It's still their IP though, and publishing them as "open source" is unethical and probably illegal. Just because something is feasible doesn't mean you should do it.

The GPUImage-based execution environment is fine, but you should remove these shaders ASAP.

We're currently working on some filtering stuff using GPUImage as well, and it's nice to see this stuff progress.

One filter that is missing here BTW is Lux, which is Instagram's equivalent of the Camera+ Clarity filter. The reason (I suspect) is that the Lux "filter" is actually not implemented using shaders, but rather CoreGraphics.

Would love to hear your take on it if you know more.

PNG files are obfuscated, but that's reversible:

http://www.axelbrz.com.ar/?mod=iphone-png-images-normalizer

This kind of spelunking can be a good way to learn from other developers about how to approach some problems. However, I agree with other commenters that it would be morally shaky to re-use any of another app's files in my own app.

cf. http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

Now, a project that compiled a nice list of good filters, that'd be really cool. But this just isn't OK.

  License

  Since it's a hack, literally. There's no way you could use those
  Instagram recipes in your project. But feel free to learn from
  them. Other than that part, you are welcome to use and distribute
  this project. I'll figour out an appropriate license and put it
  here later.

didn't take long ~ https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2012-03-01-instag... ... It's a bit naughty to post this here, a hacker-like thing to do but would be better appreciated at 4chan.

Is this releasing proprietary Instagram info, or did I misunderstand this?

EDIT: At the time I gave this author the benefit of the doubt. Looks like he pulled the actual shaders from the Instagram binaries, which is not cool.

Nope, not theft, obviously belongs to him because he created it. It says so in every file.

- This is totally wack from a moral/ethical standpoint

- Why not filter the video after the fact?

1) The parent post did not use the word 'steal.'

2) The people that get up in arms about usage of 'steal' vs. 'copyright infringement' are making a semantic argument that is not really hard to understand. Whether you think that the semantic argument has merit or not is beside the point.

Your post makes it seem like you either do not understand the semantic argument (which I personally find unlikely, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt) or you are purposely acting like you don't understand it.