Stone Design Forums

Hey y'all - iMaginator 2.2 is getting closer to golden every day.

At Blond's prodding, there's an "Image -> Image Properties" - this shows a panel with all the EXIF and JFIF info the main image may have - for photos from modern cameras, it could be a lot of info!

Most important is optimization of TIFF files, and Paint Layer files - as well as some new options in Preferences which let you set the number of UNDO and if you want to turn off undo during painting to get a better response between strokes.

Grab it HERE! try it - give me feedback!

* Image -> Image Properties shows EXIF image info
* Paint Layer file sizes are 10 to 100 times smaller!
* Exported TIFF files now 3-10 times smaller
* Documents containing paint layers save correctly in all cases now
* Two new Effects filter files: Chia Pet (fuzzifies tiger) and Photos (enhances photos)
* Painting uses much less memory now.
* If you want to speed up painting, and use no extra memory, but lose painting undo, set the "Fast painting, no undo" switch in Preferences, "General"
* If you still want undo, but don't want to use tons of extra memory, you can control how many levels of undo the program uses - by default, it's unlimited which can really chew up your memory! You set this in the Preferences Panel, "General" tab, Levels of Undo
* Fixed some memory leaks
* Miniaturizing a window draws image correctly as it miniaturizes now

Grab Latest Here!

New good stuff today - including RAW support & writing tags:


Reading/Writing of Images
* New Image -> Image Properties panels shows EXIF, TIFF, and JFIF image info
* Reads RAW image formats: Canon (crw/cr2), Fuji, Minolta, Nikon, Sony, and OpenEXR
* Exported TIFF files now 3-10 times smaller
* EXIF tags are exported with JPGs, TIFF tags are exported with TIFFs, etc
- to turn this feature off, use this hidden default:


Effects:
* Two new Effects filter files: Chia Pet (fuzzifies tiger) and Photos (enhances photos)

Painting:
* Paint Layer file sizes are 10 to 100 times smaller!
* Painting uses much less memory now.
* If you want to speed up painting, and use no extra memory, but lose painting undo, set the "Fast painting, no undo" switch in Preferences, "General"
* If you still want undo, but don't want to use tons of extra memory, you can control how many levels of undo the program uses - by default, it's unlimited which can really chew up your memory! You set this in the Preferences Panel, "General" tab, Levels of Undo

Ease of Use:
* Got MightyMouse? Scroll Wheels can move effects sliders when cursor is over the slider.

Performance Enhancements:
* Documents containing paint layers save correctly in all cases now
* Fixed annoying memory leaks
* Miniaturizing a window draws image correctly as it miniaturizes now
* Correctly rotates & crops RAW image formats
* Dropping in a new image restores rotation to 0 (this could be quite confusing!)

This is a fantastic update.

For you digital camera users iMaginator now supports RAW. So if you have written to Santa for an upgrade to your old digital camera he can now bring you one that supports the file format of the future. (Russ is it time to move from the plastic lens? Have a look at the Nikon D70s, so popular they were sold out in the UK.)

For those on a smaller budget have you tried a MightyMouse, they are fantastic and Andrew has made all the sliders in iMaginator work with the horizontal and vertical scroll. Just try it's inspired.

Christmas has arrived early for all Stone users.

And with Blond's excellent Quality Assurance, it just gets better:

Grab today's build!

Since midnight, I've vastely improved the Image -> Image Properties panel:
- you can delete tags
- you can add Artist, Description, Document and Copyright tags
- key/values are sorted by their owner, which is now displayed
- properties update for the top document automatically

The rotator in Skew/Rotate (Affine effect) now rotates in the same direction as the image!

A few more fixes/features have been added:

- automatic rotation of RAW and TIFF/JPEG with orientation flag set
- rotation is now correctly saved with the document
- if you change image properties, they are written with the document
- Image Properties panel is even better:
- shows and hides with repeated option-command-i
- adding a key automatically scrolls to the key and edits the value
- saved documents open twice as fast!

Here it is!

PS: still waiting on my mighty mouse to get that feature working great!

Wow - what a day & night!

- you can now "Unpaint" on a Paint layer - hold down Command-Key when you start dragging
- Image Properties panel redesigned for ease of use
-- plus you can add up to 28 new keys including keywords, etc
- Deutsch added to Italiano and Français

Grab it now!

Still awaiting my mighty mouse!

Yes WOW, that is an enormous amount of work.

WOWIE - the Mighty Mouse is VERY COOL - and so is this version which updates in real time on the effects area sliders!

Also, the "Unpaint" feature is complete:
-- just unpaints under the circle or square brush perfectly
-- shows a special minus on the cursor when COMMAND is down

German is WAY closer to being done - we're going to polish it more

Spell Checking for those massive tags you'll be adding

26 new cool effects from Ron Bishop

Voila - grab me!

