Apple’s Core Image as Photoshop Threat
I’ve mentioned this before, but now that Mac OS 10.4 is officially on it’s way, it’s worth mentioning again. 10.4 comes with Core Image, an API that puts at the fingertips of any developer who’s willing to take advantage a massive list of image tricks and filters. An adventurous developer who wraps a smart GUI around these filters could make a decent living off of people who like Photoshop, only use a small subset of it’s features and can’t afford it’s $600 price-tag.
Check out this Core Image page for a huge list of filters and this Quartzcomposer discussion list is probably a good place to explore the possibilities.
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Well, I have started such a project. You can read more about it on chocoflop.com . While supporting all PhotoShop features will require a lot of work and maybe more programmers, in about a month of work I have made already a significant part of the job. From a developer’s point of view Core Image is just amazing. I just can’t wait to see it run on accelerated hardware (my mac only has a radeon 9200 which does not accelerate OpenGL’s shading language).