hi robbi,
when you duplicate what? and not sure what you mean by promote here.
basically, you need an image open to call FF from psp. you can call it to a layer or to the original background. you can even call it to a blank layer if you're using a texture type filter. once you have your image open and your layer highlighted, just call FF and when it shows up, pick what you're going to use and then hit 'apply' in the FF interface. that will apply that filter and filter setting to the layer in psp.
you can also use FF as a stand-alone application without usuing psp.
i'm not sure what that error is. i dont recall seeing it before. are you trying to use FF in psp on a vector layer, by any chance? i've never tried that but i dont think it would work.
If wishes were horses... there'd be a whole lot of horse crap to clean up!
Craig