Filter Forge: New Photoshop Plug-In
After a successful beta test, Filter Forge, Inc., a newcomer to the Photoshop plugin market, today announced the final release of its flagship product, Filter Forge, a high-end plugin for Adobe Photoshop allowing computer artists to build their own filters — seamless textures, visual effects, distortions, patterns, backgrounds, frames and more. The key features of Filter Forge include a visual filter editor and a free online library of user-created filters to which anyone can contribute.
Developed from the ground up to be “the best Photoshop plugin on this planet, period”, Filter Forge has been a resounding success with more than 4000 beta testers ranging from hobbyists and graphics enthusiasts to world-famous professionals, top game studios, design agencies, photographers, and even the military who used Filter Forge to design camouflage patterns.
Filter Forge can produce a wide range of textures and effects which include organic structures, metallic and rocky surfaces, distortions, abstract textures, repeating patterns, color corrections, and more. All filters are adjustable and editable, seamlessly tiled, resolution independent, and support real-world HDRI lighting. Also, filters can automatically generate diffuse, specular, bump, and normal maps, which makes Filter Forge an essential tool for artists creating 3D models and environments, architectural visualization and high-end game content. Examples of filters can be seen at www.filterforge.com
The key feature of Filter Forge is the Filter Editor, a visual node-based environment allowing users to build custom filters without writing a single line of code. Filters are assembled by connecting components into a network to combine their effects. Components include familiar operations such as blurs, gradients, color adjustments, distortions, and blending; as well as 7 types of seamless fractal noise, HLS and HSY color models, color-preserving adjustments, and more. For end-users, the filter internals are hidden behind a simple set of filter controls — anyone can immediately benefit from filters without having to learn their inner workings.
Another major feature is the Filter Library, a free online repository of user-created filters to which anyone can contribute. It makes Filter Forge immediately useful for anyone who has no time to learn the Filter Editor. At the moment, the Filter Library contains over 1500 filters, with new filters added every day. Users who contribute high-quality filters can earn rewards, including a free copy of Filter Forge.
Filter Forge’s rendering engine takes full advantage of multi-core processors — for example, a dual-core processor can speed the rendering up to 96%. A high-precision floating-point rendering pipeline allows Filter Forge to support 16- and 32-bit image modes, eliminates unwanted artifacts, such as color banding, and allows users to save the results into high-precision image formats, such as OpenEXR. Filter Forge’s custom memory manager allows it to render large bitmaps — up to 65000×65000 pixels — even on moderate amounts of memory.
The free 90-day trial version of Filter Forge is available for download at www.filterforge.com. Filter Forge is currently a Windows-only application, the OS X version for both Intel and PowerPC processors is in development. Filter Forge is priced at $299 USD (volume discounts available) and can be purchased online at the company website. Users who are willing to contribute high-quality filters to the Filter Library can earn Filter Forge for free — details can be found at www.filterforge.com/more/freecopy.html
About Filter Forge, Inc. — Since the day it was founded, the company has been focused on a single goal: to develop “the best Photoshop plugin on this planet, period.” Having spent four years working on its flagship product, the company is confident that it packs enough punch to invigorate the Photoshop plugin market which has been stale for years. For more information, visit www.filterforge.com
