As an experiment I provided ZERO technical guidance, I let it pick architecture, programming language, GPU interface, rendering interface, all of it. I only provided feedback from the perspective of a user and only things visible to a user. I.e. "Adjusting the curves spline is too slow. Make it instantaneous", I did not ask it to downsample the preview or move the operation the the GPU.
As a result I have a fully functional, super fast, stable, Linux based 2D image editor, written in Rust and D, GPU accelerated (Vulcan). Startup time is 0.458 sec. Every operation is instantaneous on a sub $1000 laptop with RTX4060.
I needed all the features that I use personally and I did not care about features I don't use or that I don't know about, so everything I needed was:
- typical format support: png, jpeg, bmp, tiff, targa - layer management (new, delete, lock, merge, duplicate); - layer blending (opacity, fill, and the whole panel of blending types - darken, difference, screen, etc); - filters with preview render for live adjustments; - drawing and selection tools complete with properties for each; - history (undo/redo); - complete UI - fully stylized window, window setup presets and flexible panel allocation; - right click, alt click, shift click support for tools, matching key bindings; - open and save a range of formats; - text insertion (vectorized) and ability to rasterize the text; - vector objects and ability to rasterize them; - testing framework that can simulate mouse clicks, drawing and UI interactions; - complete regression testing suite
I dont know Rust, I dont know D, I dont know how to use Vulcan. I know image processing and software engineering but it didnt matter at all. I only provided typical user feedback - i.e. "I cant see layer controls in the UI" or "curves adjustment is lagging when I move the spline, must be instantaneous". Developing this software required no skill, insight or know-how.
I added a few further improvements that I noticed missing so the latest version has more features with a total agentic time at 10 hours and my own time at 3 hours.
I am now using it as a replacement for Photoshop that costs $275/year in a predatory subscription where you cant cancel without a $200 penalty.