Ladies and Gentlemen - iMaginator v 2.2 release candidate
[German is now complete, as is the new Help] here's the BIG LIST:

iMaginator Version 2.2 Features:

12 Tutorial Movies to teach you the ins and outs of iMaginator:
* Visit http://www.stone.com/iMaginator/Features.html#MOVIES

Reading/Writing of Images
* New Image -> Image Properties panels shows EXIF, TIFF, and JFIF image info
* Reads RAW image formats: Canon (crw/cr2), Fuji, Minolta, Nikon, Sony, and OpenEXR
* Images are automatically flipped and rotated if their orientation tag so dictates
* Exported TIFF files now 3-10 times smaller
* EXIF & TIFF tags are exported with JPGs, TIFF tags are exported with TIFFs
- You can add your own Artist, Copyright, Image Description and Keywords tags
- You can add over 23 other specialty tags as well!
- These additions are saved with the iMaj document package
- to turn this feature off, use this hidden default:


30 new Effects Chains:
* Four new Effects filter files: Chia Pet (fuzzifies tiger), Photos (enhances photos), Liquid Metal and Mercury (trippy).
* 26 chains from Ron Bishop that can help you make cartoons or just great photos!

Painting (and Unpainting!)
* Paint Layer file sizes are 10 to 100 times smaller!
* You can "Unpaint" on the Paint layer by holding down the command key while painting.
This effectively "erases" the paint except on the Erase mode in which case it "restores" the picture below!
* Shift constrains in vertical or horizontal direction
* If you are zoomed in so much that shift only constrains horizontally, add Option key to get vertical constraint
* Painting uses much less memory now.
* If you want to speed up painting, and use no extra memory, but lose painting undo, set the "Fast painting, no undo" switch in Preferences, "General"
* If you still want undo, but don't want to use tons of extra memory, you can control how many levels of undo the program uses - by default, it's unlimited which can really chew up your memory! You set this in the Preferences Panel, "General" tab, Levels of Undo

Ease of Use:
* Updated online help and User Manual PDF
* Shaded material uses "lightball" by default - which makes for incredible looking image
* Got MightyMouse? Scroll Wheel Left/Right can move effects sliders when cursor is over the slider with instant update.
* Added German to English, French and Italian localizations (just change in System Preferences, International and relaunch!)
* Skew/Rotate rotation dial reflects image rotation - mousedown and drag far away from center to get really accurage control!
* Added Spell Checker fcr your keywords and tags

Performance Enhancements:
* Documents containing paint layers save correctly in all cases now
* Fixed annoying memory leaks
* Miniaturizing a window draws image correctly as it miniaturizes now
* Correctly rotates & crops RAW image formats
* Dropping in a new image restores rotation to 0 (this could be quite confusing!)
* Rotation is now saved with the image file
* Reopening documents happens twice as fast!

Let me know if you find any problems!

well, I just **had** to add one more cool feature before shipping the final version 2.2: Full Screen for previewing the image! See Tools -> Full Screen (command-f)

Grab it here!

Also picked a nit - now Finder shows the version when you select iMaginator in list view...

Ok now that 2.2 shipped, I can get on with adding new cool features. Today's version built en route across the US of A features two requests - one from Joe & one from Blond:

1. Image -> Zoom -> To Fit (Command-Shift-F)
2. Spotlight now will find any image properties in the base image
(like Camera make/model/etc - about 30 new supported keys)

To Fit is also available from the Toolbar Zoom controls - if you hold down the command-key - such as when you use Command-Shift-F, the window maximizes and then fits the image to that. This is really a great feature for super-large images.

The spotlight feature probably requires that you reboot after installing the new version - then, once you open and save a document, the new spotlight keys will be available to Spotlight (also be sure you have no other versions of iMaginator on your disk or you are apt to confuse the Spotlight engine).

Blond found a bug that is now fixed - be sure to grab this one if you had grabbed the last post 2.2 build

This is an inspired update.
It is easy to understand integrating the Mighty Mouse into iMaginator especially if you own one but I note that even Apple have not got all the sliders in Tiger scrollable. Try the Apple colour picker, not all the sliders will scroll, nor will the volume slider. Apple will catch themselves up.

Unpaint is easy to understand but when you realise you can unerase, because iMaginator is non destructive, this is surreal. How did we live without this in other lesser apps?

Spotlight, under the hood Andrew has given the Spotlight plugin for iMaginator steroids. Now once you resave your iMaginator documents the image properties from any image contained within the .imaj package are searchable. You can even search for camera model if you wish. This I think is a huge bonus for digital photographers using iMaginator.

It is great to be using software from Stone that gets the best from the latest cutting edge developments within OSX.