Photoshop Filters Host SDK

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cincirin
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Photoshop Filters Host SDK

Post by cincirin »

Hello everybody. We are pleased to announce that we have developed "Photoshop Filters Host SDK", which means that instead of a separate host, like Adobe Photoshop, IrfanView, GIMP, PhotoPlus, etc., you can run almost any Photoshop filter plug-in in your application ! (don't need separate host).
If you download http://pictomic.com/data/vsrcmdSDK.zip, and after decompress, in "bin" directory you will find a directory that is called PhotoshopFilters. Here you can put any filter you want to run in your application. Also in "testSDK.cpp" you will find an example of how to use this sdk.

HaraldHeim
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Post by HaraldHeim »

Looks interesting. Still, there are too many features missing in order to be useful for me. Anyway, I will mention it in the Plugin Newsletter.

You forgot to give us the URL of the website:
http://dmmd.net/main_wp/visere-5/

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

In order to get closer to Adobe Photoshop we will add the following features in our host SDK (in the shortest time) :
- add support for selection mask

- implement all functions from PICA Buffer Suite Callbacks (PSBufferSuite1), from PICA Handle Suite Callbacks (PSHandleSuite1 & PSHandleSuite2) and from PICA UI Hooks Suite

- implement almost all functions from Descriptor Suite Callbacks (PIDescriptorParameters), from PICA Action Descriptor Suite (PSActionDescriptorProcs) and from PICA Action Reference Suite (PSActionReferenceProcs)

- implement almost functions from PICA Color Space Suite, from PICA Progress Suite and from PICA AS ZString Suite

- in the near future we will have a Mac version of this host SDK

Please give us, which features are most important for you (besides those mentioned above) in order to be more useful for you (and others).

All the best !.

HaraldHeim
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Post by HaraldHeim »

Good to hear that you plan to improve it. Here are some suggestions:

- Statically link the CRT files to the plugin host dll, so that they do not need to be distributed and installed. Or at least offer such a version of the dll.
- Make the categories and names of the found plugins accessible
- Ability to run a plugin without displaying a dialog like the Ctrl + F feature in Photoshop.
- Make it support images with 16-bit/channel (or does that already work?)
- Better documentation

I tried to test some plugins in Visere 5 Lite in order to see how compatible your plugin host is, but it said something about a missing license. It would be nice to be able to test your plugin host without having to purchase a license.

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

Good to hear you, too. Here are some news:

- We have uploaded statically linked version of our host sdk.
- Plug-in's categories and filters names are available by calling vsrcmdImageProcess("Photoshop", "Filters..."), which will run any selected filter from bin/PhotoshopFilters directory.
- The host sdk support 16 bit/channel images, but for now only grayscale (8 bit/channels support RGB and grayscale pixels format).
- We will significantly improve the documentation, and for now the testSDK.cpp file is a small tutorial of how to use this sdk.

About Visere Lite 5, if you do not enter any license key, the process filter will wait 5 seconds. But this is an older version, and we are working now on Visere 6 which will be cross-platform edition. Now, our photoshop filters host sdk, don't have any limitations, and will run without any license key.

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Post by HaraldHeim »

Does your plugin host not allow the plugin to display the dialog? Does vsrcmdImageProcess("Photoshop", "Filters..."); simply apply all plugins to the image without displaying a plugin dialog? Or does it display a dialog for selecting a plugin?

When I try to run one of my own plugins in Visere 5 I only get a hour glass and Visere does not react anymore. Looks like it cannot run the plugin and freezes.

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

By calling vsrcmdImageProcess("Photoshop", "Filters...") function, our host sdk, display a dialog for selecting a plug-in from bin/PhotoshopFilters directory. After that, a plug-in's gui interface will be displayed.

About Visere 5, we tested all of the AlienSkin plug-ins (without BlowUp), and all of the AutoFX plug-ins, and more, more others. All are worked perfectly. I don't know which could be the problem. ... maybe if you can give us a link with your trial version, or some limitations, or something else ...

All the best.

