Installing the Power Retouche plugin filters

Installation is simple, but here are the answers to the most frequent questions.

Look for them under the right menu

They should appear in the menu "Filter" as "Power Retouche", "Power Retouche Light " or "Power Retouche Demo". These should open a submenu with all the Power Retouche filters installed.

Photoshop calls its plug-ins menu "Filters".
Fireworks calls its plug-ins menu "Xtras".

Check the installation folder

The installer creates a folder called Power Retouche (the demo installer creates a folder called Power Retouche Demo). If for some reason you did not check the installation path - or thought it was OK - and the Power Retouche folders are not in the right place, then the plug-ins won't show up. When installing, you MUST ensure you have the install path set to your plug-ins folder. "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 6.0\Plug-Ins" is an example only. The installer has this as a suggested installation path, but since you can use Power Retouche with so many host, we can not provide accurate installation paths for all.

Remedy
1. If you discover you have misplaced these folders, simply move them to the correct plug-ins folder. Then you must re launch your host application. No need to reboot the entire computer.

Check the plug-ins path in the host application

The host will usually have an option for setting the plug-ins folder to some other than the default folder. Maybe the host looks somewhere else than in the folder called "Plug-ins". Perhaps it looks in a folder called "plug-ins".

Remedy
1. Check the host application has set the plug-in path to your plug-ins folder.
In Photoshop 6 you do this under the menu Edit>Preferences>Plug-in & Scratch disks. Here check/set the plug-ins path.

Then you can either move the Power Retouche folder(s) to this directory OR you can set up an alternative plug-in path pointing to the Power Retouches.

Many plug-ins installed already

Maybe you have a lot of plug-ins installed. At a certain point Photoshop will get an overflow and push them all (ungrouped) under the "Other" Filter-menu item. So look under "Other". All Power Retouche filters begin their name with PR so they should be grouped together even if pushed to the "Other" sub menu..

Remedy
1. Best solution is to get rid of unused plug-ins - like ungrouped freeware stuff or demos cluttering up the menu.
2. Get an other plugin to manage plug-ins (one such it "plugin commander" - you can find it at http://theplug-insite.com)

They are in a folder called "Plug-ins", but still don't appear in the host

Wrong installation path to begin with

This is usually because you did not check the installation path when installing. If the installer did not point to the right place to begin with, it will create the folders along the entered path. So the folder "Plug-ins" may be created by the installer and yet not be the right place. Since we have to install in an already created installation path, there is unfortunately no way to work around this except by you checking the installation path when installing.

Check the host applications options to get its correct plug-in path. In Photoshop 6 you do this under the menu Edit>Preferences>Plug-in & Scratch disks. Here check/set the plug-ins path.

Remedies
1. Simply move the Power Retouche and Power Retouche Demo folders to the right place.

2. When installing, check the host application has set the plug-in path to your plug-ins folder.
In Photoshop 6 you do this under the menu Edit>Preferences>Plug-in & Scratch disks and here check/set the plug-ins path

3. Incompatible host (very unlikely)
Check the list of host applications on the Powerretouche website.

4. You host store plug-ins in a folder not called "plug-ins" but "plug-ins", "plug-ins" or "Plug-ins". Move the Power Retouche folders there.

Do they work with all windows/Mac OS versions?

Yes! If the host does, so will the plug-ins, since the host handles the plug-ins, not the OS.
For mac the installer handles both OSX and Classic and installs as appropriate for the system running.

If the demo can run, then can the full version.

I use Mac OSX, but want to use them under classic too

Mac ... running classic mode under OSX

The installer recognizes the OS your mac booted with. That means that if you run OSX, then start classic and run the installer, it will still install the OSX carbonized version.

Remedy:
Under the apple menu you can change the start-up disk from OSX to classic. After you have done that, you will have to restart. You mac will then boot under classic only and you can install the classic version. After installation go to the apple menu and change the start-up disk back to OSX and restart.

I use a Mac and Photoshop 7.01, I don't see all the Power Retouches

Bug in Photoshop 7.01

There is a bug in Photoshop 7.0.1 on Mac OS X that limits the number of plug-ins that can be used. To see if this is the problem change the name of the "Power Retouche" folder, inside the Plug-Ins folder to " Power Retouche" by adding a leading space. This will force the " Power Retouche" folder to be scanned before other plugin folders. The Power Retouche plug-ins should now all appear in the Filters menu.

If this fixes the problem then some other plug-ins won't be showing up. Delete any plug-ins from the Plug-Ins folder that aren't being used. Inside each plugin folder there are two other folders (for all plug-ins, not just the PR plug-ins). Access these folders by control-clicking on each plugin and choosing 'Show package contents.' If the user is using only Mac OS X it is safe to remove the folder called MacOSClassic inside the Contents folder inside the plugin package.

Apparently this bug will be fixed in a newer version of Photoshop.

I can't find the Power Retouche plug-ins on the hard disk

Search for "PR.8bf"

All Power Retouche plug-ins end with "PR.8bf", f.ex. "LensPR.8bf", so if you do a search for "PR.8bf" you should get a list of them all.