AutoFX plugins: temperamental, but working

This is particularly for Rich, who is an AutoFX Gel afficianado.

For reasons beyond my understanding, I find the AutoFX Dreamsuite filters are suddenly working for me in Xara Xtreme. Once they have been applied, the object they are applied to can no longer be altered in any way without Dreamsuite trying to run again, the Dreamsuite effect disappearing, and Windows complaining that the Dreamsuite program has malfunctioned. If the object is messed with a second time, Xtreme crashes. The only way around this is to delete the effect, make alterations to the object, then reapply the effect.

For the attached image, I applied Dreamsuite Dreamy Photo and Mosaic to two different copies of a quickshape (with a four-colour fill), overlayed another feathered copy, and applied transparency effects to all, except an underlying original.

Glen

I still haven't seen an AutoFX applications in Xtreme. I pathed to the CS folder, but non of the filters showed. I found the eliminate white filter working, however. Maybe adding plugin.dll got it to work. Rich

I have the AutoFX filters in my Paintshop Pro plugins folder, to which I have pointed Xtreme in the plugins options dialogue. Perhaps this has something to do with their availability in Xtreme.

Glen

The AutoFX applications work from Xara X1 with the exception of the transparency. I set the path the same for both applications.

I changed the PS7 path to just the KTP filters. It looked like a leftover FX application there. A different FX application showed, but didn't activate.

I got a ReindeerGraphic plugin to work (Adaptive Equalization). The other didn't show. The plugins work in PSCS.

Does masking work from PSP?

Rich

Rich;

To the best of my knowledge, PSP doesn't have a masking tool like Photoshop's (which as I recall is similar to Knockout); PSP has only the usual selection tools for masking. Also, PSP does not keep its native filters ("Effects") in its plugins folder.

Glen

Glen,

AutoFX applications have more of a mask editing function. What you need to do is make a grayscale JPG, and load it into that application. This is the same in Photoshop. Once you load a mask, there are tools to remove or add to it. Yoy cannot translate the mask, and it needs to fit before you load it. I have made mask in Xara before. You can use a PNG image and use the image transparency. I add free space to prevent edge distorsions where the opaque pixels wold touch the edge.

So, in a non transparent image, you can use a mask to apply or protect an effect.

To me, it appeared that the PSP filters were embedded in the application. I added several external filters to see how they would work.

Rich

A mask created in Xara and used in AutoFX ML and Mosaic. Rich