A new Switzerland-based company, CHROME Imaging, recently announced their
solution to the wonderful world of post-production Photonyx 1.5 is now
shipping. CHROME claims that the software, which is priced at a mere
US$675, was designed to address the high-end post-production market. The
program features RealTools, a painting palette which simulates real world
tools such as crayons, airbrush and charcoal. But moving on to compositing,
Photonyx features "Virtual Screens" technology which offers realtime zoom
and pan on images of 100MB and upwards, and allows one to compose multiple
layers, channels, masks, paths and text with unlimited undo and redo. The
software also allows one to composite via Z-Buffer and Object-ID channels,
while alpha channels are automatically loaded. Although Photonyx sounds
very impressive (especially for the price) calling it "high-end" may be
going a little far (the software is unlikely to give inferno* a run for its
money), however, the software, I'm sure, will be a great asset to students,
hobbyists, and smaller production studios with lower budgets.