I was gonna prepare a tutorial on this, but figured that most of you could figure this out without one. This is really just a tip, but a pretty cool one at that!
(of course, I'm the one presenting it, so you already knew it would be cool!
)
GIMP has a plugin that can be found called PSPI.exe that will allow you to use many some Photoshop filters (
http://punkinstuff.tripod.com/) or you can use Google to find others. Unfortunately, if you've ever installed PSPI, you've probably noticed that a lot of PS filters just won't work and those that do work are pretty buggy.
Well, I've found a couple of workarounds that aren't perfect, but seem to be more successful at allowing us GIMPers to have access to some of PS's more popular filters (my favorites are Plastic Wrap, Chrome, and Angled Brush Strokes). Another neat thing about this is that it won't drag your GIMP speed down as it's a separate program. There is one noticeable quirk which I'll explain, but I believe we can get around that.
Irfanview (
http://www.irfanview.com/) and xnview (
http://perso.orange.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enxnview.html) are very popular image viewers/converters. However, they also support various PS filters. Like GIMP's PSPI, not every filter will work, but I've found that they support many more than GIMP. Most of the ones that don't work are like the distort types...wave generator, zigzag, etc. (at least I haven't been able to get them to work) But, it appears that most of the artistic types do work (brush strokes, texture, etc.). I've experimented mostly with irfanview and it appears to support more than xnview. However, irfanview is Windows-only; whereas, xnview runs on Linux too. Specifically for you, Darth!
The way I work with it is to copy/paste a layer from GIMP to irfanview, run the filter, and save as a png a file, and then open it as a layer in gimp. Why not copy and paste back to GIMP? This is the quirk....
The one quirk that is contained in both programs is how they handle transparencies. They don't support it in the way GIMP does. In GIMP, you'll see a checkboard background and know that it's transparent. In these programs, the transparency will appear as whatever the assigned background color you specify. So, let's say you want to run a filter on a layer that has some transparency. If you copy it from GIMP to either of the programs, run the filter, and try to copy and paste back into GIMP, you'll see that the filtered layer now has a background color where transparency used to be. You could remove that by doing an Alpha to Selection | Ctrl+I | Ctrl+K in GIMP to delete it. But, this way might also require some additional touch-up to get the results you want.
The other way, and probably better (albeit slower), would be to copy/paste the layer from GIMP to one of the programs, run the filter, and save it as a png, and open as a layer in GIMP. Doing it this way, allows you to tell the programs which color is supposed to be transparent and then it will save it properly. Don't worry. If black is your transparent color, you won't lose black from your original layer. These programs will know what to do.
So, if you're interested, stop by and try these programs out and see if it's something you're interested in. I won't cover how to install the plugins, as you can view the program's help files for that. But, I will give you an excellent filter resource page that includes some default PS filters. It can be found here:
http://punkinstuff.tripod.com/ For Irfanview, just put the 8bf files here: C:\Program Files\IrfanView\Plugins\Adobe 8BF. Then when in Irfanview, go to Image | Effects | Adobe 8bf Filters to access them. Double-Click on them to modify settings/run.
Here's a note from the Irfanview Read me file that may help you run some filters that wouldn't previously work. This solution does work as I was able to run the Wave filter on a machine that would not do so previously.
8BF_FILTERS: allows IrfanView and Xnview to load (normal) Adobe Photoshop 8BF filters.
Note: some older/special 8BFs may require additional system DLLs:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Msvcrt10.dll
Plugin.dll
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copy these DLLs into your Windows->System or System32 folder.
You can download these DLLs here:
8bf_tools download link - Click Me!I know this isn't complete, but I don't have time for a full-blown write-up. I'm currently on assignment by staff and am holed up in a remote location!
Hope this helps.
Art
EDIT: Information added regarding where the filters are to be located in the file structure.
