History of The Plugin Site

 

2007
February 2007	The MacOS X version of B/W Styler was released.
2006
September 2006	B/W Styler for Windows was released.
April 2006	The MacOS X version of LightMachine was released.
April 2006	The first article in a new article series called Plugin Artistst was published. It presents gives an interview and demonstrates how an artists enhances one of his photos with the help of plugins.
January 2006	The MacOS X version of FocalBlade was released.
2005
August 2005	ColorWasher for MacOS X was released.
July 2005	Version 1.60 of Plugin Commander was released.
March 2005	Photo Galaxy 1600 Themes and Photo Galaxy 1600 Textures were released. The previous five volumes of Photo Galaxy 1600 were remodeled into these two new products.
February 2005	The first Plug-Talk article was published. Plug-Talk is a a series of interviews that give you a better idea about the people behind the scenes of the Photoshop plugin business. It is also published at Graphics.com
January 2005	Harald Heim of The Plugin Site started a second column in the Digital Photo Effects magazine (which was previously known as Digital Photography Techniques). The column presented freeware plugins and showcased three tutorials for each set. In mid 2005 the magazine was closed down unfortunately.
January 2005	LightMachine, the third commercial plugin in the PhotoWiz series, was released.
2004
October 2004	The PhotoWiz Contest 2004 was started and run until the end of 2004. More than 500 images were submitted and 66 prizes were awarded.
July 2004	Finally Paypal order were processed automatically, so that customers got their download immediately after the purchase.
May 2004	Version 2 of ColorWasher was released.
March 2004	Photo Galaxy 2300 consisting of 1000 photo textures was released.
February 2004	The Plugin Site web site was transfered to a new and faster server of a new web hosting provider. The URL www.thepluginsite.com was not working for four days. A new main Order Form for ordering our products was made available. At the same time we also relaunched our Affiliate Program with improved features and a higher commission.
January 2004	Version 3 of Harry's Filters, our most successful freeware product, was made available. It included new effects and an interesting animation feature.
2003
November 2003	PhotoFreebies, the third PhotoWiz product, was released as freeware. The Photo Galaxy 800 CD was released.
July 2003	FocalBlade, the second PhotoWiz product, was released.
June 2003	Harald Heim of The Plugin Site started a monthly column called "Essential Plugins" in the Digital Photography Techniques magazine from Future Publishing UK. The column reviewed several plugins that produce certain effects each time. The column ran for 28 issues of the magazine until mid 2005.
April 2003	Plugin Galaxy 1.50 for Macintosh was released.
February 2003	The new Download Center, which makes it easier to access the downloads of our freeware and demo versions, went online. At the same time a discussion board was opened.
January 2003	The first version of ColorWasher was released. This was the start of the new PhotoWiz plugin series which focuses on providing professional photo correction tools.
2002
December 2002	HTML Shrinker 2.60 was released.
November 2002	Version 1.50 of Plugin Galaxy for AE was released.
October 2002	The Galaxy Contest 2002 ended after three months.1250 images and animation from 500 international artists were sent in. The 70 prizes were given to approx. 50 winners.
September 2002	Photo Galaxy 5 (Mixed Impressions) was released.
August 2002	Harald Heim from The Plugin Site started a bi-monthly column called "Plugins Unplugged"at Graphics.com. The article were about general plugin topics and meant to be quite controversial. Until the end of 2004 seevral articles were published.
July 2002	Our second commercial plugin product HyperTyle 1.0 was released.
June 2002	Another co-production with cybia.co.uk called Abstraction was released.
May 2002	Photo Textures 2 (Photo Galaxy Vol.4) was released.
April 2002	Plugin Galaxy 1.50 for Windows was released. The MacOS X version of Plugin Galaxy for AE, too.
February 2002	HTML Shrinker 2.50 was released.
January 2002	Photo Galaxy Vol.3 was released. We started co-developing of the FilterMeister plugin, which we use for creating our Windows plugins. FilterMeister is used by many devlopers for creating free and commercial Photoshop-compatible plugins.
