Filter Forge 2.0 for Photoshop Now In Public Beta

Theresa Stone

John Nack recently reported on the public beta of Filter Forge 2.0, which is a tool for creating Photoshop filters visually instead of by writing mind-numbing code. Nack supplied the following new feature information from Filter Forge lead developer Vladimir Golovin:
“* Support for unlimited HDR colors (including negative colors!) across the entire rendering pipeline.
* Bomber component for spraying image particles in a controlled manner.
* Gamma correction options — our first step towards a gamma-aware workflow.
* Instant filter search for people with large filter collections.
* Median, Maximum, Minimum and Percentile components — the latter allows custom-percentile filtering.
* Polygon and Ellipse components (‘sounds boring but they are very flexible’).”
Here’s more on Filter Forge straight from the company:
“On the surface, Filter Forge is just a Photoshop plugin, a pack of filters that generate textures, create visual effects, enhance photos, process images. However, there are 3 things that make Filter Forge unique:
1. You can create your own filters. Filter Forge comes with a visual node-based editor allowing you to create your own filters – textures, effects, distortions, backgrounds, frames, you name it. All filters automatically support 16- and 32-bit modes in Photoshop, real-world HDRI lighting, bump and normal maps, huge resolutions and seamless tiling.
2. You get free access to 6607 user-created filters. Anyone can contribute their textures and effects to the online filter collection so it grows with every submitted filter. This means the more people use Filter Forge, the better it gets.
3. Contributors get Filter Forge for free. You submit filters, they get popular with the users, we send you a free copy of Filter Forge. Sounds simple but don’t expect a giveaway, you will have to earn it.”
Download the beta here.