Live Picture files for bankruptcy
Todd Heberlein (todd at NetSQ dot com)
federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part of a plan to
allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
John Sculley has not been too successful since leaving Apple.
Todd
MGI Software may buy Live Picture
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,0-36813,00.html?st.ne.ni.lh
Jonathan W Hendry
> According to CNET (via Bloomberg News via WSJ), Live Picture filed for
> federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part of a plan to
> allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
> John Sculley has not been too successful since leaving Apple.
Sculley left that company a while back. I think he just invests
now.
Thingfishhhh
at NetSQ dot com)" <to...@dev.null> wrote:
> According to CNET (via Bloomberg News via WSJ), Live Picture filed for
> federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part of a plan to
> allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
Sad end to a pretty cool program.
The problem with Live picture is that it was advocated as a "Photoshop
Killer", which it was'nt, and that it was too expensive and needed too
much ram in the days when ram was one of the most expensive components on
a computer. It needed at least 64 megs to run decently, in the days when
32 was a lot for most average users.
We bought it right after it dropped from around $3000 to around a $1000,
and it was a cool program. i still have a copy around, sadly it won't run
on my G3 - i havent figured out yet if it's the CPU, or the OS.
*Horrible* interface, even with Kai's input, and you could'nt trust it's
rgb to CMYK tables, so you had to use it *before* any color correction.
The tool set was limited. But for working on BIG images, it *rocked*, and
it was cool to be abnle to render out different versions of the same
image, or parts of the image, which came in REALLY handy for us, as art
publishers.
They had the *best* tech support I ever encountered. Period. Friendly, and
when the guy could'nt answer the question, got an engineer on the phone
with us.
Maybe someone will buy it and revive it. MGI said today it had no plans to
work on it.
Oh well.
Whatever happened to Xres? It was like Live picture, but had a much better
tool set than Live Picture - can you even buy it? With ram so cheap these
days, and cpu speeds so fast, programs like Live Picture and Xres make a
lot more sense.
RIP, Live Picture. It was nice knowin' ya.
Mark Borok
<Thingfishhhh-2...@ppp-206-170-29-236.wnck11.pacbell.net>,
Thingf...@yahoo.net (Thingfishhhh) wrote:
> In article <KhY03.8192$M3.1...@news7.ispnews.com>, "Todd Heberlein (todd
> at NetSQ dot com)" <to...@dev.null> wrote:
>
> > According to CNET (via Bloomberg News via WSJ), Live Picture filed for
> > federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part of a plan to
> > allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
>
> Sad end to a pretty cool program.
>
>
> Maybe someone will buy it and revive it. MGI said today it had no plans to
> work on it.
Maybe Adobe will incorporate the technology into Photoshop. Weren't there
rumors that they were negotiating for it?
>
> Oh well.
>
> Whatever happened to Xres? It was like Live picture, but had a much better
> tool set than Live Picture - can you even buy it? With ram so cheap these
> days, and cpu speeds so fast, programs like Live Picture and Xres make a
> lot more sense.
Xres is available (or was, last time I checked) as part of Macromedia's
graphics bundle (with Freehand).
>
> RIP, Live Picture. It was nice knowin' ya.
--
Mark Borok
"Restless Graphics"
Animation and multimedia design
http://www.mindspring.com/~mborok
Remove "spamless" from email address to respond
Thingfishhhh
mbo...@spamlessmindspring.com (Mark Borok) wrote:
> In article
> <Thingfishhhh-2...@ppp-206-170-29-236.wnck11.pacbell.net>,
> Thingf...@yahoo.net (Thingfishhhh) wrote:
>
> > In article <KhY03.8192$M3.1...@news7.ispnews.com>, "Todd Heberlein (todd
> > at NetSQ dot com)" <to...@dev.null> wrote:
> >
> > > According to CNET (via Bloomberg News via WSJ), Live Picture filed for
> > > federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part of a
plan to
> > > allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
> >
> > Sad end to a pretty cool program.
> >
> >
> > Maybe someone will buy it and revive it. MGI said today it had no plans to
> > work on it.
>
> Maybe Adobe will incorporate the technology into Photoshop. Weren't there
> rumors that they were negotiating for it?
