Rant Filter Forge 7 does not work in Photoshop CC 2019

[bannertime]

Just noticed that the FF7 plugin is not available in Photoshop 2019. Looked around and saw a post from another member here (won't name without his permission) and Filter Forge basically said, "eh FF7 is too old, time to upgrade." Get this, the only updates in FF8 are tabs, meta data, and back ups. That's a minor update, not a full on software upgrade.

FF7 is barely a year old!! They've already dropped it.

Maybe I'm just picky. I dropped Vecteezy because they wouldn't let me keep my $89 a year plan and said I'd have to upgrade to the $108. And I used Vecteezy every day. I barely touch FF.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Just noticed that the FF7 plugin is not available in Photoshop 2019. Looked around and saw a post from another member here (won't name without his permission) and Filter Forge basically said, "eh FF7 is too old, time to upgrade." Get this, the only updates in FF8 are tabs, meta data, and back ups. That's a minor update, not a full on software upgrade.

FF7 is barely a year old!! They've already dropped it.

Can you not roll back to latest previous version that still works with you plugin, if it's that crucial? I know you said that you barely touch FF, so I don't know if it's worth rolling back or not.

The bad thing with being "bleeding edge" in a production environment.

Maybe I'm just picky. I dropped Vecteezy because they wouldn't let me keep my $89 a year plan and said I'd have to upgrade to the $108. And I used Vecteezy every day. I barely touch FF.

I wouldn't say so. I dropped Adobe, because they switched totally to subscription plan (at least in terms of not using Adobe beyond CS6) and I dropped Windows for how they handled Win 10. Your dropping is still minor.

 

[Fred Weiss]

I'm the other member you referred to and I am just going to use my version 7 with my owned license of Creative Suite 5.5. The only reason I have yet to find to upgrade Filter Forge is for access to filters later than the version I have a license for. As I pointed out in my post at Filter Forge forums, all my other third party plug ins still work with Photoshop 2019.

 

[bannertime]

WildWestDesigns I really don't use it that much. I'm really just mad because I've only used it two times since I spent the $100 on it. A total waste of money. I pulled it up to make some quick brushed metal graphics, so I'll just go back to making my own the old way.

So are you actually using Linux for your production environment? I'd consider it if I could use Corel Draw and one of the top RIPs in Linux without WINE or VirtualBox.

Fred Weiss yeah, I got irrationally angry about their reply. "it's a bit outdated..." I expected the release date to be like 2013 or at the latest 2015. Nope, it's only a year old. WTF. I couldn't care less about tabs and meta data.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

So are you actually using Linux for your production environment? I'd consider it if I could use Corel Draw

I do, it's not for everyone, but I am able to do that. There was one program that I would have to open up a VM of Windows to run, but I've gotten apart of a project that created an extension for Inkscape that is just as good (in some ways better) then the closed source version.

There actually used to be a Corel Linux distro (about the time that they had DRAW for Mac, it didn't make it though (I can hazard a guess why)). I actually prefer Ai first, then Inkscape and then DRAW (I know I'm strange that way). It's easier for me to use Inkscape, since 99.99999999% of the supplied source files are some raster format. And for my production needs, raster v. vector is moot in every way except how good of a quality a raster file is.

and one of the top RIPs in Linux without WINE or VirtualBox.

Caldera

 

[White Haus]

Can you not roll back to latest previous version that still works with you plugin, if it's that crucial? I know you said that you barely touch FF, so I don't know if it's worth rolling back or not.

The bad thing with being "bleeding edge" in a production environment.




I wouldn't say so. I dropped Adobe, because they switched totally to subscription plan (at least in terms of not using Adobe beyond CS6) and I dropped Windows for how they handled Win 10. Your dropping is still minor.

Not to get too far off topic (Sorry in advance to the OP) but I'm definitely not a fan of this forced subscription only model. I get it from a business standpoint (theirs, not ours) but I don't like it. We're paying $55 USD a month for Adobe CC (full suite) which allows you to be logged in on 2 computers at once. This is fine for us most of the time but even if we want to fire up Acrobat on a third computer you need to go through all the hoops to boot off another computer. So I just checked what the options are to add another license........OUCH. They charge $80 USD a month....per license. So the way I see it, it's cheaper to get (2) "individual" licenses with up to 2 computers each, than to get 3 licenses going the enterprise route. I'm not sure if this is kosher with the Adobe gods but I'm going to look into it. I used to be fine running our outdated owned copy but eventually got fed up with the compatibility issues, so now we're stuck with the never ending expense that only goes up and up.

Aaaannyways, that's my rant for today. I think I'll head out now. Y'all have a good night.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

but I'm definitely not a fan of this forced subscription only model. I get it from a business standpoint (theirs, not ours) but I don't like it.

