COMPANY: graphicxtras | URL: www.graphicxtras.com | TYPE: Plug-ins | PLATFORM: Windows | PRICE: $50
				Andrew's Plugins Volumes 1-19 complete Color modes: The plugins were designed to be used in RGB but they can also be used in other color modes such as CMYK and LAB color mode. Using the plugins in other color modes can expand the range of the plugin effect into totally wow creative areas. The K channel of the CMYK is untouched in the basic mode but you can manipulate the K channel by using the layer transparency dropdown, and this can be used to create beautiful dark and gloomy as well as surreal color effects. Channels: The plugins can be used as is with all three channels active. You can also use the plugin in a single channel. Select the green channel and apply the plugin. Go to a different channel and modify the plugin sliders and apply to the blue or red channel. Use this to create unusual multiple color-channel effects. 8 bit: The plugins were designed for 8 bit color mode so the color range is 0 to 255. The sliders are setup for the range of 0 to 255 but changing the color mode to 16 bit generally will work. In some cases such as inverts or plugins that use 8 bit specific routines, the plugins will fail and you will probably end up with a black screen. Still, if you like to experiment, you might find some truly weird and wonderful color combinations and effects in 16bit mode. Layers: The plugins can be used on a layer. In the default mode there is no difference really working with a layer than that of the background. Click the advanced button and you will see a layer transparency dropdown. Use this dropdown to modify the layer in a wide variety of ways, tweaking the layer depending on the effect's result in the red or green or the inverse or the average of channels. The plugins and layers can be used to create weird shadowy colored effects (especially gradients) or half realised plugin effects. The resulting layer can be further manipulated and modified by using the layer effects/styles so adding drop shadows or bevels to the actual plugin effect. Advanced button: In most cases you might never need to click the advanced button. It is not really that advanced, it is not going to display a console offering an amazing array of effects, but the advanced does offer a number of additional sliders and options such as the layer transparency and the effects modes as well as some perhaps not so useful sliders. Effects Mode: The plugin in the basic mode is applied as is. If you set the effects mode dropdown to 'tone' or 'shift' or extreme or blur etc, then the effect is used to calculate a smear/shift/blurring of the original image pixels instead of the effect. The strength of the smear/shift/blur can be modified by the mode slider. All the plugins come with a wide selection of effects modes and it is intended to extend these in future versions. The effects dropdown is accessed via the advanced slider. For some of the effects modes, you will have to change the mode setting to a higher or lower value. If you set the extreme shift to 300, the result will be little of the picture. In basic mode, setting the mode slider to 0 will result in black. Color sliders: In the bottom half of the plugin dialog you will see three color trackbar sliders. These sliders add color or remove color from the RGB channels. The color is added after processing the effect and output mode. You can add a green tinge to an image or turn the image blue. If the image is fairly white, adding blue or red etc will make no difference. Likewise, if the image is fairly dark, subtracting from that will have little effect also. Output options: All the plugins come with a wide selection of approx 77 output options. The output options modify the effect in a variety of ways such as output the effect as a negative of the effect or limit the colors or wrap the colors around white or black or apply a tarnish or alien effect. Other options include tiling in a variety of ways as well as mirror effects and frames and border effects (apply the plugin but the end result will be the effect as a frame around the original image). Preview screen: The preview screen by default at start up shows the entire image. This depends on the size of the original image. By clicking the 100% you can set the image and preview to 100% match. You can also shift the image in the preview to examine different regions of the effect (left click to drag). On each plugin you will find a slider with a small [R] against the side of the slider and this is an indication that you can 'Right click the preview to modify the slider and the end result image. This is more an experimental effect and each plugin varies in its actual use. Some of the previews use the horizontal distance from the top right and some use the vertical distance from the top right or both. By right clicking the preview, you can rapidly try a range of different slider settings. Demo: The demos are the same as the release versions except for a few title dialog 'demo' messages and on clicking the OK button, the end result is generated with a random colored grid. The grid is not generated