I don't know about that. I'm friends with a guy who's on the splash screen
in Photoshop (he's pretty high ranked at Adobe) and he said that it was
"unlikely". Is that guy who works for Adobe still hanging here? Maybe
he'll tell us - but i doubt it. Getting anything out of Adobe employees is
like pulling teeth...damn it anyway! :)
It would be cool, tho. Here's hoping! :)
raxe...@my-dejanews.com
236.wnck11.pacbell.net>,
Thingf...@yahoo.net (Thingfishhhh) wrote:
> In article <KhY03.8192$M3.1...@news7.ispnews.com>, "Todd Heberlein
(todd
> at NetSQ dot com)" <to...@dev.null> wrote:
>
> > According to CNET (via Bloomberg News via WSJ), Live Picture filed
for
> > federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part of
a plan to
> > allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
>
> Sad end to a pretty cool program.
>
<snip>
>
> We bought it right after it dropped from around $3000 to around a
$1000,
> and it was a cool program. i still have a copy around, sadly it won't
run
> on my G3 - i havent figured out yet if it's the CPU, or the OS.
>
<snip again>
Any comparisons from anyone who has used both between Live Picture and
Tiffany (which looks very nice)?
RAX.
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
John C. Randolph
raxe...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
[snip]
> Any comparisons from anyone who has used both between Live Picture and
> Tiffany (which looks very nice)?
Fraid not. Never saw Live Picture, but Tiffany ROCKS! (This from one
who has written a fair amount of imaging code over the years.)
-jcr
Ruel Smith
wrong moves when he was CEO. He basically gutted the company while
looking great on paper. I wish he never touched the helms at Apple. We'd
be much better off today!
--
Ruel Smith
Cincinnati, OH
Why settle for 600+ bugs in your OS? Get a real operating system and
dump Wincrash!!!
----------
In article <KhY03.8192$M3.1...@news7.ispnews.com>, "Todd Heberlein
(todd at NetSQ dot com)" <to...@dev.null> wrote:
> According to CNET (via Bloomberg News via WSJ), Live Picture filed for
> federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part of a plan to
> allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
>
> John Sculley has not been too successful since leaving Apple.
>
Thingfishhhh
> In article <Thingfishhhh-2005991853540001@ppp-206-170-29-
> 236.wnck11.pacbell.net>,
> Thingf...@yahoo.net (Thingfishhhh) wrote:
> > In article <KhY03.8192$M3.1...@news7.ispnews.com>, "Todd Heberlein
> (todd
> > at NetSQ dot com)" <to...@dev.null> wrote:
> >
> > > According to CNET (via Bloomberg News via WSJ), Live Picture filed
> for
> > > federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part of
> a plan to
> > > allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
> >
> > Sad end to a pretty cool program.
> >
>
> <snip>
>
> >
> > We bought it right after it dropped from around $3000 to around a
> $1000,
> > and it was a cool program. i still have a copy around, sadly it won't
> run
> > on my G3 - i havent figured out yet if it's the CPU, or the OS.
> >
>
> <snip again>
>
> Any comparisons from anyone who has used both between Live Picture and
> Tiffany (which looks very nice)?
>
> RAX.
TIFFany and Live Picture are two entirely different apps - TIFFany is a
full fledged image editor like Photoshop, Live Picture is for manipulating
and rendering massive files. TIFFany could replace Photoshop in a
production department, Live Picture was never meant to do that - in fact,
you really need it to work WITH Photoshop.
One of the biggest disapointments for me when DR-2 would'nt boot on my G3
(OpenFirmware too new) is that there is a version of TIFFany available for
DR-2. Sigh.
raxe...@my-dejanews.com
41.wnck11.pacbell.net>,
So would Live Picture be more likely to survive if implimented as a
huge plugin for photoshop? sort of like a massive file manipulator
equivilent to the KPT filters?
if you're really better off using the two in tandem perhaps they should
be as close as possible?
BTW is the transfer from DPS to Quartz likely to cause problems for
TIFFany?
Thingfishhhh
> So would Live Picture be more likely to survive if implimented as a
> huge plugin for photoshop? sort of like a massive file manipulator
> equivilent to the KPT filters?
I don't think it could be done as a plug-in - the whole point of Live
Picture is that it's a completely different environment than Photoshop.
Maybe they could roll the technology into the core of PS, but I don't see
how you could accomplish LP as a plug-in, because you would essentially be
opening an entire application through a plug-in - it just doesnt make
sense.
> if you're really better off using the two in tandem perhaps they should
> be as close as possible?
I think the real problem with LP is that the market it is for is so small
that it doesnt generate much money. Add in the cheaper cost for fast CPUs,
lots of ram and big hard drives, and it just makes sense to stick with
Photoshop. Back in the days of 68ks and 601 and 604 machines, Live Picture
was a much needed time saver for big images - these days you can buy a
fully loaded G3 or Pentium that works faster with Photoshop than Live
picture.
> BTW is the transfer from DPS to Quartz likely to cause problems for
> TIFFany?
