Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual

Managing Plug-Ins

Unlike previous versions, Photoshop CC wants you to store plug-ins in its Plug-ins folder and the Required folder (see the box on Finding Built-In Plug-Ins), so that’s where it looks each time you launch the program. That’s all well and good, but there’s an awfully good chance your plug-ins will get zapped if the program crashes, or you upgrade to a new version of Photoshop or reinstall the current one. (The same is true of actions, brushes, and other presets, though the new Migrate Presets option helps if you’re upgrading [see the Note on Note].)

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION: Dude, Where’s My Plug-In?

Help! I don’t see my plug-in in the Filter menu. Did it load or what?

Peace, Grasshopper. You can find out whether your plug-in loaded in a couple of ways.

When Photoshop encounters a plug-in that won’t load, it presents you with a dialog box that says, “One or more plug-ins are currently not available on your system. For details, see Help→System Info.” To find out why the plug-in didn’t load, choose Help→System Info and scroll down in the resulting dialog box until you see the offending plug-in, along with Photoshop’s oh-so-brief explanation of what went wrong. For example, if you try to learn why the Variations adjustment (see the Note on Note) didn’t load in 64-bit mode, you’ll see the following line of text: “Variations NO VERSION - 32-bit plug-in not supported in 64-bit - next to the text: ‘Variations.plugin.’” In CC, if a plug-in doesn’t load, it’s likely that it ...