Adobe Photoshop Software Development Kit SDK

Welcome to the Adobe Photoshop Software Developers Toolkit!

With this toolkit you can create software, known as plug-in modules, that expand the capabilities of Adobe Photoshop.

Sections on this page

• Audience
• How to use this guide
• Contents of the Photoshop plug-in toolkit

Audience

This toolkit is for C programmers who wish to write plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop on Macintosh® and Windows® systems.

This guide assumes you are proficient in the C programming language and its tools. The source code files in this toolkit are written for Apple® XCode on the Mac OS®, and Microsoft® Visual C++ on Windows.

You should have a working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop, and understand how plug-in modules work from a user's viewpoint. This guide assumes you understand Photoshop terminology such as paths, layers and masks. For more information, consult the Adobe Photoshop User Guide.

How to use this guide

Use the navigation bar to the left for specific areas of interest. If you are new to programming plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop use the following links to get started.

Plug-in Basics provides an overview of writing plug-ins, including specific information for Macintosh and Windows development.

Plug-in Types covers the main types of plug-in modules in detail.

Callbacks discusses callback routines for the Photoshop host.

Scripting covers all the specific details of making a plug-in scripting aware.

The Plug-in Resource Guide includes valuable tips and tricks for creating Photoshop plug-ins that function in every major Adobe graphics application.

If writing plug-ins is new for you, we recommend you take some time studying the source code for the sample plug-ins. You may choose to use these source files as the starting point for creating your own plug-in modules.

Contents of the Photoshop plug-in toolkit

The files included with this toolkit include C/C++ language header files, C/C++ language source files and Resource files -- these files define the structures, constants and functions you will need to build plug in modules. The Examples directory contains complete source code samples for each type of plug-in. There is also a directory containing information about the Adobe Developer Association.

As always, any plug-ins you create with this SDK can be sold or distributed royalty free.

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11/14/2020