Code named, lower_my_frustration.
The lowdown
I have a love hate relationship with the Beast, Photoshop. It is abolutely essential for my work and it is the source of a lion share of my frustrations.
I have tried the other offerings and they just don’t do what I want, which is a very targeted sub-set of Photoshops funcionality.
The problem of course, is that I am now using it exclusively for web type work, so the majority of the features are going unused. This means that the price I am paying for the software is absurd for the amount I am using it.
Which of course means that I am now going to be writing my own software.
Long Live Image Kit
With the release of 10.5, Apple has given every one of us the power to create powerful image editing applications, in many ways on par with Photoshop, for free.
It has been many moons since I have done any Objective C development so this will be a very fun little excersize. Look for some beta software in a couple of months.
And yes, it will be open source. I will probably release it under a BSD style license. Carry On.
So yeah, features
Simpleshop as I am calling it internally, will of course have all the features you need for creating, editing and saving imagery for the web. Along with those things you would expect I am planning some more “novel” features like SVN integration and saving to external sources from within the program.
Think Coda’s sites, but for saving and editing imagery. I also plan to integrate Flickr as well. Once I have a working prototype I will most likely open up the SVN server and look for some help.
This is very much a scratch my itch kind of thing, and I have no delusions about it sweeping the intertubes. But I won’t complain if it does…
Stroll on over and visit Anton
January 9, 2008
That’s so awesome. Let me know if you need some icon design involvement or testing at some point. You know I’m a bit interested in teh graphical-type stuff.
Stroll on over and visit Mike Stickel
January 9, 2008
Ooo, this sounds fun. Good luck and keep us posted.
Stroll on over and visit Nick Dominguez
January 9, 2008
SVN integration really peeks my interest. I’m currently wrestling with the issue of version control for creative assets. To have SVN tightly integrated with a desktop app for creating/editing graphics would be huge IMHO. Version Cue is too bloated and I think alot of designers want to do proper version control with their creative files (.psd,.eps) but just don’t want the hassle of dealing with SVN, etc. Good luck with this, I’ll definitely keep my eye out for this project.
Stroll on over and visit Justin Ruckman
January 9, 2008
Kickass, can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Stroll on over and visit Khaled Abou Alfa
January 9, 2008
Bring it on. That sounds awesome news buddy. Really really cool stuff. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye for that. As always if you need any help you know you can give me a shout.
Stroll on over and visit kobak
January 9, 2008
looking forward for a working prototype, great idea!
Stroll on over and visit Ali B.
January 10, 2008
Looks very promising Chris. Can’t wait to try it out!