AMD is collaborating with Aviary to bring an optimized version of its photo editing tool to Windows 8 PCs and tablets powered by AMD accelerated processing units (APUs).

Backed by an investment through AMD Ventures, Aviary has optimized its new software development kit (SDK) for Windows 8 to take advantage of the AMD APU architectural advantages. Aviary also has released its first Windows 8 app through the Windows Store to showcase the features and functionality of the Aviary SDK for Windows 8.

The new Aviary SDK offers software developers a library of photo editing effects and filters for the easy incorporation of the photo editor into applications. By implementing filters and effects in Windows 8 through the new heterogeneous compute language C++ AMP, computations are performed on the highly-parallel graphics processing unit (GPU) cores inside the AMD APU instead of the more serial central processing unit (CPU) cores, resulting in an average 11X performance improvement.

AMD claims that Aviary's new Photo Editor for Windows 8, now available in the Windows Store, can now process the complete range of filters and effects instantaneously -- on average 16X faster than comparable processors.