2024 |
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October 2024 |
ElementsXXL
12 for Windows included 150 new features, including portrait, landscape & outdoor portrait adjust functionality. LayerShop was added to ElementsXXL and discontinued. |
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2023 |
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November 2023 |
ElementsXXL
11 for Windows included 200 new features, including sky replace functionality. |
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2022 |
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October 2022 |
ElementsXXL
10 for Windows included ActionsXXL, FilterHub and was made compatible with Photoshop. ActionsXXL and FilterHub were discontinued as individual products. |
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2021 |
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October 2021 |
ElementsXXL
9 for Windows included 190 new features, support for Photoshop Elements 2022 and speed improvements. |
July 2021 |
FilterHub 2 for Windows offered a new UI and did not require Adobe Flash Player anymore. |
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2020 |
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October 2020 |
ElementsXXL
8 for Windows included 220 new features, support for Photoshop Elements 2021 and speed improvements.
CameraXXL 2 for Windows with 50 new features and support for Camera Raw 12.3 and higher. |
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June 2020 |
LayerShop 2 for Windows was released. It was previously called LayersXXL, but renamed because of Photoshop support. 130 features were added and the UI was enhanced greatly. |
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March 2020 |
Edge & Frame Galaxy
2 for Windows included a plugin for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements as well as 5000 edges & frames. |
March 2020 |
New Galaxy Bundle with Edge & Frame Galaxy, Plugin Galaxy, HyperTyle and Plugin Commander. |
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2019 |
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October 2019 |
ElementsXXL
7 for Windows included 200 new features, support for Photoshop Elements 2020 and a dark mode. |
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June 2019 |
AdjustShop for Windows extended Photoshop as well as Photoshop Elements with 400 new features. It was the first plugin ever to add new fill and adjustment layers to Photoshop. |
June 2019 |
The Elements Bundle was renamed to Elemental Bundle because 3 of its 7 products were now usable in Photoshop. |
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2018 |
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October 2018 |
ElementsXXL
6 for Windows included 200 new features and support for Photoshop Elements 2019. |
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July 2018 |
CameraXXL for Windows was released, which added 100 new features to Camera Raw in Photoshop Elements. |
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March 2018 |
MetaRaw 3 offered new features, UI enhancements and support for new cameras. |
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February 2018 |
The Plugin Site officially supported HTTPS and transmitted all of its contents encrypted. |
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2017 |
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October 2017 |
ElementsXXL
5 for Windows included 255 new features, a Photoshop Elements skin and support for Photoshop Elements 2018. |
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April 2017 |
MetaRaw
2.50 now included a MacOS version. It offered the same features as the Windows version. 300 more cameras were officially supported than in the last version 1 of MetaRaw. |
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March 2017 |
Support for tile processing and images larger than 2 GB by Harrys Filters, PhotoFreebies and Plugin Galaxy for Windows. Support for processing images larger than 2 GB by ColorWasher, FocalBlade and NoiseControl for Windows. |
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February 2017 |
The PhotoWiz Collection 2017 (previously known as PhotoWiz Bundle) for Windows was the 10th edition of the PhotoWiz products. All PhotoWiz products now offered a skin feature, 3200% zoom, improved file format support, Affinity Photo support, combined plugin/standalone installations and more. ColorWasher 3 and Lightroom 2 for Windows additonally included multiple core support, up to 12 time faster preview update and the ability to use them as smart filters and for action recording. |
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2016 |
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December 2016 |
The design of The Plugin Site was reworked to give it a modern touch and to
make it better viewable on mobile devices. The main page was completely reworked
and the other 1000+ pages were adjusted to the new template. The Gallery section
and some other outdated pages were removed. |
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December 2016 |
FilterHub 1.50 began using ElementsXXL for applying smart filters in Photoshop Elements.
Our commercial HTML Shrinker Pro for Windows became freeware.
Plugin Galaxy AE was discontinued. |
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October 2016 |
ElementsXXL
4 for Windows included 200 new features, many speed improvements
and support for Photoshop Elements 15. |
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Juli 2016 |
ElementsXXL for MacOS X was released. |
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April 2016 |
ActionsXXL for Windows was released for recording actions in Photoshop Elements and using
them for batch processing. ElementsXXL, LayersXXL and FilterHub now
support ActionsXXL for recording and playing actions. |
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March 2016 |
The PhotoWiz
standalones started using MetaRaw
Converter for opening camera raw files. |
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January 2016 |
FilterHub for Windows supported UI Scaling in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. |
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2015 |
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December 2015 |
HiDPI and 4K support under Windows for PhotoWiz, Plugin Galaxy, HyperTyle and Harrys Filters. |
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December 2015 |
MetaRaw
2 for Windows was released. |
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October 2015 |
The MacOS X versions of the PhotoWiz and Plugin Galaxy plugins were updated with Retina support and a combined installer. |
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October 2015 |
ElementsXXL
3 for Windows included 200 new features and support for Photoshop
Elements 14. |
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March 2015 |
LayersXXL for Windows was released. |
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March 2015 |
The Elements Bundle consisting of FilterHub, ElementsXXL and LayersXXL was offered. Later more and more plugins were added to it. |
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2014 |
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October 2014 |
Updates of all PhotoWiz
products for Windows with support for 30K+ images, 64-bit standalones
and a combined installer. |
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October 2014 |
ElementsXXL
2.5 for Windows included a 64-bit version for Photoshop Elements
13 and higher. |
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May 2014 |
Plugin
Galaxy 3 for Windows was released. It offers the most advanced
Filter Factory engine that ever existed. |
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January 2014 |
ElementsXXL
2 for Windows was released. |
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2013 |
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August 2013 |
BWStyler
2 for Windows contained our first 64-bit release of a standalone
version and Lightroom external editor. |
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June 2013 |
MetaRaw for Windows was our first Photoshop format plugin. |
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May 2013 |
HyperTyle
2 for Windows included a 64-bit version and new UI. |
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March 2013 |
ElementsXXL for Windows was the first Photoshop plugin ever that fully intergrated
itself into the UI of the host application. |
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2012 |
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December 2012 |
FilterHub 1.01 included our first Photoshop automation plugin and the first
flash panel that ever ran in Photoshop Elements and Photoshop 5 to
CS3. |
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December 2012 |
ColorStyler for MacOS X was released. |
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October 2012 |
FilterHub was released. This was our first commercial Photoshop panel extension. |
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May 2012 |
ColorStyler for Windows was released. |
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2011 |
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July 2011 |
NoiseControl for Mac was released. |
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May 2011 |
NoiseControl for Windows was released. |
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January 2011 |
Version 4 of Harrys
Filters for Windows, which included a 64-bit version. |
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November 2010 -
February 2011 |
64-bit Mac versions of all PhotoWiz
plugins appeared. |
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2010 |
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November 2010 |
The PhotoWiz
products were now offered as a price-reduced product bundle. |
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November 2010 |
FocalBlade
2 for MacOS X was released. This was our first 64-bit Mac plugin. |
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September 2010 |
Windows Standalone/Lightroom
versions of all PhotoWiz
plugins became available. |
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July
2010 |
A 64-bit Windows
version of Plugin Galaxy was released.
Our Photo
Galaxy and Abstraction/Mutation products were discontinued after nine years. |
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April
2010 |
Version 2 of FocalBlade
for Windows was released. |
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March
2010 |
Harald Heim of The
Plugin Site wrote a technical book
on nude and portrait photography in German language in 2009 together
with co-author Kay Michael Kuhnlein. It was published in March 2010.
Spanish, Chinese and Polish editions followed in 2011. |
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January
2010 |
The Plugin
Newsletter was sent out in HTML for the first time. |
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January
2010 |
Plugin
Galaxy AE was updated to Version 1.6. |
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2009 |
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November
2009 |
64-bit Windows versions
of the other PhotoWiz plugins were released. |
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November
2009 |
We changed servers
for the Plugin Newsletter. The subscriber
base was reduced from 130,000 to 15,000 addresses by asking people
to resubscribe. Both measures reduced the costs for sending out the
newsletter dramatically. |
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October
2009 |
The web design of
The Plugin Site was greatly improved. The old design served for many
years and was only slightly changed during that time. |
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September
2009 |
ThePluginSite
Panel for Photoshop was released. It offers a convenient way to
run all of our plugins. |
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March - August
2009 |
The Postcard
Contest 2009 was conducted. Participants were asked to either
buy a postcard or create one of their own and send them to us by
postal mail. 20 prizes worth more than USD $3500 in total were offered
to the winners. The best postcards were exhibited in the Museum
of Communications in Nuremberg, Germany, from October 2009 to February
2010. |
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July 2009 |
Version 2 of Plugin
Galaxy for MacOS X was released. |
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May 2009 |
Version 2.04 of ColorWasher for Windows was released including a 64-bit version. This was our
first commercial 64-bit Photoshop plugin. |
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March 2009 |
Version 2.0 of PhotoFreebies for Windows were released. The update included a version with our
first ever released 64-bit Photoshop plugins. |
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February
2009 |
From 2001 to 2008 we
used the FilterMeister development tool for creating our Windows Photoshop
plugins. We also contributed most of the new features to FilterMeister
during that time. In February 2009 we decided to drop FilterMeister
and only use VC++ for developing our plugins. This allowed us to develop
more powerful plugins, create 64-bit versions and standalones as well
as release updates much faster. |
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2008 |
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December
2008 |
ContrastMaster for Mac was released. |
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April - December
2008 |
All PhotoWiz
plugins were updated for enhanced compatibility and reliability. |
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August 2008 |
ContrastMaster for Windows was released. This was our first plugin that fully supported
multiple CPU cores. |
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February
2008 |
FM
Patcher, a tool for making FilterMeister .8bf plugins Vista-compatible,
was released as a co-production between The Plugin Site and AFH Systems. |
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2007 |
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October 2007 |
Version 2 of Plugin
Galaxy for Windows was released. |
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August 2007 |
PhotoFreebies for MacOS X was released. |
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March - December
2007 |
All of our plugins were
made compatible with Windows Vista. |
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February
- May 2007 |
Our PhotoWiz
plugins now ran natively on Macs with an Intel processor. |
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February
2007 |
The MacOS X version
of B/W Styler was released. |
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2006 |
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September
2006 |
B/W
Styler for Windows was released. |
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April 2006 |
The MacOS X version
of LightMachine was released. |
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January 2006 |
The MacOS X version
of FocalBlade was released. |
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2005 |
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August 2005 |
ColorWasher
for MacOS X was released. |
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July 2005 |
Version 1.60 of Plugin
Commander was released. |
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March 2005 |
Photo
Galaxy 1600 Themes and Photo
Galaxy 1600 Textures were released. The previous five volumes
of Photo Galaxy 1600 were remodeled into these two new products. |
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February
2005 |
The first Plug-Talk article was published. Plug-Talk is a a series of interviews that
give you a better idea about the people behind the scenes of the Photoshop
plugin business. It is also published at Graphics.com. |
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January 2005 |
Harald Heim of The Plugin
Site started a second column in the Digital
Photo Effects magazine (which was previously known as Digital
Photography Techniques). The column presented freeware plugins and
showcased three tutorials for each set. Unfortunately in mid 2005
the magazine was discontinued. |
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January 2005 |
LightMachine,
the third commercial plugin in the PhotoWiz series, was released. |
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2004 |
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October 2004 |
The PhotoWiz
Contest 2004 was started and run until the end of 2004. More than
500 images were submitted and 66 prizes were awarded. |
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July 2004 |
Finally Paypal orders
were processed automatically, so that customers got their download
immediately after the purchase. |
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May 2004 |
Version 2 of ColorWasher was released. |
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March 2004 |
Photo
Galaxy 2300 consisting of 1000 photo textures was released. |
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February
2004 |
The Plugin Site web
site was transfered to a new and faster server of a new web hosting
provider. The URL www.thepluginsite.com was not working for four days.
