Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugins for Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, PSP & others
Plugin Newsletter - January/February 2018
CONTENTS
ELEMENTSXXL 5.03 for WINDOWS:
Improvements and bug fixes
ACTIONSXXL 1.07 FOR WIN/MAC: Faster action loading, bug fixes
METARAW 2.56 FOR WIN/MAC: New cameras supported and bug fixes
FILTERHUB 1.52 FOR WINDOWS: Photoshop UI Scaling Support
POLL RESULTS: Which image
editing application(s) do you mainly use?
NEW POLL: Which tool(s) do you regularly use for raw conversion?
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS: Editing PSP X9 Scripts, PSP 9 not working under Windows 10
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS: Krita, Microsoft Photos, Fusion F.3, HDR Free & Easy, FreeOCR, Renee PDF Aide
GRAPHICS NEWS: Lightroom Classic 7.2, Photoshop CC 2018 19.1, Preset Brewery
Dear Reader,
The Plugin Site now officially supports HTTPS and transmits all of its contents and data encrypted. All http links are automatically converted to https. Everything you enter on a form is also encrypted before it is sent to The Plugin Site. This means you can now even use our web site on an unencrypted Wifi and do not need to fear that any data is intercepted or spied upon.
In case you wonder what computer configuration you may need to make full use of Photoshop (or Photoshop Elements) I recommend having a look at
https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Photoshop-CC-139/Hardware-Recommendations
For example, Puget Systems found out that Photoshop does not use more than 4 cores most of the time and that more than 6-8 cores are a waste of money if you mainly work with Photoshop on your computer. They recommend a GTX 1060 graphics card, because the much more expensive GTX 1080 only gives you 2-3% additional performance. They have not checked out Photoshop CC 2018 yet, so lets hope the situation has improved and will further improve in future.
Our plugins make full use of all available CPU cores and threads. For example, if you own an AMD Threadripper 1950X, our plugins perform 32 calculations at the same time with it, whereas in most cases Photoshop only uses 4 of the 16 available cores. However, Photoshop uses the GPU of the graphics card for some (but unfortunately not many) features, but also ignores the GPUs of a second, third and forth graphic card. Our plugins are currently not GPU powered, but there are plans to support all availabe GPUs in future, maybe already for ElementsXXL 6 later this year.
Kind regards,
Harald Heim
ELEMENTSXXL 5.03 for WINDOWS
Improvements and bug fixes
ElementsXXL 5.03 offers improvements for the Smart Filter, Channels, Paths and Properties panels, enhanced ActionsXXL compatibility as well as many bug fixes. If Photoshop Elements is running during installation with Plugin Installer, you are now asked to quit it before the plugin is installed, which makes sure that the plugin installation works.
ElementsXXL for Windows adds up to 880 powerful features to Photoshop Elements that were previously only available in Photoshop. These features are included as new menu items, icons, buttons, key shortcuts and dialogs, so they seamlessly integrate into the user interface of Photoshop Elements. ElementsXXL bridges the gap between Photoshop Elements and Photoshop and greatly enhances the image editing experience in Photoshop Elements.
For more information and a trial version visit the
ElementsXXL
Page
ACTIONSXXL 1.07 FOR WIN/MAC
Faster action loading, bug fixes
ActionsXXL 1.07 opens action files up to 33% faster and a progress window is displayed when opening action files with more than 1000 steps. Selecting the background layer is now recorded differently, which makes it playable in all localized versions of Photoshop Elements. A bug of the Record button on the New Action dialog was also fixed.
ActionsXXL empowers Photoshop Elements users to create, record, play and save Photoshop actions. ActionsXXL also offers a Batch feature for automatically processing multiple documents or image files with actions, scripts and other features. ActionsXXL plays actions 30% faster than Photoshop Elements itself and plays actions created for Photoshop, which would otherwise not work in Photoshop Elements, with the help of ElementsXXL.
