What plug-ins work with PL?

[greenmorpher]

We've been talking plug-ins. Now, I tend to have pretty limited demand for them but there is no doubt that there is room for plug-ins. There are simply some things which are quite specialized and it would be stretching program developers unnecessarily to include them. Only a limited number of users of any given graphics program would use them, so they would not be worth developing for any single program (except something with the 500 kg gorilla market characteristics of P'shop, of course) but they are worth developing for users across many programs.

One example of this is one I've mentioned on another thread -- Kekus's LensFix, and its "friendly competitor" (they use the same database), PTLens. If you go to the PTLens website you'll see the reason why a plug-in like that is a plug-in rather than a native part of programs. Building and maintaining the database of hundreds of legacy lenses simply is not something someone can do in their spare time! And it is not something you would want Martin and Gerhard doing instead of developing the core functions of PL.

So plug-ins are good -- they can add functionality you want without making for extra cost and bloat for everyone else who don't want that functionality.

It would be great to have a comprehensive listing of what plug-ins work with PL and what don't, on which platforms, and what the plug-ins do, and what we do with the plug-ins.

Would anyone care to list what works for them? And let's not worry about duplicating listings. If 27 of us are using Topaz Adjust, fine, it would be good if 27 said so. No doubt we would use Topaz Adjust in different ways which would be interesting, and it would give Gerhardt and Martin and idea of some things they needed to keep an eye on.

My system is OS X.6.6, PhotoLine 15. I have a whole bunch of plug-ins in the plug-ins folder which PL shares with Canvas X (most came free, so I just dumped them in, but to be honest, I almost never try them let alone use them; I'll dump some of them out after looking t them critically as I have just done!). What shows in the the Filters menu with PL set to 32+Rosetta represents everything in the Plug-ins folder and therefore what is available to PL in the 64 bit and 32 bit settings also. So a lot of the plug-ins are ignored in those two settings.

PL set to 64 bit:

Plug-ins which work:

ePaperPress: PTLens (corrects camera lens distortion)

Plug-ins which show in the menu but don't work:

Topaz Labs: Topaz Adjust 4. Crashes PL

PL set to 32 bit:

Plug-ins which work:

Photo Wiz: Colorwasher
PictureCode: Noise Ninja
ePaperPress: PTLens (corrects camera lens distortion)
Topaz Labs: Topaz Adjust 4

Plug-ins which show but don't work:

PanoTools: Adjust, Correct, Perspective, Remap (some do something but I don;t really understand what's going on)
Kekus: LensFix CI (shows but crashes PL)
Freebies - a bunch of freebies such as B/W, Luma Negative, Chroma Negative, from the Pluginsite show in the Photowiz sub-menu, but don't work).

PL set to 32 bit + Rosetta

Plug-ins which work:

Photo Wiz: Colorwasher
PictureCode: Noise Ninja
AKVIS Multibrush (had this on evaluation, eval now run out, so can't check absolutely that it works)
Fixer Labs: Focus, Noise, Shadow Fixer, True blur
Focus Magic: Fix Motion Blur, Fix out-of-focus Blur
Flaming Pear: A bunch of freebie plug-ins, some of which work and others of which appear not to work
PictoColor: iCorrect EditLab Pro 4.5.3
Alien Skin Image Doctor: JPEG repair, scratch remover, spot lifter, smart fill
Alien Skin Splat: a range of special effects, most quite useless!
Topaz Labs: Topaz Adjust 4

Plug-ins which show but don't work:

PanoTools: Adjust, Correct, Perspective, Remap (some do something but I don't really understand what's going on)
Kekus: LensFix CI. Crashes PL
ePaperPress: PTLens. Doesn't do anything
Freebies - a bunch of freebies such as B/W, Luma Negative, Chroma Negative, from the Pluginsite show in the Photowiz sub-menu, but don't work).

Best regards

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad-Doctor-Online
http://www.ad-doctor-online.com

[greenmorpher]

I've mentioned Panotools not working -- while they show themselves, I suspect they are called on by PTLens and LensFix CI.

Cheers, geoff

[OldRadioGuy]

Here are the plugins that I use in PhotoLine 16.11, 64-bit. (Since downloading 64-bit versions of my plugins, I open Pl 32-bit only for comparison if I encounter a problem.)

