ADPro vs. ImageFX

[Ral-Clan]

Hi, I have been a serious ImageFX user for the past decade or so.  I just cannot do without this software.  

But I've heard various people say that ADPro (Art Department Professional) was a "must have" app for the Amiga at one time.

I remember playing with ADPro but I eventually uninstalled it.

Can't ImageFX do anything AdPro could do (and better)?  Or is there still some reason to use ADPro and have both pieces of software installed on one's Amiga?

[Crom00]

AdPro is great for "batch processing" Where you take entire imgages, resize them, recolor them, run a filter on them and resave them either as an image sequence.

Example of use:

Take 300 frames from lightwave rendered at 1024X768, reize them to 720X486, apply a noise filter, NTSC color filter, etc. then save the sequence of jpgs to a device like DPS par, that would compile that sequence of images into an animation that would playback in real time.

Why we needed to do this:

You have a master render of your scene at 102X768 for archiving and a "broadcast resolution" version suitable for D1/D2 Standard resolution playback.

These days Photoshop or After Effects replace BOTH ImageFX and ADPRO
Imagemaster for the Amiga was quite good as well.

[Ral-Clan]

AdPro is great for "batch processing" Where you take entire imgages, resize them, recolor them, run a filter on them and resave them either as an image sequence.

But ImageFX has its own batch processor, AutoFX, which is highly customizable and can even use user defined macros....so how is ADPro's batch processor better?

These days Photoshop or After Effects replace BOTH ImageFX and ADPRO
Imagemaster for the Amiga was quite good as well.

I don't know about this.  There have been a few times that I've started using Photoshop to work on an image, but then switched back to ImageFX just because I can do it easier/quicker, etc.  I'm sure Photoshop has now grown so it has more features than ImageFX, but for the core features that people use 99% of the time (and some more exotic features) it seems to me that ImageFX can still do the job well.

[AmigaHeretic]

Hi, I have been a serious ImageFX user for the past decade or so.  I just cannot do without this software.  

But I've heard various people say that ADPro (Art Department Professional) was a "must have" app for the Amiga at one time.

I remember playing with ADPro but I eventually uninstalled it.

Can't ImageFX do anything AdPro could do (and better)?  Or is there still some reason to use ADPro and have both pieces of software installed on one's Amiga?

I still use ADPro sometimes for converting to .jpg

I did a comparison a while ago and ADPro .jpg look much better than Photoshop (save for Web) images of the same file size.  

It's really pretty amazing if you take some pics and do some tests.

[Vulture]

As you said IFX has AutoFX. There's nothing Adpro can do at this point that IFX can't, only IFX usually does it better

[Crom00]

As you said IFX has AutoFX. There's nothing Adpro can do at this point that IFX can't, only IFX usually does it better

ImageFX and ADPRO run great on a USB drive and WinUAE on a Mcbook Pro. Much faster than any amiga I ever had.

[stefcep2]

Photogenics ability to spray on effects was great.  Masks? layers? meh, just use the free hand draw tool, and change the effect, fix it and your done.  Except it crashed, more than it should have.

[T3000]

ADPro and ImageFX were both excellent in their day and usually both programs were in use. ImageFX however became better than ADPro at what it does over the years. Not many utilized ImageMaster as a batch processor.

ImageFX stayed Amiga based while the companys that produced ADPro and ImageMaster developed their product line for windows.
More information:
 ImageFX http://www.novadesign.com/2008/10/imagefx-45-studio-for-amiga.html Still in development!
[strike]ImageMaster[/strike], WinImages http://www.blackbeltsystems.com/ Funky interface, inexpensive, unlike the other image manipulation program for windows.
ADPro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avid_Elastic_Reality Remembered as a forerunner in video image manipulation. (RIP)

[danwood]

I prefer Art Effect to both of them.  Much slicker product imho.

[motrucker]

I could'nt live without ImageFX. This program pretty much makes AdPro useless.
Maybe it's because I've used ImageFX so long, but I find it much easier to use than Photoshop, or any Windows program. This is why an Amiga usually sits next to my Windows machine.

[Jose]

Is there any change of a new version coming out or it's pretty much out of the question...

[cecilia]

I worked with ADPro for a while - even used "Fred" which was a batch processor thingy for ADPRo. I'm not sure how many people really used that but I am One Of The Few.

When i first used IFX I realized the arexx scripts were way easier to make than anything I had done in ADPro.

yes, you had to learn the commands and figure out what did work and what didn't in a script, but it was worth the effort because once you Got It, it was golden!

and in IFX4.5 you don't Have to use autofx to batch, you can load up your sequence in the main buffer and run a script right there. Of course, this is best done with lots of memory - like when you have MOS or WinUAE or something rather than an Amiga without enough memory, but it CAN work.

yes, it can.

I have (and still) use AfterEffects and that program just rocks. It's for Pros, obviously. But it's too expensive for regular people. And I only have it because I'm In The Business.
It's main difference from IFX is  bezier curves and keyframing Everything with realtime changes.

still, IFX is great. You can still do a LOT with it

[Ral-Clan]

I could'nt live without ImageFX. This program pretty much makes AdPro useless.
Maybe it's because I've used ImageFX so long, but I find it much easier to use than Photoshop, or any Windows program. This is why an Amiga usually sits next to my Windows machine.

My thoughts exactly - although in my case it runs under UAE and shares a common folder with the Windows side so I can easily pop images back and forth across operating systems.  ImageFX runs like the blazes under UAE on a modern PC CPU.

[motrucker]

I'm still using it with a real Amiga A2000. But with a 28MHz 040 it is pretty quick with most operations. I will, no doubt, add WINAUE again - soon to my windows machine.

[Ral-Clan]

I'm still using it with a real Amiga A2000. But with a 28MHz 040 it is pretty quick with most operations. I will, no doubt, add WINAUE again - soon to my windows machine.

I ran it on a 33MHz 68020 A2000 up until the summer of 2008.  When the A2000 broke down I reluctantly switched to a PC with WinUAE.  Although I was very skeptical at first it was actually one of the best Amiga decisions I ever made.  All my productivity apps now run about four times faster or more without problems.  I recently edited a large 40,000 x 40,000 pixel image under ImageFX in UAE.  It worked great and was reasonably quick for an image this large (which would cause sluggishness on any modern system).  On my original A2000 I don't even think I could have loaded it into ImageFX with only 32MB RAM.  It would have switched to virtual memory and probably taken a half an hour to load.  I love the original machines, but UAE has really kept ImageFX a practical reality for me for serious work (although I did do a lot of "serious" work on the A2000 as well, just in lower resolutions and I needed a little more patience for complicated operations).