Hi, I've tried uninstalling paint.net and reinstalling it, I've tried moving the plugins from the paint.net/effects folder to directly underneath the paint.net folder, I've tried unblocking the effect in the properties/permissions tab, tried everything. The plugins don't show up under the adjustments or effects menus in paint.net. I'm running win 8. I do notice that I have a 'staging' folder now that I'm not sure I had before I uninstalled and reinstalled, the 'staging' folder is lit up in blue color and files inside that folder are blue as well. Any ideas?
Found the fix, I uninstalled, then searched for all instances of paint.net and paintdotnet and removed them. Then I reinstalled. Then I copied the effects i'd already downloaded into the effects folder found at this location "C:\Program Files\PaintDotNet.exe". When I opened paint.net there the plugins were! joy :0)
