Brushes & Plugins in X8

[karebai]

Finally installed, well pointed, X8 to my brushes and plugins etc. I have 2 questions ...

1. Brushes - I have a set called "jasc brushes" that I got from lord knows where or from who (friends sent me stuff ages ago with no information where they came from, who made them etc). They are in the corel psp script format with the 2 parts in the same folder. Now these work quite happily in X5 on my desktop, but not in X8 on my laptop. When I load them I get the dreaded "black circle" as the preview in the brush manager. When I loaded them for the first time there was an error window that popped up, saying there was a problem in line 1 script, then a whole heap of garbled jibberish.
Why are they broken in X8 and not in X5 ?

2. Is there a limit to the number of folders for plugins? I have 5 that X8 is pointed at for locations of various plugins. When I open X8 and go to work on an image, the effects menu has "no user plugins loaded" on the menu. I open preferences and "re point" to the folder, they work with no restart.

TIA
K

[JoeB]

As far as I know there are no number limits. However, my experience with both X7 and X8 is that the more plugins you have (not folders but actual plugins) the longer it takes PSP to load them and then let you access them. I have a whole bunch of plugins, collected over many, many years (and I really should prune some of them out! ). And both programs take a long time to let me access them, although I can do anything else in the meantime like opening images, etc.

[karebai]

JoeB, not exactly what I asked, but thank you for the reply anyway.

[JoeB]

JoeB, not exactly what I asked, but thank you for the reply anyway.

I thought you were asking if there were any limits to the number of folders for plugins. In that regard I was saying that, AFAIK, there are no such limits.

Also, I too get the "No Plugins Loaded" message. However, that is because of the time it takes PSP to load the large number of plugins I have (although that may be exacerbated by some other issue of which I am unaware). However, if I wait for a period of time they eventually load and the Plugins menu item becomes active. It could be that by the time you "re-point" PSP to the folder again you have given it time to complete loading rather than it being the re-pointing that is making them active. I have PSP pointed to 6 different plugin folders (plus their various sub-folders) and they all load, with PSP just taking it's good old time to load them. Sometimes that can be several minutes. I haven't tried to determine whether it is slower with loading plugins if I start loading and working with images before the plugins load or if it would load plugins faster if I don't do anything until the plugins load.

If those weren't the issues you were asking about in your second question then I'd have to ask if you'd mind clarifying what the issue is, because perhaps I'm misunderstanding.

[karebai]

If you had posted that answer it would have possibly helped. The whole point of the exercise is to cull out unused filters, but again they all work in X5, like the brushes, on my desktop. I thought it may have been a win10 problem with the laptop, but as you have the same problem with win8.1 it's probably not. Already tried limiting the number of filters loading, but the annoyance keeps happening, and unlike you, they do not load unless I "re point" the preferences, no matter how long I wait.

[J Rosenfeld]

If you have a 64 bit OS and use 64bit PSP, some older plugins do not show up in that, but they do in PSP 32 bit

[karebai]

The plugins are indeed older ones, but I only use those in the 32 bit version. I have very limited 64bit plugins. The problems I'm having are with the 32bit.

[trueblue]

The plugins are indeed older ones, but I only use those in the 32 bit version. I have very limited 64bit plugins. The problems I'm having are with the 32bit.

Indeed, some very older plugins will not work in PSPX8 32bit. However, I did manage to get some working again by adding three little dll's. I never seem to have any problems with my plugins now. You can get the dlls from here with a full explanation how to add them to your PC. I know many have said these are not required, but after I included them, many plugins that did not work, now do work in PSPX8.

To answer your question about the amount of folders, no there is no restriction. I have many, many brushes each catalogued within the Brushes folder.

[TapestryIII]

The plugins are indeed older ones, but I only use those in the 32 bit version. I have very limited 64bit plugins. The problems I'm having are with the 32bit.

Indeed, some very older plugins will not work in PSPX8 32bit. However, I did manage to get some working again by adding three little dll's. I never seem to have any problems with my plugins now. You can get the dlls from here with a full explanation how to add them to your PC. I know many have said these are not required, but after I included them, many plugins that did not work, now do work in PSPX8.

You are missing one of the .dlls - plugin.dll I just happened to have these on hand. These definitely work in Paint Shop Pro X8 at least with Windows 10. All my plugins work now. Thank you

[karebai]

Thanks for the advice Trueblue & Tapestry, but as I said in my original post -

"Is there a limit to the number of folders for plugins? I have 5 that X8 is pointed at for locations of various plugins. When I open X8 and go to work on an image, the effects menu has "no user plugins loaded" on the menu. I open preferences and "re point" to the folder, they work with no restart."

For some, I believe, the dll files we had to install way back when, are indeed still needed. I have had to install them as it seems you two have. I did some research beforehand and them at the ready for my win10 laptop in case they were needed. But that is not my problem - once I "re point" to the plugin folders, they work fine.


And I still have no idea why the one set of brushes work in X5 on my desktop (running win8.1), yet will not work in X8 on my laptop (running win10).

[JoeB]

Thanks for the advice Trueblue & Tapestry, but as I said in my original post -

"Is there a limit to the number of folders for plugins? I have 5 that X8 is pointed at for locations of various plugins. When I open X8 and go to work on an image, the effects menu has "no user plugins loaded" on the menu. I open preferences and "re point" to the folder, they work with no restart."

And I will repeat that I have already said there is no limit to the number of folders for plugins as I stated twice earlier. Why you seem to have the issue of having to "re-point" to the folders I couldn't say. But it has nothing to do with there being a limit to the number of folders for them.

[hartpaul]

Thanks for the advice Trueblue & Tapestry, but as I said in my original post -

"Is there a limit to the number of folders for plugins? I have 5 that X8 is pointed at for locations of various plugins. When I open X8 and go to work on an image, the effects menu has "no user plugins loaded" on the menu. I open preferences and "re point" to the folder, they work with no restart."

You seem to have asked a number of questions for which there is no single answer to satisfy all at once. I suspect you are really asking if there is a limit to the number of folders such that having too many causes pSP to lose track of those folders so that you have to kep repointing PSP to those extra folders.
To which one answer might be , experiment and find out for yourself and report back here (yeah Homework!!)

Remove all your folders and then point PSP to its default folders and default locations and see if that loses the pointers when you restart.
If so then there is a problem with your installation / system / storage location for the pointers.
If not then try adding other folders one by one and testing when the repointing starts.

[Irmouse]

The plugins are indeed older ones, but I only use those in the 32 bit version. I have very limited 64bit plugins. The problems I'm having are with the 32bit.

Indeed, some very older plugins will not work in PSPX8 32bit. However, I did manage to get some working again by adding three little dll's. I never seem to have any problems with my plugins now. You can get the dlls from here with a full explanation how to add them to your PC. I know many have said these are not required, but after I included them, many plugins that did not work, now do work in PSPX8.

You are missing one of the .dlls - plugin.dll I just happened to have these on hand. These definitely work in Paint Shop Pro X8 at least with Windows 10. All my plugins work now. Thank you

How did you do it?, because I still can't use my plugins, and need them for my work, I use some very old ones like Super Blade Pro and Alien Skin Eyecandy 5, I'm going nuts trying to make them work