Joe's Filters: Download and Installation Instructions

Buy Joe's Filters

The trial download of Joe's Filters includes a locked archive containing full versions of the filters. When you purchase Joe's Filters through Kagi, you will receive an unlock code by email, usually after about 15 minutes. (Kagi says it can take up to two days, but usually it's very fast.)

Download Joe's Filters

OS X	OS 9
joes_filters3.dmg 254k	joes_filters3.smi 217k

Included in the set:

• Joe's Filters trial set
• Locked archive containing the full versions
• Joe's FXScript Explorer filters

The OS 9 disk image will mount under OS X, but the OS X disk image will not currently mount under OS 9. The OS X image includes the paid version on an encrypted disk image, the OS 9 image uses an encrypted self-extracting archive. The OS X image looks a lot nicer.

Installation Instructions: OS X

To install Joe's Filters, copy the folder containing the plugins to the Final Cut Pro System Support folder inside the Application Support folder in the root-level Library. Here is the path to the plugins folder:

/Library/Application Support/Final Cut Pro System Support/Plugins

This Quicktime movie shows where to install Final Cut Pro Plugins in OS X

The full versions are included on an encrypted disk image. To unlock the full versions, double-click the disk image and enter your unlock code. The full versions will appear as a new disk image on your desktop, just copy them to the same plugins folder as the trial versions as indicated above.

Installation Instructions: OS 9

To install Joe's Filters in OS 9, copy the folder containing the plugins to Final Cut Pro's Plugins folder:

Plugins can be placed anywhere inside Final Cut Pro's Plugins folder.

To use the unlock the paid filters, double-click the locked archive. On OS X the filters are encrypted on a disk image, double click this image and enter your unlock code. A disk containing the full versions is now mounted on your desktop

On OS 9, the filters are encrypted in a locked Stuffit archive. Double-click this archive First you will be prompted for a location to unstuff the full versions and then your password. Enter your unlock code and the paid filters will unstuff.

Once unstuffed, the full versions, install the same way the trial versions do.

Stuffit Expander should be pre-installed on all new PowerMacs and is required to access the full versions. If you don't have Stuffit Expander, it can be downloaded for free from Aladdin Systems.

Installation: Paid vs. Trial

The paid versions of Joe's Filters are installed the same way as the trial versions. Once you've purchased and installed the full version of Joe's Filters, the folder containing the trial version can be thrown away. There are no problems if you have both versions installed, but your Video Filters menu does get kind of cluttered.

Final Cut Pro stores a complete instance of every applied filter in the project file. Because of this, each application of the trial filters should be individually replaced with the unlocked versions to remove the watermark. Trial filters that do not show the watermark can be left alone. Except for the watermark, the trial and unlocked filters are identical. This is just how Final Cut Pro works, unfortunately there is no workaround for this issue.

Important note about upgrading from the trial plugins

Because of the way Final Cut Pro stores effects, any trial effects applied to clips will need to be reapplied with the paid version. I wish there was something I could do about this, but it's just how Final Cut Pro works.

Troubleshooting

• Password Incorrect Error (OS 9)

  A few people have reported problems where their unlock codes were not accepted. This might have something to do with Stuffit Deluxe, try dragging the locked archive onto Stuffit Expander to unlock and decompress the files. If anyone can confirm this workaround, please contact me.

• Palm Desktop menu (OS 9)

  There is a known bug in OS 9 where the Palm Instant Desktop menu bar extension will occasionally show up in random menus. Usually this happens in font menus, but there have been several instances of the Joe's Filters menu being overrun or blanked by Palm menu settings. The only workaround is to disable Instant Palm Desktop in the Palm Desktop preferences.

  Palm Desktop related problems make up almost 3/4 of all issues reported about Joe's Filters. The Palm menu bug is not limited to Joe's Filters and can affect all applications.

• Filters don't show up in the menu (OS 9)

  Check to make sure there is only one copy of Final Cut Pro on your machine. There are situations where a second copy may have been installed during an update and the filters might have been installed in the wrong Plugins folder.

• Download won't mount or
• Disk Image launches Classic, displays gibberish (OS X)

  If more than one copy of Joe's Filters has been downloaded, the additional copies have a number appended to their name. This confuses OS X which needs the disk image name to end with ".dmg". Changing the name fixes the problem. The .smi disk image will also work in OS X and contains the same files.