Tanel

Dithering disappears at some point when sliding the nub around in (either) color wheel.

Yes, if you alpha-blur an object placed on empty background then only 'Shift in' is meaningful. Other settings are useful when some color exists in transparent areas. Color information in transparent areas can be preserved by using eraser tool, Curves+ or 'Color to Alpha' plug-in.

I have updated the pack with Alpha Blur v2. Note that this is not directly a "fix" for problems described above by Aislin (that is actually natural behaviour in situation where transparent area contains no RGB data). But the new Shift control might help in this kind of situation.

Download as part of my plugin pack. Updated version of my original plug-in. Performance (speed) is greatly improved - now using my own blur algorithm instead of built-in one. Added "Shift" control allows to move around the blur area, giving more flexibility over result. Comments, questions, suggestions welcome here.

Thanks, interesting plugin. I noticed (a bug?) that running it on a portrait-aligned original, "size"=100% never covers the whole image. It's more like max 1/3 of original.

Since we already have Color to Alpha, I suggest you name yours differently, maybe emphasize some unique features.

Just updated my plugin-pack. See 1st post, download and have fun!

Render rect's coordinates don't always match those of canvas. Thererefore y loop starting at y = rect.Top + 1 will cause unpredictable results. You could work around though, by using coordinates from Rectangle selection : for (int y = selection.Top + 1; y < selection.Bottom - 1; y++) Someone will sure present a better solution.

I have redesigned those effects to use my own* fastblur code instead of calling PdN's gaussian blur. Benefit is faster, radius independent performance. For better user experience, blur is rendered only when changing radius, otherwise the blurred copy is held intact on tempsurface. I am eager to find out how it works on different systems. So please try those out and give some feedback. Download: tanel_plugintest_20101205.zip * The blur code is actually implemented from http://free.pages.at/easyfilter/gauss.html (gauss2.ffp). Thanks to Alois Zingl for this impressive study and permission to use it.

I suspect that the crashes are caused by some combination of system config and/or version of .NET framework and/or Paint.net itself. The plugin just uses PdN's native gaussian blur and makes some math. No direct memory handling or anything cyptic. It could be useful to see more system spec and details about plugin setting that triggered the crash. Anyway I haven't succeeded to crash it myself on any machine with XP, .NET framework 3.5 SP1 and Pdn 3.5.5.

I am unable to replicate or fix such memory problems. Can you try wether the previous version works? Download old version here.

are you using plugin version 3.1 (check the Help tab)? This works fine with PdN v3.5.5

New version is up (v2.0 2010-07-22)! Check the first post for details and go to my plugin pack for download.

This effect generates "film grain" (or luminance grain). Use it to add some character to otherwise boring-smooth digital image. Especially suitable for black and white photos. Find it as Effects > Noise > Grain Download as part of my plugin pack. Controls Amount – amount of grain. Balance – grain distribution across image brightness. "Shadows" applies more grain to dark parts, "Highlights" applies to bright parts. Tech stuff: basically it uses built-in noise effect at zero saturation, but allows additional balancing of noise level between shadows and highlights.