Components are the basic building blocks which you connect together to create a filter. Many components perform familiar operations such as blurs, color adjustments, distortions, and blending; others, such as elevation gradients or Perlin and Worley noises, might be less familiar. There are three types of components in Filter Forge, each of them performing a different class of tasks – see Map Components, Curve Components and Numeric Components.
Adjustments perform color and tonal modifications on the source image:
Channel components extract and assemble color channels according to various color models:
External components use the image currently loaded into Filter Forge as their source. Except for the Frame component, you cannot use them to modify an image generated by another component.
Gradient components generate various kinds of gradients with different distribution of colors, depending on the type of the gradient:
Noise components generate versatile noise textures which can be used for imitating a wide range of objects and phenomena: clouds, gases, sand, dirt, liquids, organic tissues, wood, plastics, camouflage, circuitry, pipe grids, gravel, grain, seeds, bacteria, cells, or pyramids:
Except for Kaleidoscope which turns its source into a kaleidoscopic pattern, these components generate various patterns without using a source image. Any filter that uses these components is automatically classed as a discrete filter (except Free Ellipse, Free Polygon and Free Rectangle which disable seamless tiling altogether):
Processing components perform various image modifications:
RGB Math components perform calculations on the RGB channels:
Transform components perform basic image transformations:
Curve Ops modify and combine curves provided by other Curve Components:
Curve components generate various curves:
Advanced components allow you to utilize loops and recursions and use the Lua scripting language to create custom components.
Slave components expose a parameter of its master component to the component subtree. They are undetachable from their master components.
Animation components allow the filter to generate animated image sequences:
Obsolete components are older component versions that are retained for compatibility purposes. The Obsolete component category is visible only when a corresponding option is turned on in the Filter Editor Options:
Control components allow you to control filter parameters from outside Filter Editor by adding a control to the Settings tab in Filter Controls:
