Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Creation Tools
... is a Photoshop-compatible filter plugin that enables you to create your own filter effects. To achieve effects with Filter Factory you have to type C like formulas for processing the Red, Green, Blue and Alpha channel of 24bit images. To get a deep insight please read the Filter Factory Programming Guide.
Filter Factory is available for Windows and
MacOS 8/9. As it hasn't been updated since 1995 it can't be used with
Mac OS X. The Filter Factory plugin is included on the Photoshop 3,
4, 5 or 6 CD-ROMs (for Macintosh and Windows) as well as on the Photoshop
7 and CS for Windows CD-ROM. Filter Factory for Windows needs Msvcrt10.dll
to work. There were two special version of Filter Factory included with
Adobe Premiere 4 and 5 called Filter Factory and Transition Factory.
Unfortunately Adobe doesn't deliver them anymore since Version 6 of
Adobe Premiere. The Filter Factory versions of Premiere 5 works in Premiere
6, but not in Premiere Pro.
Plugin Commander Pro lets you easily convert Filter Factory plugins to Macintosh versions as well as Premiere versions. You can also use it to edit and preview your Filter Factory plugins.
For more information about piogramming with Filter Factory see the Filter Factory Programming Guide.
Filter Factory is recommended for people:
Filter Foundry ($5 donationware)
Filter Foundry is recommended for people:
http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/
Filter Formula (free, $50 previously)
Unfortunately the latest Filter Formula release is from 1999 and there are no signs that it will be developed further.
Filter Formula is recommended for people:
Filter Meister ($25)
FilterMeister (FM) is a plugin for Adobe Photoshop and plugin-compatible applications. Although it has a "Beta" added to version name for 10 years now, you should not hesitate to use it. It has been toroughly tested and is still developed further. It lets you create your own Photoshop-compatible plugin filters using a powerful C-like programming language. You also have complete control over the design and layout of the user interface for the filters you create. Here's a feature list:
The FilterMeister user interface:
The FilterMeister compiler:
FilterMeister is recommended for people:
Please subscribe to the FilterMeister Mailing List to get the latest inofficial versions of FilterMeister. FilterMeister is still developed further.
Photoshop SDK for Delphi ($75)
... is a plugin development solution for Borland Delphi 5, 6, 7 and for Borland C++ Builder 6. Basically the software consists of two main parts: the plug-in development wizard and the filter host component.
Some of the features include:
Photoshop SDK for Delphi is recommended for people:
www.centaurix.com (Out of Business)
The Photoshop SDK (previously $195, now free again)
... contains instructions and source codes for developing Photoshop-compatible plugins. This is the hardest, but also most flexible way to create your own filter plugins. In recent years you had to become an ASN member for $195/year in order to obtain the SDK, but now you only need to register for a free Adobe ID to get the SDK. Previous version of the SDK can be found on the Photshop 3/4/5/6 CD-ROMs. The older Photoshop SDKs (3/4/5/6) can also be used to create plugins for Photoshop 7, CS, CS2 and CS3. For making your plugins compatible to as many other graphics applications you should better use an older version of the Photoshop SDK and test them with as many applications as possible. In addition to Photoshop you should at least test your plugins with Paint Shop Pro.
The following development systems can be used with the Photoshop SDK:
Commercial:
Microsoft Visual Studio Comunity Edition for Windows plugins (Officially supported by Adobe) C++ Builder for Windows plugins only (not officially supported by Adobe) Free:
Apple XCode (Officially supported by Adobe)
C++ Builder Compiler for Windows plugins only (not officially supported by Adobe)
MinGW (free GNU development system for building Win32 software) for Windows plugins only (not officially supported by Adobe)
The Photoshop SDK is recommended for people:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/photoshop/