image filters for iphone sdk development

Question

I am planning to develop an iphone app which makes use of image filters like blurring, sharpening,etc. I noticed that there are few approaches for this one,

1. Use openGL ES. I even found an example code on apple iphone dev site. How easy is openGL for somebody who has never used it? Can the image filters be implemented using the openGL framework?

2. There is a Quartz demo as well posted on apple iphone dev site. Has anybody used this framework for doing image processing? How is this approach compared to openGL framework?

3. Don't use openGL and Quartz framework. Basically access the raw pixels from the image and do the manipulation myself.

4. Make use of any custom built image processing libraries like this one. Do you know of any other libraries like this one?

Can anybody provide insights/suggestions on which option is the best? Your opinions are highly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Here is another alternative for image filtering. They provide lots of filters using core image framework.

http://www.binpress.com/app/photo-effects-sdk-for-ios/801