I honestly don't know - there is'nt much info on Quartz out yet - perhaps
TIFFany can license the technology.
raxelbrof
85.wnck11.pacbell.net>,
Thingf...@yahoo.net (Thingfishhhh) wrote:
> In article <7ido28$ffc$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, raxe...@my-dejanews.com
wrote:
>
> > So would Live Picture be more likely to survive if implimented as a
> > huge plugin for photoshop? sort of like a massive file manipulator
> > equivilent to the KPT filters?
>
> I don't think it could be done as a plug-in - the whole point of Live
> Picture is that it's a completely different environment than
Photoshop.
> Maybe they could roll the technology into the core of PS, but I don't
see
> how you could accomplish LP as a plug-in, because you would
essentially be
> opening an entire application through a plug-in - it just doesnt make
> sense.
i was thinking more along the lines of, open a large image in PS, then
if you have some sort of huge ram hungry effect to do then use live
pictures engine to do it perhaps more like a filter than a plug in.
i was only looking it as a way of avoiding opening in LP, working on
the image, saving then reopening in PS
but it was just "what if?" musing
Thingfishhhh
<raxe...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> i was only looking it as a way of avoiding opening in LP, working on
> the image, saving then reopening in PS
You know, the more I think about it, there's only a few tools in Live
Picture that are different from Photoshop, like the Live Distort brushes
and such - but most of the advantages of Live Picture have been
implemented in Photoshop at this point. I guess my position is that it's
not worth the effort.
> but it was just "what if?" musing
>
> RAX.
Understood.
There is a plug-in available for Photoshop (Mac and Windows) called
Genuine Fractals from Altamira Group (www.altamira-group.com) that uses
technology like Live Picture, but within Photoshop. You convert your image
into the file format for GF, and then do your work on it, and then you can
output a version at any size - I've output images 500% bigger than the
original using this plug-in! (A REAL lifesaver for some situations). In
essence, it lets you work on images at a smaller file size, and then
render at a higher resolution or size. It uses fractal technology to scale
images, and works fairly well. It is ram hungry, tho.
Caveat: it can create noise in some channels. Subtle, but it's there.
Depends on the image, and how much you're blowing the image up.
I used it at an agency i worked at to re-size several images at about 250%
at the last minute, when they found the original working files had been
lost. saved several days worth of production work, and we met the
deadline. Woo hoo!
A friend of mine used it in a real nightmare job - he received a corporate
brochure type job, from the east coast, and when he went to print, found
he only had 72 dpi images for the job, the designer wasn't available, it
was Friday afternoon, and the job had to be delivered Monday. Ack.
He used Genuine Fractals to blow up the 72 dpi images to 300, and it
printed pefectly. VERY slight noise in the cyan channels for a few images,
but as they were photographs he let it go - you could'nt see it without a
loupe.
Check it out - very cool technology. I'm hoping Adobe looks into this kind
of technology real soon.
Plus, it made the publisher I worked for VERY nervous, as you can take
images off the web and make versions acceptable for offset printing.
Eeeek!
raxelbrof
144.wnck11.pacbell.net>,
Thingf...@yahoo.net (Thingfishhhh) wrote:
> In article <7igag6$blu$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, raxelbrof
> <raxe...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>
> > i was only looking it as a way of avoiding opening in LP, working on
> > the image, saving then reopening in PS
>
> You know, the more I think about it, there's only a few tools in Live
> Picture that are different from Photoshop, like the Live Distort
brushes
> and such - but most of the advantages of Live Picture have been
> implemented in Photoshop at this point. I guess my position is that
it's
> not worth the effort.
agreed, but as i'm still working in 3.04 (morally opposed to upgrading
due to a bad customer experience) on reasonably old hardware i like to
muse on these sort of things.
<snip>
> Genuine Fractals from Altamira Group (www.altamira-group.com) that
uses
> I used it at an agency i worked at to re-size several images at about
250%
> at the last minute, when they found the original working files had
been
> lost. saved several days worth of production work, and we met the
> deadline. Woo hoo!
>
<snip>
wow this looks really really nice. just checking the site now. this
should be manditory software for bureaux - nothing worse than getting
some imageset bromides back where they've lost youre origional scans
(which are on the supplied media exactly where theyre supposed to be
and printed fine before being sent to them) and decided that its ok to
print from the onscreen quark preview.....
ehm, whoops excuse the rant.
thanks for the tip.
randyr...@yahoo.com
and will soon be 6144 by 3072. Photoshop struggles with files this
large and I'm desperately in need of a program like Live Picture in
order to do design work on a large scale. Is there any available
program that is like Live Picture and will run on current hardware (G3
or NT)?
