The main window fills the screen and is divided into just two segments. They've even gone to the extent of placing a little box with a link to click which sends you back to the Filter Forge window. The main window appears as a separate tile on the task bar and you can flick over to Photoshop if you like but you can't do anything while Filter Forge is running. Then go to Filter and choose Filter Forge from the drop down list. First, you need to duplicate the layer so that the filter you apply will be placed over the original. To use the program, you must first have an image open in Photoshop (if you're using it as a plug in like we did). Installing took around the same amount of time. We downloaded the program from the Filter Forge website which took less than 5 minutes while sat on a laptop with half meg broadband speed. There's also Dual-Core CPU support, Smart Anti-Aliasing and it can support pictures with incredible resolutions of up to 65,536 pixels.

There's also some interesting technology in the program such as floating-point file formats which lets you save in less traditional JPEG or Bitmap. Some of the features in the program that we will touch on include the massive gallery of preset filters as well as the online library.

The top of the range Professional edition costs $399 and on top of the aforementioned features, you can benefit from high precision file formats, it will support 16 and 32bit image modes, you can use an unlimited number of CPUs and it takes bitmaps larger than 3000 x 3000 pixels.įor the purposes of the review we had access to the Professional edition to explore all the features available from the Filter Forge labs.

Should you choose the Standard edition instead, it'll cost you $249 and will allow you to modify existing filters and create your own. Starting at $149 for the Basic edition you get unlimited downloads of filters, free access to an online filter library, resolution independence, seamless tiling, HDRI lighting, smart anti-aliasing, command line renderer, the ability to use filters that aren't out of the library and the ability to select them as favourites. Used either as a stand alone or plug-in, there are three tiers to Filter Forge and with each upgraded level, the amount of features increase.

Filter Forge is a software program which adds layers of effects to your pictures.

Filter forge photoshop plugin review