What types of filters work with PSPX3

[pdxrjt]

Was thinking about messing around/buying a few new filters. What types of 3rd party filters, not specifically designed for PSP work with X3. For example, one website sells filters for Photoshop, Aperture and Lightroom. Will the later two work..... or just Photoshop? Do Gimp filters work?

TIA

[OldRadioGuy]

What types of 3rd party filters, not specifically designed for PSP work with X3.
TIA

Hopefully, one of the filter experts here on this board will give you more complete advice on your plug-in questions, but I'll give you a little bit about my experiences.

In general, 32-bit filters with the 8bf extension will work with with PaintShop Photo Pro X3. No publisher of photo editing software filters designs a filter specifically for PSPPX3 (or previous variations of PSP). They design to Photoshop standards. In recent years, Adobe has taken a different approach to integration of third-party plug-ins with their software, and the new filters written to those standards won't work with non-Adobe photo editors.

If PSPPX3 is not listed as supported on the plug-in's website, send them an email to find out if it will work with X3. The publishers of the better plug-ins allow you to download a trial version.

I recently downloaded a trial 32/64-bit plug-in, my purpose was to run it with my 64-bit version of PhotoLine 15. I found it wouldn't work, contacted PhotoLine and they shared a beta version of a soon-to-be-released patch. It then worked great, and I bought the plug-in.

If you can, try before you buy.

Bob

[Trev Bowden]

Once up on a time Adobe bought a Graphics program called Photoshop This Program had a way for users to make there own filter effects (PSP has User defined) now these effects could be shared and used in any application that could use Photoshop compatible * bf filters Unfortunately for Adobe folks also shared the copyright Photoshop effects filters because these where plugins rather then hard written into the program Photo Deluxe and Photoshop 5 LE where given away with scanners or digital cameras so they where easy to get ones hands on So after the release of Photoshop 6 adobe changed the SDK for these filters and would only supplier it to accredited developers willing to pay for it Extences did Now Called On One and they are about the only makers of Plugins exclusively for Photoshop. Most commercial Plugins will work with PSP and any other graphics programs including Photoshop that Use Photoshop compatible and it usually says so in there Literature on there web sites (requirements) All KPT Alien skin Nik Andromeda to name a few work well Some of the free to download ones where made a very long time ago and may have issues with modern OS especially 64 bit

[LeviFiction]

Plugins made using Filter Mister should still work fine also. In fact with version X3 my copy of 2DHyperClouds finally works without crashing and without me having to download specific dlls from various sites just to get it to work.

Yeah I know it's not overly helpful but....I'm going.

[Tim Morrison]

Lightroom, Aperture and Gimp plugins won't work. There are two types of Photoshop plugin. Most will work fine with PSP. At about the time of Photoshop 7, Adobe added the second sort, and these won't work with PSP. Look in the plugin's system requirements. If says it needs one of the later versions of Photoshop like CS, CS2, CS3 and so on, then it probably won't work in PSP. Photoshop actions won't work either.

[marty2010]

Plugins made using Filter Mister should still work fine also. In fact with version X3 my copy of 2DHyperClouds finally works without crashing and without me having to download specific dlls from various sites just to get it to work.

Yeah I know it's not overly helpful but....I'm going.

I wanted to try the 2DHyperClouds and downloaded this one .. from year 2000 .. is this the newest one? When I tries it it was just a solid color without a sky texture ...


****Info from the text file in the download.
2D HyperClouds Free

Category: Adobe Compatible Plug-Ins
Publisher: Ivan Daunis
Last Updated: Sep 25, 2000
Requirements: Not specified
License: Freeware
Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000
File size: 23 KB
Price: Not specified

Publisher's Description on 2D HyperClouds


2D HyperClouds
is an Adobe Photoshop plug-in filter which lets you generate cloud textures and plasmas. 2D HyperClouds is based on Perlin's noise functions, and uses the background and foreground colors to make the clouds palette.
****

[LeviFiction]

Hate to say it but it's been a few years since I originally downloaded it, and now it's part of the My PSP Files section that I backup whenever I do a clean install on my system.

The description sounds right. Of course the filesize of my version is 64.0kb not 24.

