LiveQuartz is a basic graphic editor developed for macOS by Romain Piveteau.
Each document is in a single window with layers and filters on both sides, tools are displayed on the top and document settings or at the bottom in the status bar. LiveQuartz features layers-based image editing, non destructive filters and selection, painting and retouching tools. LiveQuartz was one of the first public raster image editors built on top of Core Image to be made public. In May 2005, when the first beta of iMage (the original name of LiveQuartz) was released, its singularity was that it was the first graphic editor to use two new Mac OS X Tiger frameworks: Core Image and Core Data. LiveQuartz was also, back in early 2005, the first Mac OS X image editing app to use a unique window user interface without "palettes".
Features Uses technologies like Cocoa (API), Quartz (graphics layer), Core Data and Core Image. Uses layers-based editing and non destructive filters (filters can me merged onto their layer when using certain tools or when doing certain actions like cutting a selection, etc...). Selection and retouch tools. LiveQuartz provides unlimited (per document) undos (since app opening). Integrates with macOS and applications such as Photos. Support for Drag and Drop and standard image formats (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, HEIF). Pictures can be imported a lot of different ways: They can be drag and dropped from Finder or other applications. They can be opened from the "File" menu. They can be shared from the Photos app. They can be taken with an iSight camera from within the app, imported from a scanner or plugged camera or with an iOS device having the same iCloud account as the mac with Camera Continuity in macOS Mojave. Support for other macOS features such as multi-touch gestures, versions, auto save, and full screen mode.
Tools NameDescriptionSettings Arrow tool Moving, cutting and copying layers or part of layers with selections. Brush tool Paint with radial gradient shape. Size and color Duplication tool Duplication of pixels. Reference point is chosen by clicking with the 'alt' key. Size Drawing tools (line, rectangle, filled rectangle, filled oval) Draws shapes. With shift key, a constraint can be made. Circle for ovals, squares for rectangles, 45° or 90° for lines Size, color, corner radius (for rectangles) Gradients tools (linear and radial) Draws gradients. Color 1, color 2 Text tool Generates a rich text layer. Color Eraser tool Erase pixels with a radial gradient shape. Size Background eraser and paint bucket tool Background eraser will remove all the pixels in the layer having the same color as the one found on the mouse down click. Color tolerance is adjusted by maintaining mouse clicked and moving further from the initial point. Paint Bucket will fill the clicked color with the tool color. A color tolerance can be changed the same way as the background eraser. Color Spiral tool Used to set some filter point parameters. For example, when applying a bump distortion, when the "center" parameter is selected in the filter parameter user interface, the spiral tool is selected so the user can choose the application point. Color picker tool Used to set choose a color by clicking on the image. It picks the color with its transparency. Rectangle selection tool Will select a rectangle part of the image to limit editing to this zone or to crop the document or layer. Color and border sharpness Oval selection tool Will select an oval part of the image to limit editing to this zone or to crop the layer. Color and border sharpness Lasso selection tool Will select part of the image with a polygon path to limit editing to this zone or to crop the layer. The lasso has to modes. A first mode is used by maintaining the mouse clicked and another by successive clicks. Color and border sharpness Magnifying glass tool Used to increase or decrease the displayed size of the document. Color and border sharpness
Supported image file formats NameAlpha channel supportWrite support Rhapsoft Image Format (LiveQuartz save format) Yes Yes Portable Network Graphics Yes Yes JPEG No Yes TIFF Yes Yes HEIF Yes Yes JPEG 2000 Yes Yes PDF Yes Yes GIF Yes (1 bit) Yes KTX Yes Yes BMP file format No Yes Photoshop PSD (Limited support: It loses non destructive informations like layers, etc.) Yes Yes Truevision TGA Yes Yes OpenEXR Yes Yes PBM Yes Yes X BitMap No No ICO No No PICT No No QuickTime Image No No Silicon Graphics Image No No Mac Paint No No FlashPix No No Apple Icon Image format No No Radiance No No Raw No No Comparison of graphics file formats
Version history (in decreasing date order)
LiveQuartz Release dateVersionMinimal macOS requirementRelease note December 2018 2.8 10.11 New features: In Edit menu, the latest selection can be restored As it is similar, the brand new “Paint Bucket” is available by choosing the background eraser tool with ‘alt’ key pressed Drag and drop of text layers is now possible (Previously, it would have converted the layer to a pixel image layer) Default corner input points for certain transform filters now default to the current position of the corners (example: “Perspective Correction” filter)
