Filed under: Multimedia, Software
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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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bob S. said 10:08AM on 1-24-2008
Very brave of them to resurrect the MacPaint 1.0 interface. Then again, that sold a lot of 128Ks back in the day.
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krye said 11:49AM on 1-24-2008
You stole my thunder!
I hadn't ever read the title and I thought after seeing the image that someone had updated MacPaint!
Ryan Hartlage said 10:36AM on 1-24-2008
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.
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mingistech said 11:07AM on 1-24-2008
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. :(
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Carlos Fonseca said 11:37AM on 1-24-2008
Seems pretty slow… and ugly… i like the one-window interface, but i don't like the buttons so old-fashioned… it doesn't have feedback of what tool i was using.
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Temporal said 11:40AM on 1-24-2008
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.
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DJCarbon43 said 12:39PM on 1-24-2008
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...
DJCarbon43 said 12:42PM on 1-24-2008
@ 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....
umijin said 1:26PM on 1-24-2008
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.
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Jacques Lema said 2:33PM on 1-24-2008
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.
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AveTenebrae said 2:34PM on 1-24-2008
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 DrawIt…
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Simon Strandgaard said 6:26AM on 1-25-2008
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/
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