A new main Order Form for ordering our products was made available.
At the same time we also relaunched our Affiliate Program with improved
features and a higher commission. |
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January 2004 |
Version 3 of Harry's
Filters, our most successful freeware product, was made available.
It included new effects and an interesting animation feature. |
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2003 |
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November 2003 |
PhotoFreebies,
the third PhotoWiz product, was released as freeware. The Photo
Galaxy 800 CD was released. |
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July 2003 |
FocalBlade,
the second PhotoWiz product, was released. |
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June 2003 |
Harald Heim of The Plugin
Site started a monthly column called "Essential Plugins" in the Digital
Photography Techniques magazine from Future Publishing UK. The
column reviewed several plugins that produce certain effects. The
column ran for 28 issues of the magazine until mid 2005. |
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April 2003 |
Plugin
Galaxy 1.50 for Mac was released. |
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February
2003 |
The new Download Center,
which makes it easier to access the downloads of our freeware and
demo versions, went online. At the same time a discussion board was
opened. |
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January 2003 |
The first version of ColorWasher was released.
This was the start of the new PhotoWiz plugin series which focuses
on providing professional photo correction tools. |
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2002 |
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December 2002 |
HTML
Shrinker 2.60 was released. This was its last version. It is not developed further but available as freeware. |
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November 2002 |
Version 1.50 of Plugin
Galaxy for AE was released. |
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October
2002 |
The Galaxy
Contest 2002 ended after three months.1250 images and animation
from 500 international artists were sent in. The 70 prizes were given
to approx. 50 winners. |
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September
2002 |
Photo
Galaxy 5 (Mixed Impressions) was released. |
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August 2002 |
Harald Heim from The Plugin Site
started a bi-monthly column called "Plugins Unplugged" at Graphics.com.
The articles were about general plugin topics and meant to be quite
controversial. Until the end of 2004 several articles were published. |
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July 2002 |
Our second commercial plugin product HyperTyle was released. |
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June 2002 |
Another co-production
with cybia.co.uk called Abstraction was released. Discontinued in 2010. |
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May 2002 |
Photo
Textures 2 (Photo Galaxy Vol.4) was released. |
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April 2002 |
Plugin
Galaxy 1.50 for Windows was released. The MacOS X version of Plugin
Galaxy for AE, too. |
|
February 2002 |
Harald Heim of The Plugin
Site became part of the FilterMeister development team. FilterMeister
is a tool for creating Photoshop plugins for Windows. Until February
2009 he added most of the new feature to new FilterMeister releases.
Until February 2009 we also used FilterMeister to develop our Photoshop
plugins for Windows. |
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February 2002 |
HTML
Shrinker 2.50 was released. |
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January 2002 |
Photo
Galaxy Vol.3 was released. |
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2001 |
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December 2001 |
Beside the Element5 service we
also introduced the Paypal payment service as another means of ordering
our products (in response to some customer requests). |
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November 2001 |
The Photo
Textures (Photo Galaxy Vol. 2) product was released on CD-ROM. |
|
October 2001 |
The Photo
Galaxy product was released. Furthermore a co-production with
cybia.co.uk called "Mutation"
was released, too. Both product were only made available on CD-ROM. Both were discontinued in 2010. |
|
September 2001 |
The Plugin
Newsletter was moved from Topica.com to a Sparklist/Lyris server. |
|
August 2001 |
The URL pico.i-us.com wasn't redirected
to www.thepluginsite.com anymore, because Eyewire shut the redirection
down. It took almost one year to get back to the same amount of visitors
again. Too late to ask yourself why you didn't register your own domain
back in 1997, although it was quite expensive at that time. |
