NPS Image Editor, Beta 2

NPS Image Editor Beta 2 has been released! Head on over to http://nps.nookkin.com to grab it. But before you do, check out the sweet improvements you'll be getting!

Text Tool

The Text Tool was the last woefully incomplete tool in the previous release. Now, it has been completely redone to give you full, pixel-perfect control over your text. Add text to your image, align it as you wish, and apply just about any effect or transformation you can think of.

Color Picker CSS3 support

The Color Picker dialog now supports CSS3 color expressions such as rgba() and hsla(), making it far more useful for web developers using it in standalone mode. You can Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V while within any color mode, and can specify the output format via a convenient dropdown arrow. A few other functions and constants have been added, including invert() to invert a color and aero_base to grab the currently-selected Windows Vista-on-up color scheme's dominant color.

Draggable color swatches

The color swatches on the right were, up until the last beta, an ugly hack – based on an afterthought to NPS that first appeared in version 1.3! In the latest release, however, the entire thing has been rewritten. You can now drag and drop color swatches around to rearrange or delete them, create palettes on-the-fly, and perform batch operations on all colors.

Gaussian Blur and more filters

A true Gaussian blur filter has been added, in addition to variable-radius Average and Diffraction blurs. Some other filters have been added, including Render Grid, Noise, Night Filter (which is actually a conceptual screen filter for a mobile phone for use at night), and Selective Color. Note that legacy NPS 2.x filters have been removed, but you can still download them.

Performance, performance, performance!

While Beta 2 doesn't exactly scream, it is significantly faster than previous releases. Perhaps the most noticeable improvement is in startup performance – it now takes about 1/10th the amount of time to load. This is made possible via a tool in the .NET Framework called "ngen" that compiles an optimized, machine-specific version of NPS for subsequent use; be sure to check the "Optimize performance" checkbox when installing!

On other fronts, the performance of huge selections has been improved significantly, and configuration (i.e. INI file) performance has been drastically improved.

Conclusion

Other miscellaneous improvements include numerous bug fixes, UI tweaks, and underlying code refactoring to make NPS Image Editor even better. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and grab your copy now!

Posted on Friday, July 19, 2013 at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Tags: nps

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