically allowed until its release. I can describe the UI to you at least.
A document is a window with a standard toolbar and a lefthand sidebar a la iTunes and iPhoto that contains 3 areas: 1. the tabbed source view, the effects chain, and the effects settings.
The tabbed source view has 3 tabs: an image library for often-used images or textures, an effects library for saving and accessing often-used effects or sets of effects, and a list view of all the available effects. Click on an effect in the list, and it's applied to the image and show up in the panes below. Below, the effects chain is like the effects chain in Create where it shows a preset image of the effect in action, and you can reorder the effects by dragging them around. Below the effects chain is the effect settings area, where each effect can be adjusted via sliders, turned on and off, reset and removed.
The effects and file format are non-destructive, so you can save an .iMaj file and, change, remove or add effects later with no loss in quality nor any point-of-no-return scenarios. You can save effects separately from any image as well both inside and outside the app. Overall, iMaginator is actually effects-oriented, as opposed to image-oriented. That makes reusing effects very easy and is complementary to iPhoto's structure rather than being redundant with it.
There's a crop tool, on-canvas controls for many effects, an image well similar to Create's image well in the toolbar. It's pretty much all drag-n-drop. It comes with a few images and preset effects combos in the source tabs, but the idea is that you add your own, and organize your effects by categories if you want.
The gist of it is that it was meant to be simple to get started with right away, but it has a fair amount of stuff tucked away for more expert use, like Applescripting, the ability to change the defaults, batch processing, precision controls, etc.
Originally posted by sunilraman
at least Apple has the architecture in place to contemplate making a Photoshop killer. You, know, to take on the monopolies that is Microsoft and Adobe
Apple has the architecture in place for anybody to contemplate making a Photoshop killer.
Originally posted by Mr. Me
Apple has the architecture in place for anybody to contemplate making a Photoshop killer.
knowing the path is different from walking the path
but you're right, the architecture is well in place for someone to develop a photoshop-like fully node-based non-destructive image editing program running much much faster than photoshop cs2/ cs3(?) by leveraging GPU
ah f8ck i'm gonna do it..!!
now, where did i leave my Cocoa for Dummies book...
Originally posted by hmurchison
Nice on teh applescript. Any chance Andrew is investigating Automator support?
I would assume so. I've brought it up, and he's seemed enthusiastic about it, but he hasn't mentioned anything specifically to me.
Originally posted by xflare
Can we try it before buying?
2 week full trial period
Originally posted by BuonRotto
If Adobe ever got onto the LinkBack bandwagon, you'd be set.
That's about as likely as them getting on the Core Image bandwagon.
Originally posted by murk
That's about as likely as them getting on the Core Image bandwagon.
i'll say it again though
Filters are only a tiny fraction of what photoshop users have come to rely on. Shareware image editing apps will gain some great functionality via CI, but they will still be in a different league than photoshop.
What casual photoshop users typically forget is that photoshop is integrated with hundreds if not thousands of third-party products. For instance, designers working in quark frequently use third-party tools which send images back and forth between quark and PS. Obscure hardware integration or dependancies are also quite common.
Core image is great and I would love to see competition push the development of photoshop. Unfortunately, CI isn't the holy grail for developers working on a PS killer.
Originally posted by dfiler
Core-image functionality is a minute portion of what would comprise the code base of a "photoshop killer".
Filters are only a tiny fraction of what photoshop users have come to rely on. Shareware image editing apps will gain some great functionality via CI, but they will still be in a different league than photoshop.
What casual photoshop users typically forget is that photoshop is integrated with hundreds if not thousands of third-party products. For instance, designers working in quark frequently use third-party tools which send images back and forth between quark and PS. Obscure hardware integration or dependancies are also quite common.
Core image is great and I would love to see competition push the development of photoshop. Unfortunately, CI isn't the holy grail for developers working on a PS killer.
fair enough mate, yes in terms of workflow, photoshop/adobe has its monopoly firmly entrenched.
iMaginator provides over 106 effects, transitions and filters to let you alter images in real time...
Becomes...
iMaginator provides 107 effects, transitions and filters to let you alter images in real time...
Originally posted by Squozen
Putting on my PR-descrambling goggles......
remember to take them off whenever going to apple.com
otherwise you'll be in for a very very rude shock