Bug fixes: Drag and drop of layers and filters between two LiveQuartz documents is back on Mojave Fixing an issue on certain configurations with painting tools on Mojave (pencil and duplication tool) Scrolling with input devices like the magic mouse is disabled while using tools to avoid wired behaviour Fixing an English localisation issue in filter picker Fixing a layer size issue with background eraser when using a selection September 2018 2.7 10.11 New features (macOS Mojave): Support of Dark Mode Linear gradient tool uses a better quality filter to generate the gradient image New native dialog asking for an App Store review that will be displayed sometimes after exporting an image Continuous camera support (‘ctrl’-clic or right clic on the layers’ list) Bug fixes: Fixing a sandbox issue preventing to import scanner or camera images on certain configurations Prevent from a possible hang when opening documents (while building layer previews) Fixing a crash preventing QuickLook to work properly On Mojave, fixing a refresh issue when removing filters On Mojave, fixing a bug preventing to change order of layers or filters with drag and drop Note: The (temporary) workaround was to disable the possibility to drag and drop layers and filters between two LiveQuartz documents on Mojave. I hope to re-enable this functionality as soon as possible. June 2018 2.6 10.11 Features: Better performance when scrolling and window resizing thanks to use of core animation layer backed views (we are still working on some performance enhancements for future updates) Now, at least on Sierra, you can drag and drop one are several photos from the Photos app to LiveQuartz Bug fixes: Fixing a bug with alpha introduced with filters optimisation in 2.5.21 More efficient file size estimation LITE: "Restore" button is back to be able to restore a previous purchase when it is not found automatically (new mac, etc.) LITE: Dragging one or several layer(s) does not account anymore for the limit of one export per day April 2015 -> Spring 2018 2.5: a special 10 years Birthday version of LiveQuartz 🎂 10.10 NewEllipseSelectiontool Enhanced Lasso Selection tool with two modes : classical behaviour by using it as usual (click and drag and release the mouse to close the selection) OR the new polygonal mode where you do some successive clicks to define segments of the polygon. You close the selection path with the "Close" button or with the "↩︎" key ("esc" key is here to cancel the selection) New selections settings to apply a blur effect on the selection borders (no blur effect by default) Layer crop (available in the layer contextual menu by doing a right click on selected layers in the layer's list) is now possible to any types of selection. This gives new basic masking capabilities to LiveQuartz (rectangle, elliptic, lasso and polygonal masking with progressive borders in option). Redesigned rectangle selections resizing knobs Better feedback about the tool size values and more precise tool size settings for small sizes (the slider uses a logarithmic slider) Painting tools now have dynamic sized cursors to show the tool shape Arrow tool (layer dragging) could be constrained to a line or vertical move with the “ ⇧ ” key Rectangle selections could be constrained to squares with the “ ⇧ ” key Ellipse selections could be constrained to circles with the “ ⇧ ” key Fixes a bug with undo grouping on some drawing tools Fixes a bug with cursors when we have selections Fixes a bug with the background eraser when using it by clicking on a non opaque color October 2014 2.4 10.10 Fully supports OS X 10.10 Yosemite with many bug fixes New rewritten iSight camera capture Panel (cmd-⇧-O) Now LiveQuartz always opens images as rhif files. Popovers can now be detached. Note : 2.4 and higher will not support anymore versions of OS X prior to Yosemite. If your system is not up to date, you can download 2.3.3 for Lion, Mountain Lion or Mavericks. April 2014 2.3 10.7.5 New Color Picker Tool (accessible with 'alt' key) Scrolling Tool removed 09/2013 2.2 10.7.5 Some UI Bugs are fixed (window size problem in "versions" is fixed, etc.) Major bug when using Magic Eraser with selections is fixed Larger rounded corners are now possible when drawing rectangles Bigger maximum size of tools New background Grid Guide size settings in preferences New image scroll view background with a shadow (easier to see grey and black images) More intuitive behaviour of all the application when working on layers having filters. For example, when using the eraser. The visible filters are automatically merged into the layer. If you want to keep some filters, disable them before making your changes to the layer. Symmetry filter names fixed New notification the first time we open a non rhif file to explain that saving it is destructive Text Layer crop (layer's contextual menu) Mavericks bugs fixes New Lite version with In App Purchase Ajout d’un système de crash reporting03/2013 2.1 10.7.5 New actions available in layers' contextual menu : 'cut', 'copy' and 'crop'. 'Crop' a layer is new in LiveQuartz. Before, only cropping a selection on all the document was possible. Now, you can crop image layers individually or by group. To be able to crop, you must select a rectangle with the selection tool and right clic or ctrl-click on the layer or the selected layers. Note that, as this action removes pixels that are outside the crop rectangle, this could be a technique to reduce memory usage and 'rhif' file size. Drag and drop of filters to copy them to another layer of the same document or to another layer (or filters) of another document. So now, you can easily reuse your best filters by keeping all there custom parameters. New lighter User Interface when entering "Versions" history on Mountain Lion Limits on Layer name, image size, layer size and layer positions removed to avoid confusing errors with AutoSaving Major Bug fixed when opening LiveQuartz 1 files Cleaner way to handle migrations to version 2 when opening LiveQuartz 1 files. In LiveQuartz 2.0.x, files were moved into the sandbox. Now in LiveQuartz 2.1, a backup of the original file is put into LiveQuartz's sandbox but the migrated file (the one we use) does not move. More robust handling of errors when opening files Refresh bugs fixed when canceling or redoing actions on filters 08/2012 2.0 10.7.4 Built for Mountain Lion and Lion “Sandbox” support Full Screen support Simplified and more modern UI with more contextual informations New text layer UI (full text editor per text layer with rich text editing and alignment settings, etc.) More standard filters added (110+ filters available)