This tutorial is geared towards more advanced PI users and assumes you have a good working knowledge of PI, the location and function of all tools and settings.

Download PDF file for this tutorial here.

If you are like me and detest the scrolling Effects menu that we got stuck with in v. 11 & 12, then here is a workaround for the problem.

You can load your plug-ins into the Easy Palette. Load all of them or just your favorites for easy access.

Depending on how many plug-ins you load, this is a drawn-out process as each plug-in and it's different effect must be loaded.

Hopefully, you already have a folder on your hard drive with all your 3rd-party plug-ins installed and and PI is set up to point to this folder. Ergo, the long, detested Effects menu.

Make sure you have some type of picture or image open in PI that you would apply an Effect to. This is absolutely necessary for the rest of this tutorial to work. The EP thumbnail will have the effect applied. Nothing will be applied to your original image...we will get to that later.

First we will set up Tab Groups in the EP for each plug-in or effect you want. This can be done any way you want them organized, but for this tutorial we will set them up under each plug-in's name.

Open the EP and click on the Galleries tab. Then click the Gallery Manager button and in the drop-down menu, go across to Create:

In the pop-up screen, give your Gallery folder a name. Click OK.

R/C on the Gallery name(plug-ins) and click on New Group, making sure that Read Only is unchecked.

In the pop-up menu, type in a name, either the plug-in or effect. This is the Tab Group.

R/C on the word "plug-ins" again and choose Add Photoshop Plug-in Thumbnails.

A screen will pop up with the plug-ins and each effect listed that you have PI pointed to.

Find the name of the plug-in effect you want to add from this list and click on it. Click Add.

The default plug-in screen will appear. Click Apply or OK to accept the default settings.

Click OK when this screen appears:

You must do these 3 steps for each effect in every plug-in you add.

When you added each effect for say, Xero, each effect will now be in your EP.

The next two steps are optional. I like having my plug-ins in alphabetical order for easier access. To do this for yourself, R/C on on the word "plug-ins" again, and select Manage Group:

In the pop-up window, use the Up or Down buttons to move each title into your preferred order. Click OK when done.

Now for the fun part...with your image still open, double-click on any effect in the EP and the screen for that particular plug-in will open.

You can now tweak the settings for the desired effect.

Much easier than scrolling through that Effects menu, don't you think?