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

We received the link with your plug-ins demo versions.
For now I tested only PhotoWiz / PhotoFreebies ver 2 plug-ins. In Visere5 command-line I have not problems in running these.
Anyway we decided not to spend too much time with older Visere 5.

So, we are some news of our photoshop host sdk :
- rewrote the entire testSDK.cpp, and if it is compiled now, you will get a full featured application. Now it's very easy to test your plug-ins with our photoshop host sdk. The resulting application can read the file path passed in first application argument (ex. TestHostSDK.exe "c:\testing\image.jpg"), apply the selected filter from bin/PhotoshopFilters directory, and save the processed image with ".vsrcmdout.jpg" suffix (ex. c:\testing\image.jpg.vsrcmdout.jpg)
- fixed some bugs in our host.
- upload the new zip

I tested this small resulting application with your PhotoFreebies ver 2, and except the color conversion plug-in, all other works fine. So, please give us the name of the plug-in that you've tested it and it did not work.

All the best.

HaraldHeim
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Post by HaraldHeim »

It would be nice if you added a compiled version of testSDK.cpp to the package.

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

We will upload the entire binaries (including compiled version of testSDK.cpp) in both 32 and 64 bits.

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

Our photoshop hpst sdk package now contains both Win32 and x64 binaries.
Also, besides the testSDK.cpp tutorial/example, here is the compiled version of it. You can test the host sdk using testSDK.exe, using syntax:
testSDK.exe "your_image_path_file". If the plug-in was executed successfully, a resulting "your_image_path_file.vsrcmdout.jpg" will be created. We tested these on 2K, XP, Vista an Win7. Unfortunately on Win7 we found some photoshop plug-ins that give us "access violation". We will study this problem on Win7.

HaraldHeim
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Post by HaraldHeim »

I tested the 32-bit versions of my PhotoWiz plugins. They work, but the outputted JPG is greyscaled and has colored line artifacts. Additionally the FocalBlade plugin crashes when scrolling the preview.

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

The processed(output) jpg and the preview crash are now fixed.

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Post by HaraldHeim »

Great! Looking forward to see it improved even more.

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

We put the first pre-alpha version of our Visere 6 for Windows here http://pictomic.com/data/Visere%206.zip. Now you can test our photoshop filters host in three ways:
1) using the vsrcmdSDK uploaded with a tutorial testSDK.cpp and compiled version testSDK.exe.
2) using Visere 6 GUI from above link, that can run in the following way: Visere.exe 2D (we have 1D and 3D version (cross-platform), but not included for the moment in the package)
3) using command-line version, that can run as follows:
vsrcmd.exe FileOpen="your_open_image_path" ImageProcess="Photoshop|Filters..." FileSave="your_save_image_path"

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

sorry, correctly link ... http://pictomic.com/data/Visere6.zip

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

We updated our photoshop host sdk with new features. Now your application can pass to host sdk an update progress callback (see vsrcmdSetUpdateProgress) and an image mask selection (see vsrcmdImageSave). Both new functions are updated in testSDK.cpp and testSDK.exe from the package. Also our host sdk now correctly display 16 bits image(grayscale) in preview.

Also we (beta-)release the AQuaDenoise photoshop filter for windos, 32 & 64 bits. It contains gray-level image (8 & 16 bits) processing filters for: AQua Denoising, Unsharp Masking, Gaussian Smoothing and XRay Denoising.

All updates can be found here http://dmmd.net/main_wp/visere-6-5/

bartsgb
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Post by bartsgb »

he cincirin, just wanted to say thanks for doing a great job! keep up the pace!

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

New updates in our photoshop host: support for some PICA callback suites.
For now filters can aquire / relase these suites: ASZStringSuite, PSBufferSuite, PSHandleSuite, PSUIHooksSuite.
More PICA suites will be available soon.

cincirin
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Post by cincirin »

Now, in new version of our host sdk, photoshop filter plugins can use descriptor parameters suites (WriteDescriptorProcs and ReadDescriptorProcs) for save / load their parameters variables.

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