Photoshop plugins are add-on programs aimed at providing additional image effects or performing tasks that are impossible or hard to fulfill using Photoshop alone. Plugins can be opened from within Photoshop and several other image editing programs and act like mini-editors that modify the image.
Plugin Types
Photoshop-compatible plugins fall into several main types: filter plugins 8bf, import plugins (also called 'acquisition') 8ba, export plugins 8be, file format plugins 8bi, and automation plugins 8ly. Also, there are selection plugins 8bs and parser plugins 8by, but obviously no one else than Adobe has ever created plugins of these types.
The most common type are filter plugins. They have the 8bf file format and usually supply special image effects.
Import/export plugins acquire or write image data from or to certain devices, file format plugins open and save exotic image formats, and automation plugins automate certain tasks in the manner of Photoshop Actions.
History
Host Applications
Host applications or plugin hosts are graphics applications that are capable of running plugins. Many commercial graphics applications support Photoshop-compatible plugins — Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop Elements, PhotoImpact, Corel PhotoPaint, and Adobe Fireworks are the most renowned ones. There are several dozens more plugin hosts, including free editors like GIMP with certain add-ons and viewers like IrfanView.
Photoshop fully supports all available plugin types; certain hosts, like Photoshop Elements, support most of them, while the majority of hosts support filter plugins only and many of them don't even support all available filter plugins.
The support for plugins was more uniform up until 2002, when Adobe restricted access to the Photoshop SDK containing the specifications for Photoshop plugins, and made the developer license more prohibitive. Since then, developers of other image applications have had limited or no access to it anymore, so they can't support newer host features. Therefore, plugin developers face a dilemma: either support the new host features that appeared in Photoshop 7 and later versions, like the access to layers, and lose the compatibility with other image applications, or use the old SDK version which already includes all important specifications and make sure the plugin will be supported by all hosts.
Around 2005, Adobe changed the policy so that developers could make the request for the SDK via a Web form with no fee charged for it and with all requests handled individually.
Running Photoshop Plugins
In most host applications, plugins can be accessed via a menu that is usually called 'Filters' or 'Effects'. Each plugin collection is displayed as a submenu. In Adobe Photoshop, pre-installed plugins come first in the list. Third-party plugins are placed at the bottom of the menu, below the separator.
Photoshop-compatible plugins fall into several main types: filter plugins 8bf, import plugins (also called 'acquisition') 8ba, export plugins 8be, file format plugins 8bi, and automation plugins 8ly. Also, there are selection plugins 8bs and parser plugins 8by, but obviously no one else than Adobe has ever created plugins of these types.
The most common type are filter plugins. They have the 8bf file format and usually supply special image effects.
Import/export plugins acquire or write image data from or to certain devices, file format plugins open and save exotic image formats, and automation plugins automate certain tasks in the manner of Photoshop Actions.
History
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1991 | Adobe first introduces filters and support for third-party Photoshop-compatible plugins in Photoshop 2.0. The same year, Aldus presents Aldus Gallery Effects - a set of filters including Emboss, Mosaic, Charcoal and other effects. When Aldus and Adobe merge in 1996, Gallery Effects will be embedded into Photoshop. |
| 1992 | Kai Krause releases one of the most renowned plugins of the 1990s -- Kai's Power Tools (a.k.a. KPT). Many artists of the time consider it a must-have plugin set for Photoshop. It features several advanced warp and deformation effects, as well as support for bump maps and 3D graphics formats (in KPT SceneBuilder). |
| 1994 | Joe Ternasky releases Filter Factory, a plugin allowing users to create their own filters using an internal programming language resembling C and compile them as separate plugins. It uses programmable formulas to process the red, green and blue channels of each pixel of the image. However, the fact that it requires considerable programming skills is viewed by many as a serious drawback. |
| 1994 | Alien Skin Software, founded a year earlier, creates the first drop shadow filter for Photoshop. The same year, they also release the Black Box filter set, later renamed to Eye Candy, which becomes an all-time favorite among Photoshop users |
| 1997 | Alex Hunter, inspired by KPT but dissatisfied with the limitations of the Filter Factory, presents FilterMeister -- "a 'bigger and better' Filter Factory". It is said to be much easier to use than Filter Factory, and many of today's free and commercial plugins are made in FilterMeister |
| 2007 | Filter Forge Inc. brings procedural texturing to Photoshop by releasing Filter Forge, a plugin allowing users to build custom filters without any programming. In Filter Forge, filters are assembled in a visual node-based environment. |
Host Applications
Host applications or plugin hosts are graphics applications that are capable of running plugins. Many commercial graphics applications support Photoshop-compatible plugins — Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop Elements, PhotoImpact, Corel PhotoPaint, and Adobe Fireworks are the most renowned ones. There are several dozens more plugin hosts, including free editors like GIMP with certain add-ons and viewers like IrfanView.
Photoshop fully supports all available plugin types; certain hosts, like Photoshop Elements, support most of them, while the majority of hosts support filter plugins only and many of them don't even support all available filter plugins.
The support for plugins was more uniform up until 2002, when Adobe restricted access to the Photoshop SDK containing the specifications for Photoshop plugins, and made the developer license more prohibitive. Since then, developers of other image applications have had limited or no access to it anymore, so they can't support newer host features. Therefore, plugin developers face a dilemma: either support the new host features that appeared in Photoshop 7 and later versions, like the access to layers, and lose the compatibility with other image applications, or use the old SDK version which already includes all important specifications and make sure the plugin will be supported by all hosts.
Around 2005, Adobe changed the policy so that developers could make the request for the SDK via a Web form with no fee charged for it and with all requests handled individually.
Running Photoshop Plugins
In most host applications, plugins can be accessed via a menu that is usually called 'Filters' or 'Effects'. Each plugin collection is displayed as a submenu. In Adobe Photoshop, pre-installed plugins come first in the list. Third-party plugins are placed at the bottom of the menu, below the separator.
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