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July 2001 |
Plugin
Galaxy for AE (Windows/Macintosh) was released. Again a co-production
with Panopticum.com. Discontinued in 2016. |
|
April 2001 |
Version 2.0 of "Harry's
Filters" was released as freeware. Just like the old version,
it was downloaded several hundred thousand times since then. It was
our first plugin that was developed with FilterMeister. |
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February 2001 |
HTML
Shrinker 2.0 was released as a free Light Version and a commercial
Pro Version. The Pro version was made freeware in 2016. |
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2000 |
|
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December 2000 |
The first version of our GraphicsGalaxy search engine was installed on The Plugin Site. It allowed people
to enter keywords in order to find Photoshop plugins. This service
was available until the end of 2009. |
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November 2000 |
The Plugin Com HQ web site (pico.i-us.com)
was closed down after two and a half years, because I/US was acquired
by Eyewire. Eyewire closed the www.i-us.com web site as well as the
pico.i-us.com site. Almost all pages from pico.i-us.com were transferred
to www.thepluginsite.com. Most of the traffic was redirected to The
Plugin Site. |
|
October 2000 |
The winners of the Galaxy
Contest 2000 were announced. Almost 400 images from more than
120 artists had been sent in and a total of 60 prizes were won. |
|
September 2000 |
Version 1.5 of Plugin
Commander was released. |
|
July 2000 |
The first Mac version of Plugin
Galaxy (a co-production with Panopticum.com) was released. |
|
April 2000 |
We had to sell the copyright
of Alpha Magic to Pinnacle
Systems (which acquired Hollywood FX) to keep the product alive. Alpha
Magic was still sold by Pinnacle on its own for two or three years
and later included in some of their products, e.g. Pinnacle Studio. |
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March 2000 |
The Edge
& Frame Galaxy CD Version was released. |
|
February 2000 |
"The Plugin Site" web site at
www.thepluginsite.com was opened, but only contained little information
and redirected traffic to pico.i-us.com. |
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1999 |
|
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December 1999 |
A total of 60 prizes worth over
$4000 were given away in the Xmas
Draw 99 to the subscribers of the Plugin Newsletter. |
|
November 1999 |
After dozens of beta versions
and two years of development Version 1.0 of Plugin
Commander was released as a free Light Version and a commercial
Pro Version. |
|
October 1999 |
Ordering our commercial
products was made possible through our own web site via the ShareIt/Element5
payment service. We registered as a business at our local authorities. |
|
August 1999 |
Alpha
Magic, a video transition plugin, which was a co-production with
Hollywood FX, was released. |
|
July 1999 |
Our second commercial
product Plugin Galaxy was made available through I/US. Plugin Galaxy was developed with
the FilterFormula tool. |
|
June 1999 |
The first version of HTML
Shrinker was released as freeware. |
|
May 1999 |
The Edge
& Frame Galaxy Contest 1999 was conducted. Almost 100 images were
submited to the contest. |
|
April 1999 |
"Edge & Frame Galaxy Vol.2" was
released by I/US. This product isn't sold separately anymore. (However,
its content is included with the Edge
& Frame Galaxy CD Version which came out a year later.) |
|
February 1999 |
Our first commercial product "Edge
& Frame Galaxy" was released for sale as a download through I/US.
An updated version of it is still sold as the Edge
& Frame Galaxy Download Version. |
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1998 |
|
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September 1998 |
The first issue of the Plugin
Newsletter was sent out to a few hundred people. |
|
May 1998 |
The predecessor web site was called
"Plugin Com HQ" and moved to pico.i-us.com and was sponsored
by the I/US corporation. |
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1997 |
|
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November 1997 |
The first beta release of Plugin
Commander was published as freeware. |
|
October 1997 |
The first version of Harry's
Filters (which was called VideoRave at that time) was released.
More and more filters were added in the following two years. Harry's
Filters 1.0 was developed with Adobe's Filter Factory. |
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September 1997 |
The first release of 8bf2prm,
the predecessor of Plugin Commander, became available. |
|
August 1997 |
The first amateur web site called
"Premiere Plugin HQ" was opened on a fortunecity.com server. |
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