For more information and a trial version visit the
ActionsXXL Page
METARAW 2.56 FOR WIN/MAC
New cameras supported and bug fixes
MetaRaw 2.56 supports Adobe DNG Converter 10.1 as well as new cameras and offers bug fixes, e.g. an activated "Open as smart object" check box on the MetaRaw dialog is not applied to non-raw files anymore. This makes sure that MetaRaw does not interfere with ElementsXXL's "16 Bits/Channel" feature and Photoshop Elements' "Open In Camera Raw" commands anymore. If Photoshop or Photoshop Elements are running, you are now asked to quit them before the MetaRaw plugin is installed.
MetaRaw extends the functionality of the Adobe Camera Raw plugin in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. It lets you open camera raw files with Adobe Camera Raw, which are normally not supported by it, and allows applying Adobe Camera Raw to image layers. In Photoshop Elements MetaRaw provides automatic lens correction and chromatic aberration removal features for Adobe Camera Raw. Additionally MetaRaw includes its own raw converter, which has several advantages over Adobe Camera Raw.
For more information and a trial version visit the
MetaRaw Page
FILTERHUB 1.52 FOR WINDOWS
Photoshop UI Scaling Support
FilterHub 1.52 now supports UI scaling in Photoshop CC 2018 19.1 under Windows. This means that the FilterHub UI scales 200% if the system setting is 150% or higher. 400% UI scaling for 8K screens is not supported yet. Additionally the installation was improved.
FilterHub is a powerful replacement for the Filter menu of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and offers many advantages over it. It supports built-in filters (from the Filter, Adjustments and Enhance menus), filter plugins and third-party automation plugins. The FilterHub panel runs in Photoshop under Windows and MacOS X and in Photoshop Elements under Windows.
For more information and a trial version visit the
FilterHub Page
POLL RESULTS
Which image editing application(s) do you mainly use?
The previous poll about favorite image editing applications resulted in 610 votes by 435 voters. The results are listed as three different categories here:
Combined Results:
1. Photoshop 40%
2. PaintShop Pro 33%
3. Photoshop Elements 25%
4. Affinity Photo 17%
5. Other 9.9%
6. GIMP 7.4%
7. Corel Photo-Paint 3.4%
8. Paint.NET 2.3%
9. Photo Filtre 1.6%
10. Photoline 0.5%
11. AliveColors 0%
Version Results:
1. Affinity Photo 17%
2. Photoshop CC 2018 14.7%
3. PaintShop Pro 2018 13.6%
4. Photoshop CS6 9.9%
Other 9.9%
5. PaintShop Pro X9 9.4%
6. Photoshop Elements 14 7.4%
GIMP 7.4%
7. Photoshop Elements 2018 6.2%
8. Photoshop Elements 15 4.4%
9. Photoshop CS3/CS4 3.7%
10. Corel Photo-Paint 3.4%
Remaining Results:
1. Photoshop CC 2018 14.7%
2. Photoshop CS6 9.9%
3. Photoshop CS3/CS4 3.7%
4. Photoshop CC 2017 3%
Photoshop CS5 3%
5. Photoshop 7 (or older) 2.3%
6. Photoshop CS/CS2 1.6%
7. Photoshop CC 2015.5 0.9%
Photoshop CC 2013-2015 0.9%
1. Photoshop Elements 14 7.4%
2. Photoshop Elements 2018 6.2%
3. Photoshop Elements 15 4.4%
4. Photoshop Elements 10 (or older) 2.6%
5. Photoshop Elements 11/12 2.5%
6. Photoshop Elements 13 1.8%
1. PaintShop Pro 2018 13.6%
2. PaintShop Pro X9 9.4%
3. PaintShop Pro 10/XI/X2-X6 2.5%
Paint Shop Pro 9 2.5%
4. Paint Shop Pro 8 (or older) 2.3%
5. PaintShop Pro X8 1.6%
6. PaintShop Pro X7 1.1%
40% of all voters use Photoshop, 33% PaintShop Pro, 25% Photoshop Elements, 17% Affinity Photo and 7.4% GIMP. On average 40% of all voters also use a second application.
In our poll from May 2016 31% of all Photoshop users worked with Photoshop CS6 and 27% used the latest Photoshop CC version. Now the tide has turned: 37% use the latest Photoshop CC version and only 25% work with Photoshop CS6. Nevertheless, 51% of all users still use a pre-CC version of Photoshop, but this percentage was 62% in 2016, so it drops. Soon there will be more CC users of Photoshop than pre-CC users.
