Iris public beta available

Image editors are for the Mac are suddenly popping up everywhere. There's Pixelmator and Acorn, and this month Nolobe has released the public beta of Iris...only three months overdue.

So what happened? It's a terrible story, actually, as a fire put everything on hold for the developers. The good news is they're back at it and you can test Iris out for yourself. One of the things that makes Iris unique is its single-window interface (Image editors typically display palettes).

When you've got several images open, they're displayed in a row at the bottom of the window (see image above). It take some adjustment if you're used to a palatte-driven application, but nice and snappy.

Remember, this is a beta, so expect bugs and don't use it for mission-critical files. Iris will retail for $79 when it is released but can be pre-ordered for $39.

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Source: http://nolobe.com/iris/

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Multimedia Software

Image editors are for the Mac are suddenly popping up everywhere. There's Pixelmator and Acorn, and this month Nolobe has released the...

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Simon Strandgaard

You mentioned new graphics programs. There is also Toolbox, my own creation. 1 month old today.

Layer editor for textures and photos.
http://toolboxapp.com/

January 25 2008 at 5:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

AveTenebrae

Post quote : "One of the things that makes Iris unique is its single-window interface (Image editors typically display palettes)."

It's not that unique, if you consider looking at DrawItâ€¦

January 24 2008 at 2:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jacques Lema

Hm, why no dynamic filters ? One thing I don't understand is that all the CoreImage apps coming out now all adopted the photoshop (pre-cs3) approach of "preview and apply". Pixelmator is getting pretty polished now but it still doesn't have this. Why?

As the 2004 CoreImage FunHouse demonstrates you can easily use the technology to keep everything or optionnally some things dynamic. There's no reason why you'd _have_ to apply a simple Hue filter in a definitive way.

January 24 2008 at 2:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

umijin

Unfortunately, there is already another app out there on the market called Iris and this painting app Iris will overwrite it.

Someone needs to change their product name.

January 24 2008 at 1:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Temporal

It's pretty terrible at present. Like it's "competition" really.

Sadly no one is really leveraging the power of OS X to actually push out new UI ideas for image editing. Unless you consider the HUD debacle of Pixelmator innovative and not annoying.

January 24 2008 at 11:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Temporal's comment

Stealth43

On Pixelmator:
Dude, I dunno. I thought I was going to hate it, but its actually pretty rockin. It definitely takes a little bit of time to get used to, but now I aren't even using photoshop very often. My CS3 bundle for naught :(

The palates are ohh so snappy, and the layout is way intuitive. Adobe would be wise to buy them and incorporate the more advanced features of Photoshop into PM 2, cept call it Photoshop CS4.

Just one gripe, they really need to target memory leakage...

January 24 2008 at 12:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Stealth43

@ me:

"...Now I aren't..." Huh.... I am so fa king we tad ed....

Must need more coffee.... apologies to all the english lit folks spinning in their graves....

January 24 2008 at 12:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Carlos Fonseca

Seems pretty slowâ€¦ and uglyâ€¦ i like the one-window interface, but i don't like the buttons so old-fashionedâ€¦ it doesn't have feedback of what tool i was using.

January 24 2008 at 11:37 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

mingistech

Hmmm... It only runs on 10.5.1

Looks like i'll be able to install it at home... but our work systems are all running Tiger.... so no dice. :(

January 24 2008 at 11:07 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

ryan

I used the beta about a week and a half ago. I thought it was so-so, but it could be that I'm not really into the one window UI.

January 24 2008 at 10:31 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Bob S.

Very brave of them to resurrect the MacPaint 1.0 interface. Then again, that sold a lot of 128Ks back in the day.

January 24 2008 at 10:08 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Bob S.'s comment

krye