Some of these features are ready, others are in development. ChocoFlop is still being developed. I only update this from time to time, so you’d rather read the news or download the app to get up to date feature list. This however should give you a good idea of what it does (or will do).

100% Mac OSX Native

• Very fast launch time (about 1 or 2 second on cheapest mac mini)
• Written from scratch for Mac OS X 10.4+
• No legacy or compatibility slow code
• Uses all hardware acceleration (CPU and GPU)
• Universal binary for PowerPC and Intel
• Uses CoreImage and custom OpenGL code.
• The download is about a pair of megabytes (zipped) so far and will remain in that range (translation will probably increase this).
• Application is self-updating through a RSS feed, thanks to Sparkle
• HDR ready: all operations work in 8, 16, 32 bits per components (a.k.a. 32, 64, 128 bits per pixel). Read why HDR is so cool.

Advanced GUI

• Full Screen mode.
• Real Time Preview for all filters and transformations.
• Industry standard shortcuts and user interface.
• Easy transition from much more expensive packages.

Painting Tools

• All tools: tablets (Wacom) for pressure information.
• All tools: disable smooth drawing for pixel-art
• Paint brush / Eraser
• Brushes: Parametric (diameter, hardness, opacity)
• Brushes: Bitmap (user-defined)
• Stamp Tool
• Magic Brush (Blur, Sharpen, Saturate, Desaturate…)
• Gradients: Circular (or gaussian)
• Gradients: Linear
• More: to come…

Text Layers

• Rich Text with all imaginable attributes : change fonts, colors, alignment, spacing… basically anything TextEdit can do.
• Stored as simple RTF files for easy import/export.
• Text can be affected by non-destructive filters, just like any other layer. You can for example apply a Perspective fitler on a text and then edit this text and see the perspective update in real-time.

Geometry Transformation Tools

• Scale
• Rotate
• Flip Axis
• Deform
• Perspective
• Interactive and Preset Modes.

Rotation and scale can be applied in real time to each individual layer in a non-destructive way. Scale and rotate a layer, then paint on it while still keeping the original orientation and scale (reset with a single click).

Misc. Tools

• Color Picker - precise or averaged, global or per layer
• Zoom
• Pan

Selection Tools

• Rectangle
• Oval
• Lasso / Polygon
• Magic Wand
• QuickMask Painting
• Add / Substract from selection
• Create LayerMask from selection
• Blur selection
• Select by Color

Layers

• Support for an unlimited number of layers
• Layer folders and sub-folders
• Each layer can have it’s own layer mask
• Each layer supports all blending modes (see below)

Live! Layers

• Every Filter can be either applied or kept as a Live! Layer.
• Live! Layers have layer masks just like normal layers.
• Accelerated by Graphics Card (GPU)

  

  You can select an area, fire up any filter and keep it as Live! layer. Your selection will automatically be used as a layer mask for the new layer. The filter will be applied in a real-time, non-destructive manner. You can also paint in the layermask to reveal or hide parts of the filter. If you plan on having several live layers a CoreImage supported Graphics Card will help a lot (like Radeon 9600 or better).

  

  Save for web

  Thanks to the power of ImageMagick, ChocoFlop can export to the most common web formats (Jpeg, PNG and GIF) with the best compression possible. Apple’s ImageIO allows you to save to these formats but if you want to save files for the web of mobile applications, then just use the ‘Save for web’ menu to adjust compression settings and get the best results. For the most demanding AdvPNG is integrated and can be used to recompress your PNG files to reach the smallest file size possible.

  QuickLook

  In its native format (.chocoimg), ChocoFlop can generating both preview and thumbnails images that will display nicely in QuickLook (requires OSX 10.5 Leopard).

  Image modes

  • 32 bits = 256 levels per color component (standard)
  • 64 bits = 2^16 levels per color component (65536 levels)
  • 128 bits = 2^32 levels for each color (that’s a lot, aka. a shitload or 4+ billions)

  128 bit gives you much greater accuracy and is much less destructive. Take a picture, reduce it’s luminosity to 10% of what it was (apply the filter). Now take it back to it’s original luminosity. You’ll see that with 128 bits floating-point precision you can get back pretty much your original image without loss. With good old 32 bits trying to get back to the original luminosity would get you an awfully posterized image. Note that not all formats will allow you to save in such a color depth. OpenEXR (used by the movie industry and supported by OSX) allows it and so will ChocoFlop’s native format. Even if you wish to save a GIF (256 colors) in the end, it’s always better to work in this mode and convert to 256 colors only when saving.

