Image Effect Trees 1.0.1

Image Effect Trees (IET) is a new, powerful, image editing program which unlocks the power of Apples Core Image technology. With IET, you create image sources, and connect them to effects.
You will be able to connect the effects and sources to other effects, creating can image effect tree. Your originals are preserved. There is a visual diagram of all your modifications. You can quickly identify where the best quality image resides in your processing chain, allowing you to extract optimal results.
Image Effect Trees (IET) is NOT a general purpose paint/draw program. IET is designed to combine images and text with effects, effects with other effects, and stacks of multiple effects with other stacks of multiple effects, thus creating an effect tree. The original images are always preserved, and since all calculations are in floating point, your image quality is maximized. IET works great with your general purpose paint/draw program.
Most imaging programs utilize the concept of layers. Using layers, you stack effects on top of other effects. The problem with layers is that after stacking several layers together, its hard to keep track of everytthing that was done on a layer, and its hard to see how an effect 10 layers deep might effect the final output.
Typically, the designer cannot keep track of all the effect processing which is performed, and only looks at the last layer. As a result, there are often extra effects which are piled on top of each other, which may degrade image quality. For instace, sharpening an image which was previously blurred, or resizing and image which was previously resized.
Effect trees are different. Instead of merely stacking effects, you make a tree of effects and see the lines of interaction. Without even having to think about it, you will automatically identify and optimize your image proceesing datapath for the best quality.
The image effects come from Apples Core Image library of image units. There are 100 effects including Image Effect Trees may be used for a variety of purposes including :
- geometry manipulations (scaling, rotating, perspective distortions, cropping)
- color adjustments (saturation, brightness, contrast,)
- compositing operations
- Sharpening
- Median, Gaussian, Motion and Zoom blurs
- glass distortion effects
- stylize effects (edges, pixellate, pointillize, bloom, crystallize)
- Gradients (Gaussian, Linear, Radial)