Photoshop Tutorial for Beginners: Installation and Use of Plug-in Filters

Today continue to learn how to use plug-in filters in Photoshop.

Unlike Photoshop’s internal filters, external filters require users to install them themselves. There are two ways to install external filters: one is an encapsulated external filter, which can be installed by the installation program; the other is a filter file placed directly in the directory.

The method to install a filter is very simple, just copy the filter file and some of its attached files to “Photoshop\PlugIns”. First find the directory where the filter is located, such as the filter directory produced by different companies under PlugIns in the root directory of the CD. Enter these directories, and you will find that in addition to the filter files 8bf and 8bi, there are also some help files, asf, and dll. and other files, the general installation file is to copy this directory together to the filter directory of Photoshop. The next time you enter Photoshop, open the “Fitler” menu and you will find the newly installed filter; in addition, in order to save space, also You can copy the filter file in the filter directory to the filter directory of Photoshop, but be careful: when copying, you should check whether the filter has an attached dynamic link library dll file or asf file. If the filter is not If the mirror copy is complete, the filter will not be used normally. In addition, before copying a single filter file, please write down its file name. If it cannot be used normally next time you enter Photoshop, you can delete it. Save hard drive space.

On the contrary, it is much simpler to install encapsulated filters. You only need to select the Photoshop filter directory during installation, and you can use it the next time you enter Photoshop! For example, the installed plug-in filter is KPT3.0. After double-clicking the installer and following the prompts of the installer, the installer will prompt you to select the Photoshop filter directory (as shown in the picture);

As shown in the picture above, select the filter directory under Photoshop in the dialog box. And it is very convenient to uninstall this type of filter. You only need to execute the “Add/Remove Programs” tool under the control panel.

Finally, there is another issue that is most easily overlooked, that is, if too many filters are installed, it will affect the execution efficiency of Photoshop and the speed of image processing will become very slow. In order to solve this problem, the filters used in Photoshop can also be placed in other directories. The method to change the directory is: execute the File\Preferences\Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks command to pop up the filter properties dialog box (as shown in the figure);

Press the “Choose” button to change the storage location of Photoshop filters. If you use too many filters (for example, use all the filters in the PlugIns directory of the CD root), you can consider Using this method, filters are classified and placed in different directories, and to use them, you only need to reset the filter directory in the Filter Properties dialog box.

Note: The installed filter will not be effective until you enter Photoshop again!

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