PI8-tut

PI Version: 8
Level: Beginners
Featured tools: None
Additional filters: None
Additional files: Win Zip or another program to unzip your files.
Tutorial: Copyright © Inge Klement

DESCRIPTION: Learn how and where to install the filters you download, to make them work properly with PI. There are some tutorials about this topic on the internet already (like here from Debisty), but this tutorial is written after my own experiences and failures. To save you from making the same mistakes I thought I should show you how you can evade them and make it more easy for your PI to work with filters.

Remember to save often!

Before you start to download and install filters make sure you have the 2 necessary dll. files you will need. Msvcrt10dll. and plugin.dll. The msvcrt10.dll. file has to be installed into your Windows system folder (system 32), and the plugin.dll. file should be installed into your main PI folder. Make a new folder on your hard drive where you store all your zip files for filters. I made a folder on my computer, called filters_internet. You can of course store all downloads into one folder, but believe me, if you are downloading a lot, you will easily lose the general view about all the different files. (What's a filter, a tube, a font, et.cetera) I have my own downloading folders for tubes, filters, fonts, presets, + + +. That makes it also more easy for me to restore a file if I have too!
	Find the filter you want to download. There are a lot of free filters on the internet and you can find a list of some of them here ... or you just search the internet to find filters. As you can see on the screenshot to the left I've chosen the filter crescent moon (the text of the screenshot is in Norwegian, but don't let that bother you ... I suppose your download window looks much the same!) Click Lagre/Save (red arrow).

	Now you have to browser through your hard drive to find the folder you've made for the downloaded filters. Find the folder, like here ... filters_internet (red arrow) check the filters name (white arrow) and start the download. (Click Save.) As you can see there are some other filters inside the folder, which I've downloaded before.
The next step is to unzip the filters, but before you do this you have to make some more folders on your hard drive. As you follow by this tutorial you might wonder why I don't install the filters inside the Ulead folder. But by doing it this way, you keep your 3rd party filters separated from the filters which follow PI. In case your PI should crash so badly that you have to reinstall it, you don't have to reinstall all these filters too. Because now they are in their own folders, and a crash of your PI wouldn't have any influence on them. You can also easily remove a filter if you find out that you don't like it, or don't use it. Just delete the folder of the filter and you can be sure you are only deleting the files for this special filters and no others. Last, but not least - you can also use these folders if you have another photo program and want to use the same filters there too. Make several folders to store your filters. Give them easy names, like filters_01, filters_02, filters_03, et.cetera. We shall work with the first folder, called filters_01 (white arrow on the screenshot below). Inside this folder, make some new folders and give them the names of the filters you want to install. See screenshot below - Crescent Moon (white hand), Funhouse1 and Funhouse2.
	On the screenshot to the left you see the folder where we stored the zip file of the filter crescent moon (red arrow), the folder where we want to store the unzipped filter ... filters_01 (white arrow), and the map with the name of the filter ... Crescent Moon (white hand).

	Go back to the folder (red arrow) you've stored the downloaded zip file (filters_internet). Choose the filter you want to unzip ... for this tutorial we shall work with the filter crescent moon (white hand). Double-click the zip file and find the folder we've made for the filter (white arrow). Unzip the filter. Repeat this step if you want to unzip other zip files, but remember that every filter should have it's own folder.

	To check what we've done, click the folder filters_01 (red arrow), and the folder for Crescent moon (white arrow). Now you can see all the files that are included in the filter in the right preview window. Take also a look at the readme file ... you often find useful information there!

	Next step is to make a link for your filters folder. Open PI, go to File/Preferences/ General/Plug-ins (red x) and browse (white arrow) through your hard drive to find the folders you want to add to the list. The folders with a checkmark (red arrow) will show up in PI. As you can see, you have 8 possibilities to store your filters, and the first one on my list is the program Filters Unlimited 2.0, where I've installed approx. 3000 different filters. Click OK. Be aware that you have to restart PI to make your filters show up!

	After restarting PI, I opened a picture from the EP, just to show you where the filter we've installed will show up. Go to Effect and there you'll find a list of all the filters installed in PI. Crescent Moon (red arrow) ... with a list of all the filters inside to the right of it ..., FunHouse (white arrow) and other filters I've installed.

That's it! Not difficult at all, and after failing some times I've found that this way to install filters was the best one to make them work properly with PI. If you have Filters Unlimited 2.0, or think to buy the program, you'll find a tutorial here, which shows you how to import and use different filters with FU 2.0. HAVE FUN!!!
If you need any help with this tutorial - or want to make suggestions to improve it - please email me!