in the full release versions. Combining effects: Plugins are often derided as one click effects. The best way to use the plugins is often in subtle combinations. Plugins can be re-applied quickly from the filter menu or you can combine multiple plugin effects with low settings. You can also apply the plugin effects and then use the fade menu option to fade the effect and set the effect to be applied in a different blending mode such as difference or exclusion. Xtreme button: The bottom of the plugin dialog includes a wide selection of different buttons. The OK button applies the effect. The cancel button cancels the effect. The Xtreme button modifies the sliders to their extremes and anything in between. Not all the sliders are modified and not all the dropdowns are modified as this would result in a white or black or single color screen 90% of the time. The xtreme button can also be used as an animation by holding down the alt-X and just run through a wide range of different settings. The color button modifies only the bottom color sliders, this is useful for trying a wide range of color variant settings. Different red/green/blue combinations can result in totally different plugin effects. The blend button just randomizes the blend/output dropdown and runs through all the possible options such as invert/tiling etc and is useful for experimentation. Some of the plugins come with additional buttons such as tweak (applies a limited change of sliders), boost (boosts the sliders), jitters (jitters the values randomly plus or minus), mode (randomizes the mode settings) as well as others associated with the plugin itself such as 'wave' 'dots' etc. FG BG: Some of the settings will be indicated by a FG BG. This is just shorthand for foreground and background, the foreground color palette settings/background color palette settings. The FG BG setting is more useful for the gradient and pattern plugins where the current palette settings are used to create the gradient or pattern effect. Changing the FG BG combination from black white to red green and blue yellow will radically change the gradient or effect. Some of the blend options and sliders also use the FG BG and these often relate to limiting the range or applying a factor based on the current color palette settings. Plugin background: The plugins by default come with a silver background but you can change this. By adding a file AndrewsPlugins_Background.bmp to your C:\windows (or PATH) folder, the backdrop will change to this file. The general shape of the plugin is 500 x 300. A number of plugin backgrounds can be downloaded from the graphicxtras.com site. The backgrounds are generally light colorful backgrounds, to avoid creating conflict with the black text and sliders. Slider colors: Many of the sliders have a background color. Sliders with a red background modify the red channel, green modify the green channel and blue sliders modify the blue background (this is pure green or pure red..) Most of the sliders colors have no underlying logic. Presets: The plugins used to have a preset file accessed by a dropdown. With the latest versions that has been changed and the plugins all use a basic open file and save file presets setup. The presets files are all of type ini. The presets file hold all the settings of all the sliders on the dialog. When you click the save and create a saved ini file, the file is made up of generally 0 0 0 intermixed with other settings. You can edit the file manually, if so desired. A number of presets files have been created for a number of the plugins. You can name the presets file in any way but they are named as category_plugin_uniquename.ini and placed them in the category folder. You can follow this approach or you can create your own conventions. Plugin speed: The plugins are generally fast but in some cases, especially the blur or smear ones, they are not instant. If you have a 2000 x 2000 sized file then the plugins will be OK but slow and it is best to work with them in a preview setting of 33% or 25% and then click OK (and read a magazine). A progress slider is displayed. Andrew's Filters: Back in 1995 Andrew created a lot of plugins/filters and these have been collectively known as Andrew's filters. They are still available on various sites but the key one is the Steve Fisher Photography site. The plugins ran to about a 1000. They were created for Painter... yes, that sounds odd but that was Andrew's first main application, and he just kept on creating them. They required an additional dlls and they have been fairly popular, downloaded zillions of times. That was back in 1995 during his time in the wonderful city of Nijmegan, Holland. The Andrew's Plugins are not related in anyway, they are not FF plugins. The Andrew's Plugins have zillions of options, none of them possible with the earlier FF plugins. The Andrew's Plugins were originally released on the Sapphire Innovations site but that is no more. Since those days, Andrew has added more and more plugins and more features to each plugin. Filtermeister: All the plugins were created using the excellent plugin development tool, Filtermeister.