Here's how we described the beta release:
The first release provides support for a wide range of functionality including filters, image resizing, cropping, and lossless free rotation. There are more than 50 pre-made effects, filters, and enhancements available out-of-the-box ranging from the relatively simple (brightness, auto-enhance) to the more complex (adjust RGB levels, hue and saturation controls).
The SDK has been designed from the ground up with performance and low memory footprint in mind. A good example of this is the use of partial JPEG decoding, which uses RAJPEG technology to access image data without decoding a whole JPEG image. This makes image previews, cropping, and the application of filters much faster, especially on higher resolution images.
The release version of the SDK adds support for dynamic filter properties, allowing for filter parameteres to be changed on the fly. This also means that developers can create their own custom filters for inclusion in their apps, in addition the 50 pre-defined filters
The SDK has already been used by a large number of third party developers to create imaging related apps. Some of these include Smart Resize, OneShot, 1Shot, Social Scene, TapShoot, PhotoEffect, Photo Effects, and Pikura.
We expect the full release to accelerate app development further, which will almost certainly make the SDK Nokia's most effective and popular developer add-on in recent years. It's also a good example of how the provision of a versatile tool and careful developer engagement can be used to encourage the development of a specific category of apps.
The Nokia Imaging SDK can be downloaded from the Nokia Developer website.