Re: FLASH: JDowdell: Filter/plugins for Flash 5?

[John Dowdell]

At 7:37 AM 10/13/0, Brack, Jeremy wrote:

> Can filters or plugins be built for Flash 5?  Like the filters

> you can add into Photoshop...


There are ways to process vectors like this... "Soften Fill Edges" will

process a vector by adding additional duplicates at varying transparency,

"Expand Fill" will process the overall size of the fill... you could even

consider the Stroke options as a way of varying the overall appearance of a

line.


But pixel-based filters, as in Photoshop, are off-the-purpose...

over-reliance on pixel-based imagery usually makes huge files, that stream

chunkily, and which will slow down with even a single pixel's worth of

resizing. Photoshop-style graphics should be regarded as a seasoning,

rather than as the main course.


That said, Macromedia Fireworks, although primarily intended for

pixel-based GIF/JPG output, can also output SWF files, with your choice at

any time of either pixel-based or vector-based SWF. (Just choose your SWF

style at export.) It can use various pixel filters, including all that

properly implement the published Photoshop plugins spec, and what's more

all of these pixel filters are applied non-destructively: you can change or

restack the settings at any time. It's like a vastly-improved version of

Adobe's later "layer effects", except it works with any Photoshop-style

filter.


Matter of fact, if you export such filtered imagery from Fireworks as

compressed GIF or JPG, you can even change your mind after importing it...

change the filtering in Fireworks, export the GIF/JPG, then hit "Update" in

the Flash library to bring in this altered image.


(btw, last time I checked Livemotion could only use a subset of Photoshop's

own filters, and could not use third-party Photoshop-style filters as

Fireworks can.)


I'd still urge caution with pixel-based graphics, though... people who

learned Photoshop as their first tool are often at a disadvantage when

moving to environments where photo-processing software is not as

appropriate, as you can tell from frequent posts in this and other

forums....!


jd




PS: Someone added the off-thread about ways to not have a PC-generated FLA

open on a Mac. The big way I know of to achieve this unusual symptom is

when there's not a "FLA" extension on the file, so Mac apps can't even

guess what type of file it is. (Macs store filetype info in a separate

resource which PCs can't support, so most Mac apps rely on the filename

extension to guess PC files.) If this is not the cause, then there may be a

system-level conflict, although with such a symptom it's more likely there

was some damage to the file during transfer from machine to machine...

sending as "binary" is a way around one class of such errors. These are the

top ways I've seen to not get normal file-transfer between platforms.










John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

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