The built-in filters provided by the BitmapFilters API (blur, glow, dropshadow, bevel etc) are very useful but sometimes our imagination exceeds their capabilities. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could create our own? Yes it would, and it is; we can build our own filters with a free bit of software called PixelBender and use a ShaderFilter filter to implement them.

Before i go any further, here’s a simple example to show you how much further we can go with custom filters:
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