The 30% of all Photoshop Elements users stayed with version 14 and did not update to Photoshop Elements 15 or 2018. This means that Adobe will have to add some convincing new features to Photoshop Elements 2019 to get these people to upgrade.
When considering only software versions, Affinity Photo is the most used application version at the moment, closely followed by Photoshop CC 2018 and Paint Shop Pro 2018.
For more poll results visit the
Resources section
NEW POLL
Which tool(s) do you regularly use for raw conversion?
The latest poll lets you vote for your regularly used raw conversion tools. You can choose between 29 tools and an Other option. Voting is possible only once but you are allowed to vote for more than one tool.
Please participate in this poll by visiting the
Main page...
THE DISCUSSION FORUMS
Here are the latest posts from The Plugin Site Forums:
Editing PSP X9 Scripts
PSP 9 not working under Windows 10
DuxxGirl95 wrote: "... I came here looking for advice on how to get PSP 9 working again. From all of these notes it seems that's not possible. My opinion is that Microsoft is intentionally rendering these programs unusable to push us to use their *new* Paint program which is now 3-D. ... Anyway, are there any suggestions on a newer PSP program that would work?"
Read More...
Feel free to post comments or start a discussion topic at
The Plugin Site Forum
FREE PLUGINS AND TOOLS
Krita, Microsoft Photos, Fusion F.3, HDR Free & Easy, FreeOCR, Renee PDF Aide
Krita is a free painting tool (for Windows/Mac/Linux) for concept artists, illustrators, texture artists and video fx creators. It offers brush stabilization, over 9 brush engines, support for Photoshop brushes, a wrap-around mode, drawing aids like vanishing points, PSD file support, HDR support, multiple layer masks as well as vector, filter, group and file layer.
Visit
website...
Microsoft Photos is a free image organization and editing tool (for Windows 10). Apart from standard photo adjustments it also offers 15 filter effects. Additionally you can perform various video editing tasks.
Visit website...
Fusion F.3 is a free HDR tool (for Windows) that lets you combine multiple images of the same scene taken at different exposures to increase local contrast and avoid under or overexposed areas. There is a commercial version with more features, but the free version only offers a 32-bit executable, JPEG-only saving, no batch features and no post processing.
Visit website...
HDR Free & Easy is an HDR tool (for MacOS). It offers drag and drop, 4 tone mapping systems and a Strength slider. Its lets you open up to 20 file formats including camera raw files, but only saves JPEG. There is also a commercial HDRtist Pro version with more features.
Visit website...
FreeOCR is a free Optical Character Recognition Software (for Windows). It supports scanning from Twain scanners and can open most PDFs, multi page TIFFs as well as other file formats. FreeOCR produces plain text and allows exporting to Word format. It uses the Tesseract OCR engine from Google.
As an alternative you can have a look at Renee PDF Aide (for Windows), which is free for private use and converts scanned PDF files to Word, Excel, Text, PowerPoint, EPUB, HTML and RTF with its integrated OCR technology.
Visit website...
Visit website...
For more free plugins and tools, please visit the
Resources section
GRAPHICS NEWS
Lightroom Classic 7.2, Photoshop CC 2018 19.1, Preset Brewery
Adobe Lightroom Classic 7.2 offers performance enhancements for multi-core machines with at least 12GB of RAM. There are also 5 new Library Module features, a new Map Module feature and support for new cameras and lenses. Version 7.1 already introduced an enhanced Auto feature in the Develop module and the ability to remove individual color samples from a color range mask.
Visit
website...
The Photoshop CC 2018 19.1 update offers a new AI-powered Select Subject feature and support for Microsoft Surface Dial, 8K monitors as well as up to 400% scaling under Windows. Personally I would not use the new Select Subject feature, because it causes too coarse selection edges.
Visit website...
Preset Brewery is a commercial drag and drop tool (for MacOS) for converting Lightroom presets to Adobe Camera Raw presets that can be used in Photoshop.
Visit website...
