Live Picture Screenshot – © John Neel
Once upon a time, there was a software package that could destroy Photoshop in nearly every way. Even today, if it were still available, it could hold its own in a race for giant images.
That amazing software was called Live Picture. It used 48-bit color, was extremely fast yet it only required very small amounts of ram. It had image distortion, unlimited undo and an amazing interface with hidden menus. The images could be output to any size any time. It had nondestructive layer imaging.
Everything you do in LP is a layer (long before Photoshop had layers). It had instant brushes that were huge in scale, great soft edge brushes, cloning tools and amazing masking capabilities. There was no banding in gradients because they were 48 bit gradients as opposed to Photoshop’s 24 bit gradients.
Live Picture Screenshot – © John Neel
In 1993 when I first started to use Live Picture, the program was way ahead of its time. In the early nineties when pixels were in their infancy, Live Picture was a direct competitor to Adobe Photoshop.
Geared to the high end user, this program used a unique method for controlling the amount of data that needed to be processed at any given time. To do so, the program required that an image be preprocessed into a proprietary format called an Ivue file.
According to the original sales data:
- Composite, resize, and rotate in real time regardless of image size or number of layers.
- Output image files to any resolution without changing the original resolution.
- LP was one of the first if not the first programs to use nondestructive
- image processing.
- Perform unlimited undos.
- Works in 48bit
- colorspace.
- Banding free gradients, blends and opacity masks.
- Complex masks in seconds.
- Files are resolution independent.
- Output to RGB or CMYK
- Real time image distortion
- Wacom tablet support
- Vector and bitmap layers in same document
- Bezier curves
- Create textures.
- Instant gradients
- Works extremely fast with only 24 megs of ram on an old PowerPC (48 megs were recommended)
- The list goes on and on.
As stated above, everything you do in Live Picture becomes a layer. Layers can be turned on and off without damaging the file. An image may have as many layers as needed. Several different compositions can be produced in the same document. This was great for showing variations to a client.
Live Picture Screenshot – © John Neel
Masking in Live Picture instantaneous and truly amazing!
Live Picture was originally produced by HSC Software, which became MetaCreations and is now owned by a Canadian software company that has not yet reissued it. I believe that the original cost was in the thousands of dollars and was aimed for use by high end imaging service bureaus. If anything killed it, it was the price.
Unfortunately, this software is very difficult to find these days. There are the occasional eBay listings and perhaps a few on Craig’s List. If you ever want to use the program, you will need to run it in the old Mac Classic OS 9 or some people have been able to use it with a Classic emulator on the new Intel Macs. Sheep Saver is one emulator that is supposed to work. I am keeping my G5 PowerPC as a Live Picture box. The G5 PowerPC is the last Mac to allow the running of Mac Classic software.
Live Picture Screenshot – © John Neel
Why would I be interested in a 20-year-old photo application that has been off the market for a decade or so? It is still an amazing program to use and can create imagery that is impossible to do in Photoshop. Believe it or not, Live Picture is such an amazing program, that there are still avid users across the globe. I am one of them.
I wish that this software could be reborn to run on the latest operating systems. It would be a killer application even today!
I cover many photographic topics and techniques in my book. – Great for any Photographer.
Please have a look at some of my other posts here.
NOTICE of Copyright: THIS POSTING AS WELL AS ALL PHOTOGRAPHS, GALLERY IMAGES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS ARE COPYRIGHT © JOHN NEEL AND ARE NOT TO BE USED FOR ANY PURPOSE WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM THE WRITER, THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND/OR lensgarden.com. THE IDEAS EXPRESSED ARE THE PROPERTY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER AND THE AUTHOR.
Just stumbled across this thread. I have a complete boxed version of LP 2.5.1, including CD, all manuals, etc. If it’s worth anything to anyone, let me know.
Thanks in advance,
Dan
Dan I’d be very interested in your boxed version. I was the Live Picture Evangelist in Australia for several years when it came on a single 3.5″ floppy and cost A$5k. My own copies went missing many years ago but I’ve recently acquired a fully loaded G4 with OS9.1 and I’d dearly like to use it again.
Please email me if it’s still available.
Cheers, Peter
Hi John, I read your article with interest, as I too used LP back in the day. I still have version 2 in a box somewhere. I do recall that version 2 required a “dongle” which I haven’t seen in many years. Did subsequent versions also require a dongle? Is it possible for me to use my version 2 without a dongle? Is there a “workaround”?
The version I have uses a dongle. I have it on a Mac G5 powerPC that runs system 9. The only workaround,that I know of, is to buy an older PowerPC. On occasion there is a copy or two on eBay – Version 2.6. You’ll also need to have a copy of the previous version in order to upgrade. I forget the version number. Still worth the effort though.
Wow! With PS 25 year anniversary I got all nostalgic and starting thinking of software I once used. LP 2.6.3 was the last version to be released. I created a bus wrap in 1995 using LP 2.5 that was composed of four files, each bus side was 1.1 GB Tiff and front and back were 600 MB Tiff each. 2Gig magnetic portable drives were just released. Took forever to copy all that. PS couldn’t open 1GIG files yet. Amazed my client I could work in near real time on my Mac Quadra. Ended up getting a lot more work because of it. How things have change in twenty years.
You’d think that if they brought back LP, we’d be running our workflow even faster and on huge megapixel files. I still run mine from time to time, but it needs System 9 Classic to run on an older Mac. There really hasn’t been anything like it since.
John
I found my old disks and the LP 2.5 box with manuals. Looking for an old mac to see if I can get it to run. Even have the 2.6.2 update on a cd. I thought 2.6.3 was last update but memory was wrong.
Hi John, I was an early adopter and total evangelist of Live Picture. I’m, I guess you could say, semi-retired now. I no longer have my big Boston studio, but do have a small one at home and am still available for a good visual challenge.
I no longer have any of my copies of Live Picture and am trying to retrieve a number of old jobs
which were done in LP and stored on DAT Tape. I still have a couple of older Mac Towers which can run Classic, and I’m dying to get my hands on a working copy of Live Picture. Is that something you could supply me with? All I have left is the demo from Live Picture Revealed.
I hope to hear from you.
Thanks, John
Sorry for the bad english, here is the message again:
Hi John,
I am a LP user also, do you have any software update for this software which I know they had released a few patch for it. I lost my patches and just wondering whether you have any by chance.
Hope to hear from you soon.
with regards and thank you
Chris
Hi John,
I am a LP user also, do you have any software update for this software which I know they had released a few patch for it. I lost of patches and just wondering check you have any by chance.
Hope to hear from you soon.
with regards and thank you
Chris