So for many of you who have just updated to the Photoshop CS5 compatible versions of our plug-ins, you don't see the onOne menu that you are so accustomed to seeing and you're wondering "how do I access my plug-ins?". A quick trip to the Filter menu shows nothing from onOne. That's because, technically, our plug-ins are not filters.

Where you will find them is under the File > Automate menu. What? Where? Why? The reason is that beginning in Photoshop CS4 ((maybe it was CS3, I can't remember for sure)) most of our products were converted over to Automation plug-ins so that they could be used in a batch process or as part of an action.

Starting in Photoshop CS4, we knew that eventually we'd no longer be able to use the beloved onOne menu so we took advantage of the new panels that Adobe introduced in the CS4 release. The new onOne panel gives you all the functionality of the older onOne menu. But how do you get to it? In Photoshop, go to the Window menu and then to Extensions. There, you'll see onOne. Select onOne from the Window > Extensions menu and you'll get the new onOne panel. The onOne panel can be docked along with any of the other panels in Photoshop so you can customize your workspace.

So now you have two options, either the onOne panel or the File > Automate menu. Good luck! If you'd like to see a video of this, Dan Harlacher, our senior product manager recorded one to show you how to access the onOne panel.

[flv:http://ononesoft.cachefly.net/video/suite5/access/accessing_plugins.flv 600 375]

Genuine Fractals, PhotoTools, PhotoFrame, PhotoTune and FocalPoint are all technically Photoshop Automation plug-ins. As an Automation plugin, you can include any of these plug-ins in an action that you create in Photoshop to speed up your workflow. They can also be included in any batch processing workflow that you may have as well. As an Automation plugin, the plugin will show up in the File > Automation menu.

In previous versions of the onOne Plug-In Suite, to make it easier to find our plug-ins (because quite frankly, you shouldn't have to know or be concerned with the difference between a Filter and an Automation plug-in or where they live within Photoshop for that matter) we created the onOne Menu which is inserted between the Window and Help menu items in the Photoshop menu bar. However, over the years with changes to both Photoshop and (primarily) the Windows operating system, the creation of this menu has been, how shall I put it... delicate. Fragile. Sometimes flaky and non-existent to be honest. On the Mac OS X platform, it hasn't been a problem, but not all of you out there use Mac OS X  so we had to find a better, long-term solution to provide a single, consistent and stable place to allow you to access our plug-ins.

Enter the Photoshop CS4 Panel.

You are most likely already familiar with these panels. In fact, you use them everyday. There is a Layers panel, Masks panel, Adjustments panel, etc etc etc. Perhaps the coolest thing about panels is that anybody can create a panel. John Nack has a panel that shows his daily RSS feed from his blog. Julieanne Kost has a daily PS tip panel.

We figured since the onOne menu doesn't work for everybody in Photoshop CS4 that we would create a panel for our plug-ins. The problem is that while it gets installed automatically when you run the onOne Plug-In Suite 5 installer, it doesn't actually show up when you relaunch Photoshop. But it's easy to get it to appear after you've run the installer. Here's what you do.

Simply go to the Window > Extensions menu and then choose onOne. Up pops the new onOne Panel where you can now double-click on any of the product names and go directly into that plug-in. Alternately, if you single-click on a product name, a sub-menu is exposed showing you any preset categories that you have created with that plug-in. Click on a category name and you see the presets in that category. If you double-click on a preset name, that preset will be applied to your photo. Very slick.

The new onOne Palette

Preset categories displayed

So if you have installed Plug-In Suite 5 and you are not sure where all of your favorite plug-ins are located, just go to the Window > Extensions menu and select onOne. You will have a nice new palette with everything in one place. Oh, and by the way, you can dock it alongside your other panels as well by dragging it into either the panel bar or next to a panel that is already open like the Layers panel.