Plugin does not recognize the marching ants

Hi everyone,
I'm using DESIGNER PRO v16.1 on windows 10 pro with lates updates.
I enjoy experimenting with plugins. One plugin that I've installed and
is working is the VIZROS plugin which you can find at http://www.vizros.com/index.html.
If you download the plugin it comes with nice help file that explains and gives
info on all 7 filters that it comes with. This plugin is an alternative to the AVIBROS
CURL plugin. It has curl and fold and other filters not found in AVIBROS.
This is the first plugin I've run into that makes use of a selection made in the image
before you run the plugin filter. Two of the filters(magnifier and lake) require a selection
and for other filters a selection is optional. My problem is no matter what I try I
can't make a filter aware of a selection. I've tried using the photo magnetic lasso, rectangle
tool, region painter and mask painter to no avail. For the 2 filters that require a selection,
magnifier and lake, I always get the message that "the filter requires a selection".
Anyone have a idea(s) on how to get the plugin to recognize a selection in XARA.
Although I don't know PHOTOSHOP I understand that a PHOTOSHOP selection might be a different
animal than a XARA selection so what I'm trying to do might not be possible. The plugin
is still quite fun without the benefit of a selection but a selection would be really helpful
to get the full benefit from the plugin.
Thanks,
steve

Hi Steve

Your post was moderated because of your link. New members are not permitted links nor are they permitted to write long long run on sentences. :)

I approved your post.

Xara can apply filters such as these to a bitmap, but not to a selection. Basically Designer Pro is a vector design program that has some photo editing capability.

There is a work around. Create a duplicate of your photo and apply the filter.

Then lock the effect. Make a shape the same as your selection would have been, and place it over the photo.

Select both the photo and the shape and Arrange > Combine Shapes > Intersect Shapes (or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 3)

You can apply a small amount of Feathering to soften the edge.

Gary's workaround will only work if the plugin recognises xara's object selection as the pixel selection that it is looking for and I am not convinced it will

Xara does not do pixel selection

Maybe I did not express myself correctly Steve (Handrawn). I am not suggesting a pixel selection but instead a vector shape of the same area as old.gezier wants to select and to use a vector shape with a duplicate of the photo to which the filter has been applied, and to intersect just that portion of the filter, which when placed over the photo gives the same result.

In my example here, the entire rose colored portion can be selected and this process applied.

yes but can you apply the filter in question [magnify, lake] at all if it is looking for a pixel selection

my point is if that particular filter needs pixels it is not going to accept any kind of xara selection, so you cannot apply it to the duplicate which is not a pixel selection

well I cannot get it to work with the filter in question...

As my wife often tells me, You would argue with a stump. :)

I was just suggesting a way to do the same thing in vector as can be done with pixel selection. Here is a better example of my previous post.

well ok but if you are not then using the plugin to do this - what exactly are you using to get the same effect, because I'm a bit stumped here :D

I am using one of the FX plug-ins to demonstrate the process. You apply the filter to the entire image, not just a selected area of the photo. To quote my previous post.

Quote:

---

There is a work around. Create a duplicate of your photo and apply the filter.

Then lock the effect. Make a shape the same as your selection would have been, and place it over the photo.

Select both the photo and the shape and Arrange > Combine Shapes > Intersect Shapes (or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 3)

You can apply a small amount of Feathering to soften the edge.

---

yes Gary I understand the methodology - but what I am saying is you cannot do it in this instance because you cannot apply the filter to the entire image in the case of magnify and lake

it it not just that you cannot make a selection to define the area, you cannot get those particular filters to work at all because they require a pixel selection and selecting the entire image is not a pixel selection

OK.

:D;)

Thank you gwpriester for you interesting suggestion. And thank you handrawn for
the bad news:)
Interestingly, if you review the Affinity Photo forum(s) you'll find that
"pixel" selection is a problem with several plugins there too. Just like Xara,
some plugins work with AP, some don't and there are issue(s) with the ones that
do work. I did get AP for what I could do with its native filters alone. Considering
the cost of 64bit plugins AP is a bargin forget about plugins for it:)
Overall, so very grateful I discovered Xara and this wonderful community of Xara
enthusiasts and artists.

Based on roaming the wonderful world of the web:
To make a long story short my guess is that Xara is using an early version of the Bridge plugin
(it is after all a 64bit plugin that allows 32bit plugins to work) that does not pass a selection
to the plugin. A later version of the Bridge plugin does support a selection. Therefore the
lack of a selection is not a limitation of Xara but of the Bridge. It's currently possible to
buy the Bridge with selection capability for $25! So if you have PhotoShop, PaintShop Pro
or Affinity Photo you can have 32bit/64bit plugin support.
I haven't tried this combination(yet):) But if anyone is interested in the Vizros plugin, on a native
32bit app I had no problem with using a selection. It's also my guess that it's not possible to
install this later version of the Bridge on Xara because that's a Bridge too far:)

as I recall xara uses it's own bridge for 64/32 bit plugins [called possibly with a certain amount of geek humour: cambridge]