PS-Plugin "PolaDSR.8bf" does not work

[HansS]

One old (but useful) PS-plugin (http://polaroid-dust-scratch-removal-so ... ftonic.de/) does not work in XnView, but works fine e.g. in DigiFoto v3.5.1.

I put "ScratchRemoval.dll" to some dir in my PATH, and "PolaDSR.8bf" to "C:\Tools\XnView\8bf". I can then start this filter, and see its dialog, but after pressing "Correct" nothing happens, and after "Exit" I see unchanged picture. In DigiFoto the dialog disappears after pressing "Correct" and I see the corrected result.

XnView v1.98.5; Win7-64Ult-SP1

[XnTriq]

I had downloaded the program (pdsr1_0.exe) when it was still available at Polaroid's site.
After extracting the InstallShield setup with WinPack, I put all files in a subdirectory of the folder where I keep my Photoshop-compatible plug-ins: %CommonFiles%\Plug-Ins\PDSR\:

• PolaDSR.8bf
  PolaDSR.chm
  ds_DevChk.dll
  ScratchRemoval.dll
  PolaDSR.exe
  Viewer.exe
  PolaDSR.hlp
  license.txt
  PDSR Readme.wri

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Plug-Ins\ has to be in Tools » Options... » System integration » Adobe Plugins » Plugin 8bf.

HansS, are you missing any of these files?
Can you correct your photos by running the stand-alone PolaDSR.exe?
Is your ScratchRemoval.dll 65536 (Intel version) or 53248 (non-Intel version) bytes in size?

Some free alternatives to Neat Image:

• Imagenomic: Noiseware Community Edition Standalone
• Ronnie Kroonenberg: Picture cooler
• Guillermo Luijk: Zero Noise
• Etienne Monneret: NDNoise (Java)
• Polaroid: Dust & Scratch Removal Utility

Michael Almond: Noise Reduction Tool Comparison

• FAQ: Integrating Adobe filters
• Ximagic Denoiser Plugin

[HansS]

Thanks for the info (especially the other plugins - I will try them)

Regarding PolaDSR:
1. I used <http://legroom.net/software/uniextract> (which does not generate subfolders like WinPack) to extract "data1.cab", and I installed the tool in some virtual XP and copied the files, and now I also tried WinPack - result is that I have the right files. (But I don't know what "data2.cab" may be good for - UniExtract can't open the file because there is no data2.hdr, and WinPack extracts exactly the same files as from "data1.cab", or may be it does not really extract "data2.cab"!?).

2. I can correct my photos by running the stand-alone PolaDSR.exe - but it's awkward and quality of stored image is low, even if I select "High, largest file" .

3. I copied all the files to "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Plug-Ins\PDSR", and added this dir to the system PATH (to make sure that the dll will be found under all circumstances ...), and added the dir to XnView "Tools » Options... » System integration » Adobe Plugins" (and rebooted Windows to make sure that PATH changes are known in whole system), but it's the same as before: The PolaDSR dialog is displayed, the sliders and check boxes etc. can be used, but most important button "Correct", which should do the correction and return to photoshop resp. XnView in this case, does nothing - PolaDSR dialog remains opened, picture in XnView does not change.

4. I then uninstalled XnView on my Win7-64 system, and reinstalled " XnView-win-small_2011-11-18_v1.98.5.exe", added "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Plug-Ins\PDSR" - but same effect: Button "Correct" does nothing.

5. I then copied the XnView program dir with PolaDSR.8bf and ScratchRemoval.dll to a (relatively) clean virtual XP (no installation): There the PolaDSR dialog is closed after pressing "Correct", focus changes to Explorer window from which I had started "xnview.exe", and XnView hangs - must be killed with task manager.

[XnTriq]

I forgot to mention that pdsr1_0.exe is actually an MSCF-compressed (Microsoft CAB) self-extractor.
Therefore it can be unpacked with most archiving utilities (7zip/WInRAR/WinZIP etc.).

You will get these files:

• \Disk1\data2.cab
  \Disk1\layout.bin
  \Disk1\data1.cab
  \Disk1\data1.hdr
  \Disk1\Setup.ini
  \Disk1\PDSR Readme.wri
  \Disk1\setup.inx
  \Disk1\ikernel.ex_
  \Disk1\Setup.exe

If you then open data1.hdr with WinPack, you can access the following directories:

• \data1\[Group0][Engine]Engine Files
  \data1\[Group1][Engine]SelfRegistering
  \data1\[Group10][Support]Non-SelfRegistering
  \data1\[Group11][Support]English Files
  \data1\[Group15]App Executables
  \data1\[Group16]NonIntel files
  \data1\[Group17]Intel files
  \data1\[Group18]PSPlugin
  \data1\[Group2][Engine]ScriptEngine
  \data1\[Group3][Engine]Kernel Placeholder
  \data1\[Group5][Support]Language Independent OS Independent Files
  \data1\[Group7][Support]English OS Independent Files
  \data1\[Group9][Support]English String Tables

This way, the two different versions of ScratchRemoval.dll I was talking about in my previous post, will be extracted into separate folders:

• \data1\[Group16]NonIntel files\ScratchRemoval.dll
  \data1\[Group17]Intel files\ScratchRemoval.dll

I can now reproduce the scenario you describe unter #5, but only with larger images
Photoshop v6.0.1 is the only image editor in my arsenal which can handle this plug-in.

Plugin returned an unknown error

Could not complete your request. An internal error occurred.

[HansS]

Very strange result...

The picture is not really big: 4GiB jpg, 1680x2592, and in DigiFoto v3.5.1 I can open the same file on same PC and use PolaDSR successful (and same is true for the stand alone application, which uses at least the same dll). Unfortunately in newer DigiFoto on this Win7-64-PC no PS-Plugin works (tested without PolaDSR, with the PS-Plugins from DigiFoto distribution). In my virtual XP, where XnView hangs, DigiFoto v3.7.2 does the job fine!?

So looks to me as if PolaDSR reports some wrong(?) or strange errors back to the application, which are handled differently by different applications, leading to various strange behaviours - and we should not spend more time with this? I will search for some other tool which allows batch conversion with PolaDSR of a bunch of scanned pictures (for my father in law)...

Thanks for your help.