Filter Forge has been officially released!

[Kraellin]

now i know i've sounded like, and probably still sound like, i work for the company, but i dont. i have been beta testing, though, since almost day one. and day one was quite a while back now.

well, the testing is over. Filter Forge has been officially released!

this is one of the best pieces of sotware i've seen in a while. it has been RIGOROUSLY tested, far more so than most software i've seen coming out these days. it's only current bug, that i've been able to see, is more than likely a windows resource handling bug, rather than a filter forge bug, that filter forge runs into on rare occasions.

for those that dont know what filter forge (FF) is, it's a filter MAKER and not just one filter or set of filters. you can make your own. and before you go, 'oh lord, i cant code', you dont have to. it's visual. it's plug and play. you build your filters with 'components'. these components literally plug into other components and you simply build a chain of these to get the desired effects you want.

ok, so now you go 'well, that sounds simple... too simple. it must not be very powerful if it's that modular. you wouldnt be able to tweak anything the way you want it.'. HA! you wouldnt believe what is being done with this thing! there are everything from anaglyphs (3d images) to organics to photo manipulations to crack fixers to editors inside editors, to, well... over 1700 user created filters in a multitude of classes. simply put, this is one amazing piece of software!

lol. i wasnt going to do this, become the used car salesman for FF, but i really am proud of the FF team, the beta testers and all involved. the integrity of product puts a LOT of software houses to shame. this was the longest beta test i've ever been involved with. the guys just wouldnt release it till it was done, truly done; not some 'release it and we'll patch it and forget it' type job, like we see too much of these days.

oh, and did i mention textures? you can make your own textures... LOTS of textures, all seamless. probably half the current FF library is textures. again, these are user-created and more are coming every day. and if you dont like what's there, make your own!

and again, i've already won my free copy for beta testing, so i have no vested interest here. i just LIKE this product.

you can use it as a plugin with photoshop plugin compatible programs ( i use it with paint shop pro) or you can use it as a stand-alone. it's currently only available for the pc, though. hopefully, that will be rectified.

the home address for FF is http://www.filterforge.com . the release news is on this page: http://www.filterforge.com/more/news/974.html . so, may the forge be with you!

[Steve Conway]

Sounds fantastic until you see the price. $299?...Unless you do this type of thing professionally that is gonna scare a lot of folks out of the market...(myself included.) Maybe they plan to offer some kind of discount to hobbyists. Let's hope so. Photoshop CS2 is only $289.

Steve C.

[Cameraken]

Hi

299$ IS a lot of money for a plug-in. That's £155.00 UK pounds. But there are currently 1733 filters in the library. That is less than 9 pence a filter and with the number of filters growing every day the price will get cheaper per filter.

It would be very easy to spend more than £155.00 on several plug-in's which could all be done in FF.

Add to this the ability to create your own filters easily and quickly
And the Fun Factor is Priceless

There is a free 90 day trial available here
http://www.filterforge.com/download/

If you write 3 good filters which go to a High rating with the users then you get a Free Copy of the program. (That's got to be worth a go)
Even 1 filter get you a 20% Discount. More info here
http://www.filterforge.com/more/freecopy.html


Ken.