Filter Factory - Technical Analysis and Inofficial Patch

by Daniel Marschall

Filter Factory is a plugin for Photoshop which was developed by Adobe in 1994/95 is one of my favorite plugins.

Since 2012, I am analysing and extending this plugin, and also have found several undocumented functions.
My patch contains a lot of bugfixes and a few other improvements, and it also extends the maximum code size of user scripts.

Please note that this page is mostly about the Photoshop plugin for Windows. Filter Factory also exists for Adobe Premiere and for Macintosh. I have not further analyzed or patched these.

Download

Download inofficial patch version 3.1.1 for Photoshop/Win32 (based on version 3.0.4)

Download all known releases, like Filter/Transition Factory for Premiere and Macintosh

How to install

To install the plugin to Photoshop, copy the 8BF-file into the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Photoshop ....\Plug-Ins\Filters and then restart Photoshop.

To install the plugin to other hosts (e.g. Paint.net), please follow the instructions of the specific application. A few hints:

• For GIMP you need the PSPI extension to load 8BF filters.
• Paint.net requires PSFilterPdn to run 8BF filters.

Troubleshooting

If you run a modern version of Windows:

• If the original Filter Factory plugin (3.00 or 3.0.4) does not show up in the Filters menu, your system probably misses the file msvcrt10.dll .
  There are two ways to solve this issue:
  • You can download a version of msvcrt10.dll (included in Photoshop 7) here. Place it into the directory C:\Windows\System32 or C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Photoshop ....\ . The patched version of the plugin should not have this problem, since it uses msvcrt.dll instead of msvcrt10.dll , which should be installed on all modern operating systems.
  • My patch solves this problem by binding to msvcrt.dll instead of msvcrt10.dll
  • You could use FilterFoundry instead.
• In combination with newer operating systems (starting with Windows Vista) and newer versions of Photoshop, the plugin directory becomes read-only for normal users for security reasons. Therefore, you will not be able to use the "Make filter" feature. To solve this problem, you must start Photoshop with administrator privileges. (Right click -> Run as administrator). When Photoshop runs as administrator, filters can be created.
• In combination with newer operating systems (starting with Windows Vista) and older versions of Photoshop (e.g. Photoshop 7), the creation of filters works, and the filter shows up in Photoshop, but not in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop...\Plug-Ins\Filters : In this case, the created filter was moved to a "roamed" directory by the operating system, because the program directory is write-protected for users. You can find the filter in the directory C:\Users\....\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Photoshop ...\Plug-Ins\Filters .

If you run 64 bit:

• This version of Filter Factory works only with 32-Bit Photoshop, not with 64-Bit. The operating system can be 64-Bit, though.
  Some users report that it works by using a tool called LaunchBox . I have not tried it yet.
• If you need 64-bit Photoshop, FilterFoundry could be a good alternative. Version 1.7 (created by me) is the first FilterFoundry version that supports 64-bit.

If you run Windows 3.11:

• In case you are using Windows 3.11, the patched version of the plugin might not work, because Windows 3.11 only has msvcrt10.dll and not msvcrt.dll . To solve the problem, duplicate the file msvcrt10.dll to msvcrt.dll inside the C:\Windows\System directory.

If you run a non-Photoshop product (which is compatible with Photoshop plugins):

• If you are using a program other than Photoshop (e.g. PaintShop Pro), then you will not be able to run Filter Factory 3.0.4 or my patch, since they rely on Photoshop's plugin.dll to draw the sliders and calculate trigonometry. You can solve this problem with two ways:
  • Use Filter Factory 3.00 which did not require any additional DLL file.
  • Here, you can download Plugin.dll, taken from Photoshop 7. Place it in the "Filters" directory next to the 8BF file.
  • You could use FilterFoundry instead.

General issues:

• You created a filter, but it does not show up in the Filters-menu: Did you restart Photoshop? The reason is, that the 8BF filter file is created, but these files will only be loaded once when Photoshop starts..
• You can only use this filter in RGB mode.

It appears that Filter Factory does not work on some systems with Adobe Photoshop CS6. If you know more, please contact me.

Documentation

Known bugs, limitations and incompatibilities

List of all functions (incl. undocumented ones!)

Technical analysis

Filter Foundry

Filter Foundry is an OpenSource remake of Filter Factory. It is be fully compatible with FilterFactory and is available for 32 bit and 64 bit Windows systems. I have contributed a lot of new features and bugfixes to this project.

Software and tools

If you enjoy creating Filters, you might also want to check out FilterMeister and FilterFormula.

Ancient software and tools:

• PluginCommander has some nice functionalities like converting FilterFactory filters
• PluginManager 2.1 (30 day trial) by Michael Johannhanwahr (English, German)
  The following functions/symbols are missing in Plugin Manager 2.1:
  - xmin, ymin, zmin (existing in Filter Factory 3.0.x)
  - cmin, cmax (existing in Filter Factory 3.0.x)
  - sqrt (synonym of sqr, available in Premiere)
  - pow(b,e) (added by Daniel Marschall to Filter Factory 3.1.x and Filter Foundry 1.7)
  - T (constant synonym of total / tmax, added by Daniel Marschall to Filter Factory 3.1.x and Filter Foundry 1.7)
• Filters Unlimited 2.0 (Demo) by Michael Johannhanwahr (English, German)
• FFDECOMP.EXE by Michael Johannhanwahr
  Attention: This is a 16Bit MS-DOS application! Does not work on 64 Bit Windows.
  Not compatible with Filter Factory 3.00b (internal build), Filter Factory 3.1.x (inofficial patch), or Filter Foundry.

Links to other good pages

Filter Factory Programming Guide by Werner D. Streidt

Note: There are some mistakes in the programming guide:

1. tan(x) is NOT bounded and WILL go to +/- infinity! See the correct diagram here
2. The ranges of the i,u,v functions are wrong. The correct ranges are: i=0..254, u=-55..55, v=-77..77, however, these ranges have been changed in my patch to i=0..255, u=-55..55, v=-78..78.
3. The diagram of the polar coordinate functions and the range of variable d is wrong. The correct values are -512 to 512, going clockwise, beginning from the 9 o'clock position. The original Filter Factory manual is wrong, too.
4. The download-links are outdated

Contact

You can contact me at daniel-marschall(at)viathinksoft.de