This kind of thing is always a balancing act, since Studio Artist can be used to do so many different things. Interactive digital painting, automatic digital painting, modular image processing, photo manipulation, video processing, slit scan time based effects, panorama building, morphing, warping, procedural art, paint animation, bezier animation, live video processing, etc, etc being just a few of the potential applications.
And different users tend to see the world through their own pair of rose colored glasses. But i do feel strongly that the synergistic effect of all of the different features work together to create a really unique environment for building visual effects and visual imagery.
Everyone at Synthetik has their own ideas about where to take Studio Artist as we move forwards on developing the next version. But you can help us shape that vision, so please feel free to speak up about features you would like to see us add or expand in the future. In this kind of design and development process there's always a lot of give and take, so your input about what you feel is important (or not important) is very useful to us as we start to get into making decisions about potential new features and design tradeoffs associated with them.
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Larger source image view in the source palette window.
And of course, some way to visualize audio (waveform, cue points, markers?) in the PASeq timeline.
User definable external video input (firewire cameras other than built-in iSight, but also devices like the Canopus ADVC-100 or such).
A more refined woodcut, scratchboard, engraved look.
Take a look at www.stevennoble.com/
My biggest wish would be a performance enhancement.
My particular interest is art creation potentially for print. Painting by hand on the Canvas.
SA v4+ (admittedly on an Intel Mac Mini several years old) runs great at a canvas size of maximum 2000x2000 at 72 dpi. This is perfectly adequate for imagery for the web... But not enough size or dpi for print.
When I attempt to increase either Canvas size (dimension) and or DPI - SA slows to a crawl. What runs fine at smaller sizes takes 10 times longer at larger dimensions. A one hour job becomes an all day job. In a time=money situation, the all day option isn't something I can afford.
The performance hit is specific to the canvas scale rather than complexity of a Preset.
I have been able to make adjustments to Presets up to a point. Spacing and so forth - but a Preset look that works at a smaller size often becomes a completely different thing when "optimized" to run faster or cover a larger area. Scaling up from a smaller image sometimes works as well - but is hit or miss if scaling from History. Just up-scaling a final image produces results that often enhance digital artifacts (hard edge pixels and the like) undesirably.
A performance boost for BIG canvas images!
To print an original photograph, it's usually necessary to have an output file with the resolution set to 360 ppi. (With some subjects, including portraiture, it may be possible to work at 240 ppi.). But, with any fully rendered digital image that I've built there's never been a need to work at more than 180 ppi. So an image file which is output from a 2000 by 2000 pixel Canvas in SA can be printed at better than 10 by 10 inches. But, this can be increased to at least 20 by 20 inches using an interpolating "enlargement" utility. The one which is native to Photoshop is OK, but a number of third-party programs are substantially better. Basically it's important to have a range of adjustments at-hand addressing edge definition (essentially sharpening the image in the upsizing) - the application I use most regularly can operate as a plug-in or a standalone app and comes from Akvis.
I think that SA itself has an interpolator - but I'm still stuck at the introductory level of auto-painting Presets on the learning-curve front. However, I don't foresee having any problems with printing my images (eventually!) at small poster sizes.
Also, I'd note that the artist who is currently featured in the Studio Artist News blog manages to output very large files via SA (with, apparently, Photoshop used in post-processing).
John
For images that are - for lack of a better term - rich, blended or "noisy" like a photograph, smaller original images will upsize effectively. The information is not less or particularly damaged by scaling.
My issue is somewhat different.
To focus on one example of drawing with a Preset that represents many other Presets...
For the work I do - for instance a sample here:
http://greenlightcd.blogspot.com/2010/02/if-muddy.html
- done at 150 dpi at 3000x3000 pixels - or the attached image using the same outline Preset at 150 dpi but 2000x2000 pixels, the pixelated edges - when upscaled no matter the scaling app/algorithm etc (I have used them all) become mountainous peaks and valleys. Clearly visible, disastrously "digital", evident when printed. The 1000 pixel difference - while looking good - slowed my machine down dramatically. Requiring a very patient approach - far slower than I would normally want with this sort of painting.
Having worked a great deal with printing line art and particularly printing text (fine text) often printing to significantly reduced sizes from the original to glossy surfaces... The difference between a source image at 20 inches/300 dpi and one that is 20 inches/200 dpi or less is noticeable. Dpi being the most used measure of density of information in applications other than Photoshop.
In SA - if I "paint" at a higher dpi and larger Canvas scale - the same Preset will antialias out most of the pixel issue. But the act of drawing becomes slow - the processor is sluggish trying to keep up - there are gaps where the processor drops information... and the natural flow of the act of drawing is fragmented.
Its the act of drawing that is the issue. The final output is also an issue - but the limit in scale at the start means I have to decide if SA will be my tool of choice - or if another tool will match the need and "need for speed" better.
Because I very much want to use SA as my primary tool but cannot always do so... I raise the issue.
edge.jpg
I understand your point(s) better now. (And much admire your work.)
However, it's not, primarily, the case that " .... rich, blended or "noisy" like a photograph, smaller original images will upsize effectively" because the criterion of success is the enlargement of the very sharpest feature in the entire image without it becoming soft or distorted.
Nevertheless, if you need to have very fine detail present, graphically, in large-size images, then that sits differently from my own previous experiences, where the objective has been to simply present a re-rendered image in a pictorial manner. Mostly so via prints. By-and-large (sic), I have been able to reduce the presence of artifacts from my rendering by blurring, very slightly, the final proxy image and then using a tool like Akvis' - with careful customization of the control parameters - to do an enlargement incrementally (usually no more than +50% at one pass).
My experience with SA so far leads me to believe that many of the simpler operations relating to outlining are of a lower "fidelity" than the comparator Windows-based applications - which I'm more familiar with - could produce. So, overall, from my status as an SA kindergarten-level user, I could be convinced that you may be requesting some specific algorithmic upgrades. At least in the SA Image Operation Presets there are some anti-aliasing options which could help with what's in your sample image - does SA have a utility where they could be run as a post-processing step?
John
p.s. as far as I'm aware, Photoshop has the usage of ppi and dpi correct - the latter should only be used with reference to printing ...?
You can also build PASeqs that take some of the image processing effects you are referring to and vectorize them and then output via anti-aliased vector drawing if you are really concerned about that. Anything that generates hard edged black and white effects can be converted to vector graphics in Studio Artist if you want to.
Craig wants to hand draw on very large canvas sizes without getting any speed performance hits, so i do understand where he's coming from.
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