The last two weekends I’ve provided links to some cool Photoshop plug-ins that work in Corel PHOTO-PAINT. Today I wanted to write a short tutorial to explain how to install plug-ins.

Plug-Ins With Installer: Some plug-in packages include an installer. Typically they try to locate compatible host programs or at least Adobe Photoshop. If you don’t see Corel PHOTO-PAINT on the list, simply install into the location of your choice. As an example, I create a folder named AlienSkin on my hard drive and then install each of the Alien Skin plug-in packages into a subfolder named after the package.

Plug-Ins Without Installer: Typically these plug-ins are either supplied as a series of .8bf files or .8bf files inside of a zip file. Create a folder for them on your hard drive and copy the .8bf files to that folder. I keep a PlugIns folder in the root of my hard drive and then create subfolders for each supplier of plug-ins.

Once you have either copied or installed the plug-ins, you need to tell Corel PHOTO-PAINT where to find them. Select Tools | Options and navigate to Workspace | Plug-ins. On the right side of the dialog box is a list of folders where plug-ins are located. Press the Add button and add any folders where you have added plug-ins. This could be a single folder or you may need to do this several times to add each folder. Once done, click OK and you’ll find a list of all the plug-ins at the bottom of the Effects menu. While you can also point to plug-in folders in CorelDRAW, I wouldn’t recommend it as many plug-ins will have limited functionality in CorelDRAW.