Filter Forge

Filter Forge is a standalone application and plugin for Adobe Photoshop and compatible 8bf plugin hosts that allows users to apply programmable image processing filters and to define them with a visual node-based filter editor. A similar approach is practiced in such applications as [http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/genetica.htm Genetica] and [http://www.darksim.com/html/dt25_description.html DarkTree] ; Filter Forge's salient characteristics include floating point processing, antialiasing, and support for producing bump maps and normal maps (in addition to textures).Filter usage relies on a simple, non-customizable UI with a list of presets and the input controls (sliders, lists, colour pickers...) that have been included in the filter dataflow.

The repertoire of nodes is fairly standard, with unusually rich support for curves, remapping scalar values and for mapping images to parameters (with antialiasing); the lack of arbitrary formulas makes certain kinds of filters more (sometimes significantly) difficult to implement. There is no support for modules, macros, or any other kind of node grouping, which leaves copying and pasting nodes along with their connections as the only option to manage complex filters.

Another unusual feature of Filter Forge is the web-based [http://www.filterforge.com/filters/ filter library] of thousands of user-submitted filters (which are concise XML documents) that can be opened with the program and previewed with a built-in browser.

External links

* [http://www.filterforge.com Filter Forge homepage]
* [http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photoshop-blog/2006/08/30/creating-a-wet-and-muddy-rocks-texture/ Filter Forge tutorial at The Photoshop Roadmap]
* [http://www.complaints.com/2007/december/9/Filter_Forge_-_Aproach_with_caution_156105.htm Filter Forge - Bad for Business?]