Alien Skin Eye Candy 6 -- used for assistance in web and print design
Alien Skin Xenofex 2 -- web and print design
Alien Skin Image Doctor 2 -- photo editing (Smart Fill of this set is my most often used plugin)

Flaming Pear SuperBladePro -- web and print design

Topaz Adjust -- photo editing
Topaz Detail -- photo editing
Topaz InFocus -- photo editing
Topaz ReMask -- photo editing
Topaz DeNoise -- photo editing

All of these plugins run efficiently in PL when you work on an individual image file. The new versions of the Topaz filters (except ReMask) are designed to run automatically in batch files, too. They work in a PL batch file, but not correctly, opening on each image for selection of settings.

A communication about this bug with PL Support brought a prompt reply, indicating the recoding necessary to solve the problem would be complex and leaving me with the impression it's unlikely to happen.

I fired up my PSPP X3 (32-bit) and found the Topaz plugins will run automatically in a batch file when recorded in a script (action). Because the current publisher of the program has done little in the way of innovation with the software, this ability likely dates back to version 9 of PSP, when the original developer owned it.

I hope there are enough photographers using PL who will discover DeNoise's ability to compensate for shooting at higher speeds and request the batch file function in PL. If you shoot a lot of photos, it makes a lot of sense to have this feature.

Bob

[greenmorpher]

Hey -- what bout some more contributions to this thread, everyone? Let's help each other.

Best regards

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad-Doctor-Online
http://www.ad-doctor-online.com

[Hoogo]

I've taken some plugins with the PL-folder to my new machine when I migrated from Win98, I barely use most of them. And I don't know if those that don't work would work with a proper installation.

On Win98, PL 32bit:
(I'm sure these once worked, but don't work now, or are not installed)
Photowiz - colorwasher
Focus magic
Ulead - particle

On Win7/64, PL 32bit:
Flaming pear - Flood
Fourier transform (No idea who's the vendor)
GML - matting
L'amico Perry - Luce
PSI - Metrix
Thomas Thiele - Optorsion, Screen
ePaperpress - PTLens
opticVerveLabs - virtual photographer
XiMagic - denoise, quantize, dither
Neat Image

On Win7/64, PL 64bit:
ePaperpress - PTLens
XiMagic - denoise, quantize, dither
Neat Image pro

Ximagic and Neat Image both are denoising tools and all in all the only ones I use regularly. Both are available for mac, too

[Stefan_E]

Over at Topaz, there is a discussion about the compatibility of ReMask. I use it with PL, but it's claimed not to be compatible.

In view of the censorship performed at PL forums, and the apparent lack of willingness of entering partnerships with plug-in providers, including some sort of regression testing, I'll however refrain from posting a link or recommendation over there.

Stefan

[bkh]

Over at Topaz, there is a discussion about the compatibility of ReMask. I use it with PL, but it's claimed not to be compatible.

In view of the censorship performed at PL forums, and the apparent lack of willingness of entering partnerships with plug-in providers, including some sort of regression testing, I'll however refrain from posting a link or recommendation over there.

Reading this thread, my impression is that Topaz isn't terribly interested in being compatible with GIMP - it's even more explicit here: http://topazlabs.com/support/kb/index.p ... ntryID=193. I doubt that their attitude towards PL will be much different. (Remember if Topaz claims compatibility with PL, it's their responsibility to do the testing, if PL claims compatibility, it's Computerinsel's.)

My impression is that so far the Hubers have tried their best to support 3rd party plugins, but maybe your experience is different. After all, it is in their own interest if you buy PL to use it with your favourite plugin, rather than switching to some other software. (Apart from this, imo, calling the Hubers' policy censorship is a bit harsh - should they really allow people to advertise other programs in favour of PL? Maybe I would have drawn a different line in a few cases, but otoh I don't have to be afraid of losing customers that way.)

Cheers

Burkhard.

[OldRadioGuy]

Over at Topaz, there is a discussion about the compatibility of ReMask. I use it with PL, but it's claimed not to be compatible.

In view of the censorship performed at PL forums, and the apparent lack of willingness of entering partnerships with plug-in providers, including some sort of regression testing, I'll however refrain from posting a link or recommendation over there.

My impression is the Hubers' have been very open to suggestions. I've never experienced another software firm with better service, including timely response to problems.

Regarding Topaz Labs and the other plug-in publishers, their primary interest has to be compatibility with the 10,000-pound gorilla that's able to dictate standards as a result of marketing share. If the products of the plug-in publishers work with the applications of the smaller companies, that's great. But I don't see them putting a lot of time into making them compatible with the other guys.

I use several Topaz Labs products, and lucky for me PL 16.51 now runs all of them, including ReMask, with no problem.

Bob