  Color Adjustment

  • Sepia Tone
  • MonoChrome
  • Color Map
  • Invert
  • Desaturate
  • Posterize
  • False Color
  • Exposure
  • Gamma
  • Color Controls
  • Hue Adjust
  • White Point
  • Color Cube
  • More: Supports any third party Core Image Filter.

  Filters

  • Sharpen: Unsharp Mask
  • Sharpen: Sharpen Luminance
  • Blur: Motion Blur
  • Blur: Zoom Blur
  • Blur: Gaussian Blur
  • Blur: Median
  • Blur: Noise Reduction
  • Distortion: Bump
  • Distortion: Circle Splash
  • Distortion: Displacement
  • Distortion: Glass
  • Distortion: Glass Lozenge
  • Distortion: Hole
  • Distortion: Pinch
  • Distortion: Torus
  • Distortion: Twirl
  • Distortion: Vortex
  • HalfTone: Circular Screen
  • HalfTone: CMYK Halftone
  • HalfTone: Dot Screen
  • HalfTone: Hatched Screen
  • HalfTone: Line Screen
  • Tile: Affine Clamp
  • Tile: Affine Tile
  • Tile: Kaleidoscope
  • Tile: Op Tile
  • Tile: Parallelogram Tile
  • Tile: Perspective Tile
  • Tile: Triangle Tile
  • Generators: CheckerBoard
  • Generators: Constant Color (Fill)
  • Generators: Random Generator (Color Noise)
  • Generators: Star Shine
  • Generators: Stripes
  • Generators: SunBeams
  • - Gradient: Gaussian
  • - Gradient: Linear
  • - Gradient: Radial
  • Stylize: Bloom
  • Stylize: Crystallize
  • Stylize: Edges
  • Stylize: Edge Work
  • Stylize: Gloom
  • Stylize: Pixellate
  • Stylize: Pointillize
  • Stylize: Spotlight
  • Stylize: Shaded material
  • More: Supports any third party Core Image Filter.

  Supported File Formats - Read and Write

  • Native ChocoFlop format ( .chocoimg ). Simple and open: basically a folder (a.k.a bundle) with an XML file and a bunch of TIFF and RTF files. See reference.
  • Windows Bitmap Format, a.k.a DIB ( .bmp and .BMPf )
  • Graphics Interchange Format ( .gif , not animated at this point)
  • Portable Network Graphics ( .png)
  • Joint Photographic Experts Group a.k.a. JPEG ( .jpg , .jpeg )
  • JPEG 2000 ( .jp2 ) - More info
  • Tagged Image File Format ( .tiff or .tif )
  • Targa ( .targa or .tga )
  • Macintosh Picture Format ( .pict, .pct, .pic )
  • Portable Document Format ( .pdf , export only as 0f 0.17)
  • SGI ( .sgi)
  • OpenEXR ( .exr )
  • PhotoShop Document ( .psd , no layers at this point!)

  Supported File Formats - Read ONLY

  • RAW: Nikon ( .nef )
  • RAW: Sony ( .srf )
  • RAW: Fuji ( .raf )
  • RAW: Adobe ( .dng )
  • RAW: Olympus ( .orf )
  • RAW: Konica-Minolta ( .mrw )
  • RAW: Canon ( .crw and .cr2 )
  • Canon-TIF-Raw
  • Kodak FlashPix ( .fpx , .fpix )
  • Kodak RAW ( .dcr )
  • Adobe Illustrator (.ai)
  • Microsoft Icons ( .ico )
  • Windows Cursor ( .cur )
  • Apple Icons ( .icns )
  • Mac Paint ( .ptng and .pnt and .mac )
  • XBitmap ( .xbm )
  • Radiance ( .hdr )
  • Quicktime Import Format ( .qti and .qtif )
  • and Apple Quicktime supported images

  Supported File Formats - Read Only Through DCRaw

  • A lot of RAW variants are supported, read the project website.
  • This supports, Canon’s .CR2 (Including 12 bits, which still crashes with Apple’s ImageIO as of 10.4.8)
  • Here is a List of Supported Cameras

  Supported File Formats - Java ImageIO (Read-Only for now)

  • Just put your plugin in /Library/Java/Extensions/. Any application supporting Java’s ImageIO should be able to open the files handled by this plugin.
  • GIF Java ImageIO plugin
  • RAW ImageIO plugin

  Blending modes

  • Addition
  • Minimum
  • Maximum
  • Normal (Source Over)
  • Color
  • Color Burn
  • Color Dodge
  • Darken
  • Difference
  • Exclusion
  • Hard Light
  • Hue
  • Lighten
  • Luminosity
  • Multiply
  • Overlay
  • Saturation
  • Screen
  • Soft Light