Thanks, David Bromwich
Princeton CS
In article <mborok-2005...@user-2ive875.dialup.mindspring.com>,
mbo...@spamlessmindspring.com (Mark Borok) wrote:
> In article
> <Thingfishhhh-2...@ppp-206-170-29-236.wnck11.pacbell.net>,
> Thingf...@yahoo.net (Thingfishhhh) wrote:
>
> > In article <KhY03.8192$M3.1...@news7.ispnews.com>, "Todd
Heberlein (todd
> > at NetSQ dot com)" <to...@dev.null> wrote:
> >
> > > According to CNET (via Bloomberg News via WSJ), Live Picture
filed for
> > > federal bankruptcy protection yesterday. It appears to be part
of a plan to
> > > allow it to be acquired by MGI Software.
> >
> > Sad end to a pretty cool program.
> >
> >
> > Maybe someone will buy it and revive it. MGI said today it had no
plans to
> > work on it.
>
> Maybe Adobe will incorporate the technology into Photoshop. Weren't
there
> rumors that they were negotiating for it?
> >
> > Oh well.
> >
> > Whatever happened to Xres? It was like Live picture, but had a much
better
> > tool set than Live Picture - can you even buy it? With ram so cheap
these
> > days, and cpu speeds so fast, programs like Live Picture and Xres
make a
> > lot more sense.
>
> Xres is available (or was, last time I checked) as part of
Macromedia's
> graphics bundle (with Freehand).
> >
> > RIP, Live Picture. It was nice knowin' ya.
>
> --
> Mark Borok
> "Restless Graphics"
> Animation and multimedia design
> http://www.mindspring.com/~mborok
> Remove "spamless" from email address to respond
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Chris Pott
wrote:
> I'm currently using a display wall that measures 3850 by 1470 pixels
> and will soon be 6144 by 3072. Photoshop struggles with files this
> large and I'm desperately in need of a program like Live Picture in
> order to do design work on a large scale. Is there any available
> program that is like Live Picture and will run on current hardware (G3
> or NT)?
> Thanks, David Bromwich
> Princeton CS
I can't help you, but just had to post to let you know how insanely
jealous I am. A "display wall." Whew!
--
Chris Pott
cp...@excite.com
WillAdams
William
--
William Adams
http://members.aol.com/willadams
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Thingfishhhh
> I'm currently using a display wall that measures 3850 by 1470 pixels
> and will soon be 6144 by 3072. Photoshop struggles with files this
> large and I'm desperately in need of a program like Live Picture in
> order to do design work on a large scale. Is there any available
> program that is like Live Picture and will run on current hardware (G3
> or NT)?
> Thanks, David Bromwich
> Princeton CS
Xres from Macromedia, version 3.0. Works on NT or Mac. We have a
Macromedia guy here in the NG, maybe he can help you out with details. I
used 2.0 for a while, pretty nice app - Live Picture with a lot more
tools.
And, even though the comapny is no more, and the product in limbo, it
still works, even though you won't get any tech support. You can get it
pretty cheap, you might want to pick up a copy. (Note: it would'nt run on
my 266 G3 desktop...)
Jonathan Hendry
Chris Pott wrote in message <070619991350481121%cp...@excite.com>...
>In article <7jh6ed$vq2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <randyr...@yahoo.com>
>wrote:
>
>> I'm currently using a display wall that measures 3850 by 1470 pixels
>> and will soon be 6144 by 3072. Photoshop struggles with files this
>> large and I'm desperately in need of a program like Live Picture in
>> order to do design work on a large scale. Is there any available
>> program that is like Live Picture and will run on current hardware (G3
>> or NT)?
>> Thanks, David Bromwich
>> Princeton CS
>
>jealous I am. A "display wall." Whew!
Check out www.pixelvision.com
Chris Pott
<j_he...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Hmmm.... server could not be found...
--
Chris Pott
cp...@excite.com
Tom Vilot
news:7jh6ed$vq2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> I'm currently using a display wall that measures 3850 by 1470 pixels
> and will soon be 6144 by 3072. Photoshop struggles with files this
What, are you kidding me? That's 56MB! That's NOTHING!
Now, granted I have a gig of RAM in my NT box, but for godsakes 56MB is NOT
something PhotoShop "struggles" with by any stretch of the imagination,
unless you're running a Mac 68040 or a Pentium 133 with 64MB of RAM and
maybe Windows 3.11!!
Indeed, I just installed this gig of RAM, and Fractal Design Painter allowed
me to work on a 400MB image in almost real time.