AutoFx PGE and DreamSuite resolution does not satisfy

Hello,
I need help.

I use the AUTOFX Software Photographic Edges 6.0 and Dream Suite Series One and Two as plug-in with photoshop 7.0. The operating system is Windows-XP.
It’s amazing, how many effects this tools have and what you can realize, – so far so good.

The AUTOFX-effects should work resolution independent, that’s what AutoFx says.
"Presets are Resolution Independent. Save them while working on a large file and they apply the same to a smaller file or an even larger file and get the same results."

Now I found some points, that made me sad, so I need some little help. Maybe I do something wrong ?

Let me explain, what I mean, perhaps there is a simple reason and perhaps we can share some experiences.

My intention is, to have such effects for making photographies in small poster-dimensions (30×45 cm or 11.8×17.7 inches ? by a resolution of 400dpi).
What I found is a bad quality with the effects.

First Example:
I have a picture in photoshop. Then I start autofx (for example photographic edges). My picture appears in this application in a preview. Now I use an effect, for example an edge (in this case edge 036, which shows a film strip frame with perforation). Accepting this effect and returning to photoshop, I have an effect created with a very low resolution. You can see it at the film strip perforation. The pixles of the edge-border are clearly to see and this makes the picture unusable. A perfect effect should not be seen as an effect. This is not satisfying !

Second example:
The same, coming from photoshop and using an effect in DreamSuite Series Two, for example a 4×5 film-frame (or using an artistic or standard frame in photographic edges 6.0), the resolution is bad after returning to photoshop.
It doesn’t work either if I start the autofx application standalone. No chance to get the desired results.

The only way I can fix this is, to use the memory dots, but this works only with photographic edges and specially with frames, but not with edges.
If I store the last frame-effect with a memory dot, than make a different action, for example choose another frame and than restore the saved actions by pressing the set memory dot and apply this. This seems to be the only way to keep the resolution and find a satisfying solution !
But this is not really satisfying because it only works with frames and unfortunately not with edges.

Finally, and this is a funny experience, when I use the autofx edges in the EXTENSIS PhotoFrame software, it works properly !!! Unfortunately extensis doesn’t have so many effects and not all autofx edges can be imported.

Is there anybody who can help me or who shares the same experiences with me and has an idea how to handle this software properly or how you can set preferences in resolution or what ever ??

Thanks for help.

Thomas

Well it seems strange that on a large image that they seem to work in extensis. My thinking is this, that most of the templates are a lower resolution, just as if I had tried to stretch a 500×500 mask over a 2000×2000 area, though it would work in theory, with the antialiasing there would be some pixelation around the edges no matter what. Maybe I am totally wrong, but, there are hundreds of edges and frames on those PGE disks they they can only be medium resolution.

My thinking then is this: Perhaps you could make a copy of the original image but decrease the resolution without resampling, apply the effect to the lower resolution copy and then copy and paste it over to your high res file. I suspect that the resolution expected with Dreamsuite and PGE is oriented toward small in size (area) images resolution independant. I hope I am making some sense here.