But like it says it uses the foreground and background colors in your materials palette to determine what colors to use for making the clouds.

Are your foreground and background colors all the same? If so that's why it's a solid color. If not....then I have no answers for you.

[marty2010]

Thanks for the reply.

The actual file is 64K dated 9-9-2000.

I used different colors (foreground and background in the materials palette).

But the result looked like, say the color >>> you see around the characters in this reply box. Just a plain sky color. No fluffy white clouds anywhere.

So, I am not seeing clouds .. just the background sky color.

[LeviFiction]

Might I ask how you have the options set-up when you do this? It just seems odd to me that it results in a single color.

Although it's not meant to make fluffy clouds like you'd see in the sky. Here I'll make a quick video to show you. They are meant to be comparable to Photoshop's Render Clouds.

Here's a quick video I whipped up showing me using it. Hadn't intended to upload it but I'm curious if it's just not working for you or if there's a difference in how we're going about it. (Considering how simple the plugin is I'm going to guess that it's the plugin and not either of us)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzLe_rWGF4A

[marty2010]

Thanks.
I seen the tutor .. great job thanks.

I had the intensity way too low ... my error !
I readjusted one at a time until I found the problem.
The cloud effect looks good.

[Tim Morrison]

A couple of other ways that PSP has trouble with Photoshop compatible plugins...
Unlike Photoshop, PSP can't use plugins on 16 bit per channel (48 bit) images.
Plugins can't access EXIF data in PSP. An example is PTLens. PTLens corrects lens distortion in photographs. In its stand alone version, or as a plugin in Photoshop, it works automatically by accessing the EXIF data to determine the camera, lens and focal length and then looks up the correction needed from the extensive library that accompanies it. As a plugin in PSP it can't read the EXIF data, so the user has to look that up and enter it manually. Because PSP's Image Information can't be opened while a filter is running, the user either has to make a note of the info, or look it up in a different program.

[df]

A couple of other ways that PSP has trouble with Photoshop compatible plugins...
Unlike Photoshop, PSP can't use plugins on 16 bit per channel (48 bit) images.
Plugins can't access EXIF data in PSP. An example is PTLens. PTLens corrects lens distortion in photographs. In it's stand alone version, or as a plugin in Photoshop, it works automatically by accessing the EXIF data to determine the camera, lens and focal length and then looks up the correction needed from the extensive library that accompanies it. As a plugin in PSP it can't read the EXIF data, so the user has to look that up and enter it manually. Because PSP's Image Information can't be opened while a filter is running, the user either has to make a note of the info, or look it up in a different program.

It's too bad we can't figure out how to use a script to give PTLens the Exif data. There's a script called EXIF Captioning that puts the Camera, aperture and shutter speed onto another layer automatically. So it would seem to me that someone could figure out how to write a script off of that to give PTLens the needed info. I just wish I was more of a programmer or I'd figure it out myself.

[LeviFiction]

EXIF information is available to a script. But I don't know if scripts can run plugins, and if they can if plugins can accept parameters on start-up.

Scratch that. Just looked and the only command I can find listed that deals with plugins is RepeatLastPlugin. And that definately doesn't allow parameters to be sent.

But again I don't know if Adobe plugins allow this anyway. Even if they do PTLens would have to be adjusted to accept them.

Even if scripts could send EXIF data to a plugin the plugin would have to be designed that way. It seems that PTLens uses Adobe's callback for getting EXIF information not special startup parameters. And because PSP doesn't impliment this callback they can't get the EXIF information.

I think the best we could do is make a script write the EXIF information to a dialog box, the script output window or to the image itself. Before we called the plugin so that we could readily read it.

[pdxrjt]

Thanks for all the good information. I have said this before, I think it would be a good idea to have a sticky about what plug ins do and don't seem to work in PSP...... but I've got plenty to go on now.

[Chromenut]

I'm going to go through all my plug-ins, filters and scripts to verify they all work but all of them that I had (hundreds) on X2 so far are working on X3. Now when I upped to X2 many no longer worked, wish I'd have saved them but I deleted them out of frustration. If someone does post a link for functioning plug-ins I'd be happy to list the one's that I have that are verified as working....