Camen Design

Announcing PhotoDemon:
A Fast, Free, Open-Source Image Processor

tannerhelland.com

Myself, and my good friend Tanner Helland grew up in a scene that revolved around Visual Basic 6.

Much hated by “real programmers” for not being a “real language”, Visual Basic 6 struck a chord with the common populous unlike anything since. For a very business-orientated product, a huge scene grew up around teens experimenting with the language.

For all the hate it got, my choice in using it was one of the wisest I made. Software I wrote over 10 years ago still works now and will still work throughout the lifespan of Windows 8. Those who adopted .NET could not say the same and have been dragged along Microsoft’s eclectic upgrade-train, with every new idea thrown in along the way by a directionless Microsoft failing to practice anything they preach (.NET is the future! Silverlight is the future! C# is the future! HTML5 is the future!)

So, it is of deep personal joy for me to link you to some 12 year old software which has only just been released!

I have known PhotoDemon for a long time. Tanner has been sending me copies for over a decade. The wolrd may have changed rapidly around me in those years—Apple went from dead to the No.1 company in the world and Microsoft lost their grip on the ’Web—but PhotoDemon has matured slowly, like a fine wine.

Application design in general has changed fads immensely since the days of PhotoDemon Tanner has included some nice old screenshots showing just how immensely! and though what Tanner started out with couldn’t be further removed from the “apps” of today, the recent changes in UI leading up to this release have been most profound. In 2003 I sent Tanner a massive 20-page e-mail detailing everything I could criticise on the UI-front. In those nine years my design skills have changed irrevocably so I understand how making PhotoDemon look so good today for, let’s remind ourselves, a VB6 program is such an achievement for Tanner who never admitted to knowing much about UI.

So, go check out Tanner’s announcement, read the history and see the screenshots of a program 12 years in the making!