Hi all,
Work on the next version of FotoSketcher Studio is well underway and the first alpha of version 4.60 is now available for download and testing. This one has a good mix of new creative tools, photo correction features and under-the-hood improvements.
Here is what is new:
- New Truchet Tiles effect
A new Truchet Tiles effect has been added to the Stylize category. Truchet tiles are square tiles decorated with a simple pattern (typically arcs or diagonal lines) that, when placed on a grid in random orientations, produce surprisingly intricate and organic-looking designs. The concept dates back to the 18th century and was later explored by mathematicians and computer scientists. You can read more about them on Wikipedia. FotoSketcher uses the colours from your source photo to fill the tiles, turning your pictures into geometric compositions. You can also save and load your own custom tilesets for different visual styles.
- New Denoise effect
A new Denoise effect has been added to the Photo Lab category. It is powerful enough to clean up noisy skies and high-ISO grain whilst preserving fine details in the rest of the image. Very handy as a first step before applying an artistic effect, or simply to rescue a noisy photo.
- Fine rotation
A new fine rotation tool lets you correct the horizontality of your photos with precision. An auto-rotate option is also available, which analyses the image and straightens it for you automatically.
- High quality full screen preview
The full screen preview now uses high quality sampling, which eliminates the Moiré artefacts that could appear on detailed images and regular patterns. What you see in the preview is now much closer to the final output.
- Faster zoom and smoother panning
Zooming in and out is now much faster, and panning around the image is noticeably smoother. This should make navigating large images a more pleasant experience overall.
- Improved Batch mode
The Batch mode window has been improved. In addition to selecting individual files, you can now add entire folders to the processing queue, which saves a lot of time when you want to apply the same effect to a large collection of photos.
- Bug fixes and performance
This build also includes a good number of bug fixes and performance enhancements throughout the application.
- New bugs
I may have introduced new bugs, debugging is often a game of Whack-a-Mole! If you report any, you will have my eternal gratitude ;)
You can download Alpha 1 (for Windows) here: https://fotosketcher.com/beta/FotoSketcher_4.60_alpha1.zip
This is an early alpha, so there may be rough edges. As always, any feedback is very welcome - bugs, oddities, or anything that does not feel right on your particular setup. Please leave a comment below or send me an email at contact@fotosketcher.com.
Happy testing!
David
9 comments:
Great work, David! Nice to see more unique effects.
Thank you, Jack :)
Recently discovered this brilliant piece of sofwtare and absolutely love it! Thank you for your skills in designing it. One question which may have been answered elsewhere, is there a way to interrupt the application of a effect part-way through it being applied to an image? I've noticed sometimes that the effect being applied before the process is completed looks exactl the way I want it, so wuld love to just be able to click a button that says "That's enough, don't do anymore". Is there such a thing possible?
Thank you for your comment! Yes, it is possible, simply press the Escape key during processing. However, due to multi-threading issues it can sometimes take a few seconds to actually halt the running effect.
4.50 lagging cpu usage 75-98% on macbook pro 2020 intel, my mac i7/32GB/2TB
Hi Harry, that's indeed a really high usage. Is it when running a specific effect or even when idle? Or when running any effect? Can you send me more details at contact@fotosketcher.com and I'll investigate further.
I’m not using the application anymore because it consumes an excessive amount of CPU resources after installation and launch.
I’m using macOS Sonoma. When the application is launched, my CPU usage immediately increases to around **75–98%**, even when I’m not actively using the application. For now, I only install it, launch it briefly for testing, and then terminate it using my script.
The application also feels similar to many applications built with **Electron.js**, which are widely known for having relatively high CPU and memory/resource consumption on macOS. From my experience, the resource usage is disproportionate to what the application actually needs to do.
Because of the extremely high CPU usage while the application is running, I currently consider it **not useful for my environment** unless the resource consumption can be significantly reduced and optimized for macOS.
Hi Harry, thank you for the additional details, that's useful. Although I'm on a M2 Mac, I'll try to replicate the issue. BTW, FotoSketcher is written in Delphi not Electron.js, but I've read that it can cause performance issues on MacOS with constant full screen refreshes. I'll continue investigating.
thx for best effort for making low resource usage on universal macos
Post a Comment