TOKYO (MacHouse) – Last month, we released five or six OS X applications. This month, we will be slow since we have to do taxes. Anyway, we have already submitted the first application of the month to Mac App Store. This new release is called faceBlock.

faceBlock is a desktop application that utilizes OSX‘s Core Image to detect faces on pictures so that they can be isolated as separated images or entire pictures can be exported with faces filtered. It has two modes. If you set the mode switch to Detection, faceBlock will show you which face is detected in a given picture. The main objective of this application is to let the user hide faces. So switch to the Face block mode. Then select an effect to apply to each picture. For now, there are five effects to choose from: CIDiscBlur, CIDotScreen, CICrystallize, CIPixellate, CIExposureAdjust. After adjusting some values, you can export all pictures with faces covered. Or you can also batch-export each face as an image.  

Available at Mac App Store

Features

1. Read multiple pictures at a time with OpenPanel or a drop box.
2. Apply one of five Core Image effects to faces and cover them. Control the opacity value, coverage value, intensity value to to apply the current graphic filter effectively.
3. Apply the same effect to all pictures in the list. (Choose Picture > Apply Effects To All.)
4. Use the Detection mode to see which face is detected and which is not in a preview screen.
5. Batch-export faces as image files.
6. Batch-export all pictures with detected faces covered with selected filters.
7. Language: English only.
8. The application supports the Retina display.
9. Application file size: 2.1 MB
10. The application comes with a complete user’s guide written in English. (Choose Help > User’s Guide.)

System requirements

1. Mac OS X 10.7 Lion or higher (compatible with Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks)
2. 64-bit system
3. A computer with a display monitor capable of showing at least 520 x 747 pixels

Limitations

1. faceBlock is designed to open the following picture types: BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PDF, PNG, PSD, TIFF. Note that a picture must have at least 128 x 128 px in dimensions.
2. A face is defined as a human part with two distinctive eyes and lips. faceBlock can fail to detect a face without them. It can fail to detect a face with glasses.
3. faceBlock supports the following graphic formats so that the user can export face images and entire pictures with faces covered: BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PNG, TIFF.
4. The user can only apply one effect to each picture.
5. The same effect applies to all faces within the same picture. The user cannot apply a graphic effect to selective faces.
6. The preview window is not resizable and only capable of displaying a filtered picture at actual dimensions.
7. Alias files cannot be used when selecting and opening images with the drop box.

Version history

Note: Release dates are ones when updates are announced here, not when updates are actually released at Mac App Store. We make no promise that they will be accepted by iTunes Connect and then released at Mac App Store.

1.0.4 (Released on November 19, 2014)

1. Fix: The application could fail to read the selected images if the system language is anything other than English.
2. Deprecated methods and functions are fixed.

1.0.2 (Released on August 19, 2013)

1. Fix: The image list could indicate wrong dimensions when a source image contains objects of different resolutions (i.e. 72 dpi, 96 dpi). Additionally, Selecting such an image in the list while the preview mode is set to Detection could cause the application to display a picture at wrong dimensions.

1.0.1 (Released on July 10, 2013)

1. com.apple.security.assets.movies.read-write (entitlement) has been removed.

User’s guide

Application user’s guide is available (only in English). Click here to access it online.






Trial version

Click on the button to download a trial version.






faceBlock is a product of MacHouse.