It does make sense from their prospective and we are talking about 30 yr old software. But it's not good for the end user. But a lot of people are happy for it and some are forced to still use Adobe which keeps them in the fold. Thankfully what I do, I have viewer programs that do keep up with at least viewing the newer file versions and I can export (or use okular to get a screen capture) and do what I need to do with it.

Not everyone has that luxury, but I'm glad that I'm not having to deal with that.

I would speculate (and this is only speculation at this time) that other programs that still offer both methods will eventually go to subscription only, especially for those following a yearly release cadence, which I don't think that's good at all. That's too quick of a turn around to have stability on production software.

 

[Fred Weiss]

I would speculate (and this is only speculation at this time) that other programs that still offer both methods will eventually go to subscription only, especially for those following a yearly release cadence, which I don't think that's good at all. That's too quick of a turn around to have stability on production software.

I got an email today from Apple regarding the future direction of their FileMaker database. While they didn't come right out and say so, I suspect subscription is in that product's near future. I would also think that Microsoft is in a position to make such a shift with Windows. The problem, IMHO, for most publishers who would like to follow in Adobe's direction is the lack of a leadership position that Adobe has achieved by setting so many standards in the various graphics professions.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

MS has actually already taken Windows to a subscription offering for their Enterprise customers if I am not mistaking.

If they do that for the little people like us, I am so glad that I don't have to deal with it. So so glad.

 

[AGCharlotte]

Creative Cloud allows you to run old versions of Photoshop (all the way back to CS6). Can't you just install that and keep using your plugins?

 

[bannertime]

Creative Cloud allows you to run old versions of Photoshop (all the way back to CS6). Can't you just install that and keep using your plugins?

That's cool! See that's good software support. Not killing off support for a version that's just hit 1 year. If the need arises that I must use FF I'll give that a shot.

 

[AGCharlotte]

If you open up the cloud client, the drop down under PhotoShop has Manage / Other Versions. It'll let you load whichever works for what you need... and you can keep 2019 on there too. I'm doing the same for Illustrator since I hate the new Graphtec plugin so I have to use 2017 still if I'm cutting.

 

[shoresigns]

Creative Cloud allows you to run old versions of Photoshop (all the way back to CS6). Can't you just install that and keep using your plugins?

That's cool! See that's good software support. Not killing off support for a version that's just hit 1 year. If the need arises that I must use FF I'll give that a shot.

If you open up the cloud client, the drop down under PhotoShop has Manage / Other Versions. It'll let you load whichever works for what you need... and you can keep 2019 on there too. I'm doing the same for Illustrator since I hate the new Graphtec plugin so I have to use 2017 still if I'm cutting.

Yeah, I discovered this recently, too. You can go back as far as CS6 on Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign and presumably all the others, and you can have multiple versions running simultaneously.

One issue to warn about, though. On my Windows 10 machine, when I installed previous versions of Ps/Ai/Id, it associated my files with whichever version I installed last. You would think that would be easy to change, but Windows 10 is super buggy with file associations and I couldn't change them at all. Microsoft was clearly to blame for this issue, but Adobe could probably solve it with their own file associations tool.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

One issue to warn about, though. On my Windows 10 machine, when I installed previous versions of Ps/Ai/Id, it associated my files with whichever version I installed last. You would think that would be easy to change, but Windows 10 is super buggy with file associations and I couldn't change them at all. Microsoft was clearly to blame for this issue...

If I recall correctly, file association bug in a Windows update was a pretty big deal. I had thought they had gotten it solved, but apparently there are still some quirks. Or course, to be fair, how many people run multiple versions of the same software on one computer and is that demographic big enough to warrant a bug fix by MS? When I have multiple versions of one software, they are portable software (not installed in the more thought of traditional manner) and file association with those, while doable, takes more effort on the user's part (in Windows especially, in some DE's like KDE, it's exceptionally simple, but I digress)).

 

[shoresigns]

If I recall correctly, file association bug in a Windows update was a pretty big deal. I had thought they had gotten it solved, but apparently there are still some quirks. Or course, to be fair, how many people run multiple versions of the same software on one computer and is that demographic big enough to warrant a bug fix by MS? When I have multiple versions of one software, they are portable software (not installed in the more thought of traditional manner) and file association with those, while doable, takes more effort on the user's part (in Windows especially, in some DE's like KDE, it's exceptionally simple, but I digress)).

Yeah, I made sure I had no pending Windows updates, and the bug was pretty strange. If I tried the Open With > Always use this app function, it would have no effect. The other way to do it is through Control Panel > Choose default apps by file type, which simply would not list the version of the Adobe app that I wanted, and gives no option to manually browse for an app.

Presumably it could be done by messing around in the Registry Editor, but I just gave up at that point.