2001
December 2001	Beside the Element5 service we also introduced the Paypal payment service as another means of ordering our products (in response to some customer requests).
November 2001	The Photo Textures (Photo Galaxy Vol. 2) product was released on CD-ROM.
October 2001	The Photo Galaxy product was released. Furthermore a co-production with cybia.co.uk called "Mutation" was released, too. Both product were only made available on CD-ROM.
August 2001	The URL pico.i-us.com wasn't redirected to www.thepluginsite.com anymore, because Eyewire shut the redirection down. It took almost one year to get back to the same amount of visitors again. Too late to ask yourself why you didn't register your own domain back in 1997, although it was quite expensive at that time.
July 2001	Plugin Galaxy for AE (Windows/Macintosh) was released. Again a co-production with Panopticum.com.
April 2001	Version 2.0 of "Harry's Filters" was released as freeware. Just like the old version, it was downloaded several hundred thousand times since then.
February 2001	HTML Shrinker 2.0 was released as a free Light Version and a commercial Pro Version.
2000
December 2000	The first version of our GraphicsGalaxy search engine was installed on The Plugin Site.
November 2000	The Plugin Com HQ web site (pico.i-us.com) was closed down after two and a half years, because I/US was acquired by Eyewire. Eyewire closed the www.i-us.com web site as well as the pico.i-us.com site. Almost all pages from pico.i-us.com were transferred to www.thepluginsite.com. Most of the traffic was redirected to The Plugin Site.
October 2000	The winners of the Galaxy Contest 2000 were announced. Almost 400 images from more than 120 artists had been sent in and a total of 60 prizes were won.
September 2000	Version 1.5 of Plugin Commander was released.
July 2000	The first Macintosh Version of Plugin Galaxy (a co-production with Panopticum.com) was released.
April 2000	We had to sell all copyright of Alpha Magic to Pinnacle Systems (which acquired Hollywood FX) to keep the product alive. Alpha Magic was still sold by Pinnacle afterwards and later included in some of their products like Pinnacle Studio.
March 2000	The Edge & Frame Galaxy CD Version was released.
February 2000	"The Plugin Site" web site at www.thepluginsite.com was opened, but only contained little information and redirected traffic to pico.i-us.com.
1999
December 1999	A total of 60 prizes worth over $4000 were given away in the Xmas Draw 99 to the subscribers of the Plugin Newsletter.
November 1999	After dozens of beta versions and two years of development Version 1.0 of Plugin Commander was released as a free Light Version and a commercial Pro Version.
October 1999	Ordering our commercial products was made possible through our own web site through the ShareIt/Element5 payment service. We registered as a business at our local authorities.
August 1999	Alpha Magic, a video transition plugin, which was a co-production with Hollywood FX, was released.
July 1999	Our second commercial product Plugin Galaxy was made available through I/US.
June 1999	The first version of HTML Shrinker was released as freeware.
May 1999	The Edge & Frame Galaxy Contest 1999 was conducted. Almost 100 images were submited to the contest.
April 1999	"Edge & Frame Galaxy Vol.2" was released by I/US. This product isn't sold separately anymore. (However, its content is included with the Edge & Frame Galaxy CD Version which came out a year later.)
February 1999	Our first commercial product "Edge & Frame Galaxy" was released for sale as a download through I/US. An updated version of it is still sold as the Edge & Frame Galaxy Download Version.
1998
September 1998	The first issue of the Plugin Newsletter was sent out to a few hundred people.
May 1998	The predecessor web site called "Plugin Com HQ" was moved to pico.i-us.com and was sponsored by the I/US corporation.
1997
November 1997	The first beta release of Plugin Commander was published as freeware.
October 1997	The first version of Harry's Filters (which was called VideoRave at that time) was released. More and more filters were added in the following two years.
September 1997	The first release of 8bf2prm, the predecessor of Plugin Commander, became available.
August 1997	The first amateur web site called "Premiere Plugin HQ" was opened on a fortunecity.com server.

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