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Monochrome - Image editing - Beta testers wanted

Lars

Active member
Alright, time to get this going: For some time now I’ve tinkered with a photo editing software, and I now feel that it’s close to good enough for others to try.

The project is named "Monochrome". (Initially back in 2007 I had "Chrome" registered but obviously that didn't work out.)

Features:
  • Non-destructive editing with layers and masking
  • Capable of handling large images
  • High bit depth pixel formats used internally for precision
  • Cloud sync of edits, allowing for multi-computer workflow
  • Fully color managed
  • Full undo across editing sessions
  • A basic set of filters, brushes and masks at this time – more may be added if people ask for more tools.
  • Opens images from cloud gallery services such as Smugmug, Picasa and others.

Monochrome beta is for:
  • Adventurous souls with strong photographic interest, free time on their hands, and early adopter mentality.
  • Windows users only at this point (XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8). Monochrome will likely run in any good virtual machine, but some of the user experience is lost.

Monochrome is not (yet):
  • A raw converter – been there, done that. A raw converter is a massive undertaking, not a hobby project. Every single raw-capable camera, current or past on the market has to be calibrated, profiled, and tested.
  • A professional end-to-end workflow tool.
  • A commercial quality software. It’s pretty good and stable, has been in use for a year and a half by me and a few others, but this is beta software.
  • An OSX, iOS, or Android software. This might happen in the future but not in the near future.
  • A commercial project. For now this is a noncommercial hobby project.

Coming soon:
  • A website
  • A user forum
  • Printing and advanced output options
  • Projects
  • Batch output
  • Windows 8 compatibility (it does seem to work OK but testing has been limited).

With this in mind, if you’re curious and slightly adventurous then please drop me a message and I’ll send a download link after this weekend.

Once Monochrome has proven itself with users for a few weeks I’ll consider a more public availability, but first I want to make sure that server load is within range and quality of the software is decent on a wide spectrum of installations.

I used Monochrome to produce an exhibit of large format landscape prints in Sacramento last October.

Jack, Guy - at this time this is not a commercial project (Jack has followed this project from its inception a number of years ago). If you feel that I need to keep posts related to this project elsewhere then please let me know.

-Lars
 
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Oren Grad

Active member
An ambitious project - congratulations on getting this far!

Could you tell us a few words about what led you to "roll your own", and what you think are the most distinctive features or advantages of your software compared to the usual alternatives?
 

Lars

Active member
Sure - although nobody really wants to get into a pissing contest with Adobe. It's been my pet project, and it has allowed me to develop some unique ideas from a technical standpoint, and also from a photographic standpoint.

Comparison with Photoshop and Gimp are a bit pointless, since those are fundamentally pixel drawing tools with some photography features tacked on as an afterthought. What other tools to compare to? Not sure. Aperture and Lightroom are primarily raw developers. I honestly don't know most tools on the market well. Here are a few points.

My main motivation when I started this project was a combination of frustration with Adobe's tools, a lack of truly photography-oriented tools on the market, and my experience with making LightZone and seeing it not reach its potential. This was all back in 2006-2007, so obviously today things look different.

I still think there is room for Monochrome as a project (not really considering a commercial approach at this time though). As good as some tools are, there is room for a better, easier to use, more powerful photo editing experience.

Most of the effort has gone into building the core platform and framework. Comparatively speaking, most filters and effects are fairly easy to make if you have a specification. This is where a community comes in, to help point out what filters and effects are desirable.

Now, re selling points...

- Overall pleasant and stimulating photo editing experience.
- Good performance on modest hardware, even with very large images.
- Filters and effects are designed only with photography in mind.
- Edits (your edit history for an image) are synced to the cloud, allowing you to open any copy of the same image and work on it, on any computer. It doesn't matter where the image is, just which image it is. You can even work on a downscaled copy of a huge image, then open up the gigapixel original and continue working.

I'll see if I can upload some screen shots.

-Lars
 

erudolph

Member
Lars, should you get to the point where you need Mac beta testers, I'm interested. BTW, I enjoyed your LightZone software.
 

Lars

Active member
Website up:


Currently some basic information - it's a start, need screenshots, documentation, tutorial etc.

-Lars
 

Lars

Active member
Yeah sorry about that (and thanks for the compliment :) ) I think a Mac port is a bit beyond what I can handle on my own at this time. It's certainly doable (Mono and GCC would be the platform).
 
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