It’s been a busy week for photo editor updates. Now, the popular image editor Iris Photo Suite update is in the App Store. This significant update adds many new user-requested features to the already impressive tool set, including 23 new filter presets, noise reduction, improved masking — all wrapped up in a new user interface. Iris gets a great looking new icon, too, with this update.

Read more about the new Iris Photo Suite 1.5 update after the jump. >>>

The blending function has been improved. If you know your way around Photoshop, you’ll be familiar with Iris’ 16 blend modes. Iris does a great job of matching image sizes and allows you to choose wheter to match the foreground or background image size. You can now drag to resize the foreground image with the responsive handles. There’s no way to constrain a manual resize, though.

The ability to define a layer mask is very useful and allows you to apply a number of filters to the same selected area.

The interface is improved. It’s new — not a complete, ground up overhaul — but still familiar. Many of the previous tools have been relocated and I think the new organization of the expanded toolset is an improvement. Buttons are bigger. Some of the preview sizes are now slightly bigger; many critical previews are still pretty small.

Overall, Iris’ adjustments feel fast and responsive. In my preliminary tests, it felt more stable than the previous version. However, the preset effects in this version we found to be a little sluggish.

If you’re an Iris user, you’ll like this update for its powerful new tools. It’s a fast, powerful image editor with a lot of goodies to appeal to a wide range of iPhoneographers.

Here’s a list of all that’s new in Version 1.5:

  • A complete new and redesigned UI.
  • Layers have been given a major reavamp, now the blend image can be resized and positioned over the base image.
  • Strength for every filter can be edited.
  • 23 new effects including: New Ultra Realistic Comic Sketch Effect !! (check out the screenshot below), Diffused Glow, Mosaic , Clouds, Vintage Print, Instant Print, Pinhole Camera, Parchment etc.
  • Text annotations.
  • Images are saved with their Exif information preserved.
  • Noise Reduction Feature Added. Ability to individually reduce individual channel noise.
  • Editable Opacity in the Mask Feature.
  • Ability to Invert Mask.
  • Ability to define layer mask, that effects all the filters the same.
  • Motion Blur Filter Added.

Iris Photo suite is $1.99 in the App Store. Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.

Iris Photo Suite - Pranav Kapoor

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