Monday, March 8, 2010

Are you brave enough...

...to test the beta version of FotoSketcher 1.96?

If you are, here is the direct download link: http://www.fotosketcher.com/FotoSketcher_beta.exe
Just a word of caution: the new effect (Painting 7 - oil Pastel) is very computer intensive (who said poorly coded?!).

Here's an example made with this new effect:photo credit: Stock.xchng.

Here are the parameters I used:


All the best,

David

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bonjour David

Merci pour ce nouvel effet, il est magnifique bien qu'un petit peu "gourmand" sur les ressources comme tu dis mais c'est pas grave.

Avec mes amitiés provençales.

Jean.

David said...

Merci :-)
Pas trop de neige, j'espère ?

Amicalement,

David

Anonymous said...

Pas de neige du coté d'Aubagne et c'est tant mieux.

Amitiés.

Jean.

Pierre - Colombie-Britannique, Canada said...

Bonjour David,

Merci pour le nouvel effet... les résultats sont très supérieurs au précédent. Pour le peu de temps qu'il travaille, je ne le trouve pas trop gourmand en ressources. Il me "bouffe" environ 26% de ressources. Mais comme j'ai 3Gb de RAM et un Core 4, je ne peux pas trop me plaindre.

Surtout continue ton fantastique développement... le produit s'améliore grandement... Bravo !

David said...

Merci beaucoup Pierre ! Je vais quand même essayer d'optimiser encore un peu plus...

Anonymous said...

Le pardon, mon français est pas assez bon.

Merci pour ce programme de logiciel gratuit parfait - il fait vraiment des grandes images de conversion de travail et est discuté sur DPReview.com.

Beaucoup de thx de nouveau - Andre

Barry said...

HA!

I just had a play with that beta - it's BRILLIANT!

It's one of the very few things I've seen that works so well on skin.

I love the way it does the underpainting then scales down to finer details.

Can there be more than 100 "number of brush strokes"?

David - have your tried it on skintones yet? It IS great!

Two requests? More than jpg input (png? please) and mutli core support will kill that paint7 slowness.

David said...

Thank you Andre. Your French is perfectly understandable :-)

David said...

Hi Barry,

I see that you are one of the brave beta testers. I'm glad you like the new filter. I'm still in the process of tweaking it and I might add more brushstrokes. I will look into PNG support. As for multi core support, I don't know if it's easy to do... I'll check.

All the best,

David

David said...

Just a quick update: I have uploaded a new beta (same link as before http://www.fotosketcher.com/FotoSketcher_beta.exe) which adds the ability to open PNG files and to save in lossless BMP format.

Barry said...

Thanks, mate, that's brilliant.

Not meaning to be picky, it has trouble with drag and drop of png images (file open is good, if a little slow (decompressing?)), but drag-drop takes almost 5 times as long to open, and sometimes fails (just does nothing at all).

Still, that's what betas are for, eh?

Time you had some more coffee!

David said...

Yes, I still have a few bugs to iron out (for instance don't resize the image while the preview is still running!). That's why you have to be brave to test my betas...

Anonymous said...

Bonjour David,

I love your program and recently applied frames to existing photos. Unfortunately, upon close examination, I find several frame types to be flawed. As an example, frame type 8, at the inside along three sides, it is skewed - not consistent in width - the entire length. Is there anyway you could revise, correct or otherwise modify your frame file in this regard?

Merci,

CurlySue

David said...

Hi CurlySue,

Yes you are right, frame 8 is a bit flawed. I will see if I can find the original I used (free from sxc.hu as usual) and correct it. Thanks for spotting that.
Hopefully one day I will allow people to use their own frames (but that needs a complete rewrite of the frame code).

Anonymous said...

Bonjour, David.

So very nice to hear back from you. Merci.

I should mention that I am using the 1.95 release and have noticed the same with your 1.96 Beta.

Thought not as significant as Frame 8, I also found Frame 5 to be similarly flawed. For example, if applied to an 8x10 photo [with 10 height], at very inside where photo meets frame, top and right sides are one-third to one-half the width of the bottom and left sides. These flaws are most visible when "Margin" is added to the photo as faux matte.

I have been working with 6x4 and 8x10 photos, specifically, where I have also noticed that the frame width is not consistent on all sides of the photo. Meaning, once frame is applied, the width at the top and bottom are 7 to 16 percent wider than the sides.

In this regard, to my eye and software, Frame 2 appears the most dramatic. Given an 8x10 photo, after Frame 2 (zero margin) is applied, overall pixel dimensions 2685x3354, the frame width at one side equals 127 pixels, and the frame width at bottom equals 110 pixels. While 17 pixels is not a significant number on its own, when proportioned to 110 pixels, the 127 pixel width represents a 15.45% larger dimension that is clearly visible to the naked eye.

I should mention that, sans-frames, your program is INCREDIBLE!!!

In my first use of FotoSketcher, I applied Pencil Sketch 1 (default settings) to a photo of my beloved dog, Buck, whom recently died. The result was simply magical. :)

Currently, I have been applying Painting 5 [water color], Painting 6 [oil], both at default settings, to photos I took of the Eiffel Tower and I could not be happier with the results.

Thank you for sharing your talents and FotoSketcher, David. It has awakened creativity in me that I have not enjoyed since I was a child.

CurlySue

David said...

Thanks for your input CurlySue. I'm glad you enjoy using FotoSketcher.