Babya Updates Babya Photo Workshop for Macs

QLD, Australia, August 28, 2006 --(PR.com)-- Babya today announced a free update to the Mac version of Babya Photo Workshop.

Version 11.02 includes bug fixes for Intel Mac users.

Babya Photo Workshop for Mac is a image editing application that allows you to get started and experiment with Image Units.

You can start out with a base image, apply a color control filter, an exposure adjust filter, white point adjust filter, and a color blend mode filter—all the while watching the filters being applied to the source image in real time. By using Babya Photo Workshop for Mac and seeing how Image Units work, you can get a feel for how Image Units could be used in your own applications.

Image Units Included with Tiger
Blur
Median Blur
Gaussian Blur
Motion Blur
Zoom Blur
Noise Reduction
Color Adjustment
Color Controls
Color Matrix
Exposure Adjust
Gamma Adjust
Hue Adjust
White Point Adjust
Color
Color Map
Color Invert
Color Monochrome
Color Posterize
False Color
Sepia Tone
Mask to Alpha
Compositing
Addition
Maximum
Minimum
Multiply
Source Atop
Source In
Source Out
Source Over
Distortion
Pinch Distortion
Hole Distortion
Bump Distortion
Displacement Distortion
Glass Distortion
Glass Lozenge
Torus Lens Distortion
Twirl Distortion
Vortex Distortion
Circle Splash Distortion
Circular Wrap Distortion
Generators
Checkerboard
Constant Color
Lenticular Halo
Star Shine
Stripes
Sunbeams
Random Generator
Gradients
Gaussian Gradient
Linear Gradient
Radial Gradient
Sharpeners
Sharpen Luminance
Unsharp Mask
Color Blends
Color Burn Blend Mode
Darken Blend Mode
Difference Blend Mode
Exclusion Blend Mode
Hard Light Blend Mode
Hue Blend Mode
Lighten Blend Mode
Luminosity Blend Mode
Multiply Blend Mode
Overlay Blend Mode
Saturation Blend Mode
Screen Blend Mode
Soft Light Blend Mode

How Core Image Works in Babya Photo Workshop:

Babya Photo Workshop uses Core Image-here’s how it works:

In a nutshell, an Image Unit performs pixel-level operations on image data that results in the creation of a new image.

When an Image Unit is loaded and configured with an image (or images), as well as any needed parameters that define the settings that the Image Unit can take, pixels are fetched from the input image by a sampler object that handles any needed coordinate transformation and scaling.

These pixels are provided to the Image Unit's processing kernel which then performs its calculations and returns a result pixel.

When multiple Image Units are combined to process an image, Core Image calculates the processing pipeline path for each pixel.

Babya Photo Workshop then dynamically concatenates the entire recipe for each result pixel from all of the Image Units into a single optimized operation. Furthermore, Core Image uses lazy evaluation.

Only the pixels that need to be processed for a given destination will be processed—and only when they are drawn to their destination.

This behavior dramatically minimizes the amount of work that Core Image needs to perform in order to create a final result image.

Core Image operates non-destructively on image sources. Since Image Units execute in near real-time, and only on the pixels that need to be processed, it is possible to keep the original state of the source images and reprocess the displayed pixels as needed.

This lets you adjust the effects of an Image Unit and see the changes immediately.

For example, a user can adjust the level of sharpening applied to an image and see the changes without delay.

Parallel Execution:

While it is easy to think of the per-pixel operations that an Image Unit performs as happening one-by-one in a linear fashion, Core Image executes these operations, whenever possible, using either the Velocity Engine in the PowerPC G4 or G5 CPUs or the high performance GPUs on the latest video cards. These SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) hardware solutions allow the same code to be executed on multiple data sets in parallel.

This use of parallelism is a perfect match for manipulating images where the same operation is performed over and over on hundreds or thousands of pixels.

Core Image Accuracy:
Because Core Image uses 32-bit floating point numbers instead of fixed scalars, it can handle over 1025 colors.

Each pixel is specified by a set of four floating point numbers, one each for the red, green, blue, and alpha components of a pixel.

This color space is far greater than the human eye can perceive.

This level of precision in specifying color components allows image fidelity to be preserved even through a large number of processing steps without truncation.

Babya's A.A. Fussy commented, "Babya Photo Workshop for Mac version 11.02 improves stability for users of Intel Macs."

Pricing and Availability:
Babya Photo Workshop for Mac version 11.02 is now downloadable at:
http://www.winsite.com/bin/Info?27500000036992

About Babya:

Babya Software Group is an award-winning developer of digital media software for Mac and Windows, including Babya bSuite, bPicture, Babya Firestorm and Babya Photo Workshop and Babya Logic.

Babya's software has won many awards over the past several years, including 5 stars (Babya bSuite, 2005), a Softpedia Pick and a Softpedia 100% clean award (2006) and has been featured in magazines such as PC Utilities and PC Format.

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