One of the most commonly used and popular type of plugins are Photoshop plugins or more generally expressed Photoshop-compatible plugins. Since they were introduced by Adobe in the beginning 90's with Photoshop 2.5, thousands of them were developed by a few hundred people and companies all over the world.
Photoshop plugins are add-on programs aimed at providing additional image effects or performing tasks that are impossible or hard to fulfill using Adobe Photoshop alone. Plugins can be opened from within Photoshop and several other image editing programs and act like mini-editors that modify the image.
Photoshop-compatible plugins are aimed at supplying additional image effects or performing special tasks that are impossible or difficult to achieve with the means of an image application alone. They integrate into the host application and are executed from within the application. There are several types of Photoshop-compatible plugins available, e.g. filter plugins, import and export plugins, file format plugins and automation plugins.
Adobe Photoshop CS4 software has added a new feature to allow SWF files to run as a panel inside the digital imaging program. This document describes the process of creating such a panel. The Adobe Photoshop interface can be overwhelming for both new and seasoned users of the digital imaging program.
Photoshop has strong ties with other Adobe software for media editing, animation, and authoring. The .PSD (Photoshop Document), Photoshop's native format, stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, color spaces, ICC profiles, transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, clipping paths, and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .EPS or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality.
