Multi-touch Image Editing with LiveQuartz
Since Apple introduced the framework, Core Image powered editing applications have sprung up like Starbucks. From Pixelmator to Acorn, they’re everywhere to be found. Even so, there’s always room to innovate. Rhapsoft’s LiveQuartz, now at version 1.8, is a good example.
LiveQuartz has most of the standard image editing tools you might expect from a modern image editing application: layers, a rudimentary brush engine, selection lasso tools, a text engine, and filters. Like other editors powered by Core Image, LiveQuartz is fast and its filters operate in near realtime. Notable features which LiveQuartz lacks include layer styles and alpha masks.
With the exception of tool pallets, such as the color and fonts picker, everything in LiveQuartz is accessible through it’s single window interface. Two collapsible sidebars, the left for layers and the right for filters, flank the image workspace in the middle. This relatively simplistic interface is not only space efficient, but is intuitive for newcomers to the application.
The exciting new feature in the newest release, version 1.8, is support for Multi-touch gestures. If you have a supported laptop, a MacBook Air or the newest MacBook Pros, certain features and tools can be activated with gestures. For example, the Pinch and Expand gesture controls zoom magnification while the Swipe gesture toggles between different image editing tools. These features are certainly a welcome addition, and help streamline image editing once you get used to the gestures.
With support for Core Image filters and multi-touch gestures, LiveQuartz is a lean and fast image editor. Even with it’s limitations, at a price of Free, it’s a steal. LiveQuartz requires OS X 10.5 Leopard and is available from Rhapsoft.
I’m going to check this out.
I use Pixelmator, and like it, but I find it processor intensive and somewhat frustrating in the way it does things.
Huh, nice find. I have a few layer based image editors, but I’d like to try this out just to see how useful the multi-touch support really is.