You can change the look and feel of your Adobe Photoshop images with these free Photoshop filters, and improve your working environment with free Photoshop plugins. They're a great way to easily and quickly customize your Photoshop experience.
The Photoshop filters are image effects or settings used to change the way a picture looks, and the plugins are extended features like rulers or guide lines, that aren't included with Photoshop by default.
You can also use free Photoshop actions, templates, shapes, brushes, and textures to change your Photoshop images.
How to Install and Use Photoshop Filters
Once you've downloaded a Photoshop filter, you'll want to copy the 8BF file into Photoshop's Filters folder to install it. This is usually C:Program FilesAdobeAdobe Photoshop (version)Plug-insFilters.
Installed filters can be accessed from Photoshop's Filter menu.
However, some Photoshop filters are installed through an EXE file so that it installs like a regular program. In those instances, you don't need to copy any files into any program folder; just open the EXE file like you would any application.
How to Install and Use Photoshop Plugins
Photoshop plugins are ZXP files that must be installed using Adobe Extension Manager (unless it downloads as an EXE program file). Just choose Install to browse for the ZXP file.
Installed plugins can be accessed from Photoshop's Window > Extensions menu.
Some of the websites below will explain that they are offering plugins when really they're installed under the Filter menu in Photoshop, and vice versa.
Adobe's Free Photoshop Plugins
What better place to get free Photoshop plugins than Adobe's own website? You can sort the resources by title or rating as well as by newest added or most popular.
Not only plugins and filters are on this page. You'll find extensions, actions, and other things as well.
Adobe's Photoshop plugins are installed a bit differently than the others in this list. You must have a free Adobe account and the Creative Cloud program installed to use the plugins.
To find just the free Photoshop plugins at Adobe's website, be sure to choose Photoshop from the filtering area on the left, and then on the right, sort the results by Price (Low to High).
What We Like
Many are rated, from one to five stars.
Easy to search for and find what you need.
Enormous variety.
What We Don't Like
Requires free Creative Cloud program.
You must create an Adobe account if you don't already have one.
Mehdi's Free Photoshop Filters
Mehdi has dozens of free Photoshop filters. Each download page has a thorough explanation of the filter as well as screenshots.
Kaleidoscope, Projection, Sorting Tiles, Blots, Weaver, and Contrast Balance are just some of the free filters you can download here.
What We Like
Thorough explanation of each plugin with examples.
Dozens of plugins available.
FAQ page and ability to contact Mehdi for support.
What We Don't Like
Dated but useable interface.
Windows only; not for MacOS.
The Plugin Site's Free Photoshop Filters
Harry's Filters (formerly VideoRave) is a download at The Plugin Site that lets you get around 70 image effects for Photoshop in one download.
The Plugin Site has other downloads as well, such as Photoshop actions.
On the download page, scroll past the commercial downloads to find the free options. When you're ready to download something from this website, you'll need to fill out the download form, where you'll get the download link in your email.
What We Like
Single download saves time.
Fast access without layers of menus.
Easy to use.
What We Don't Like
No MacOS version.
No updates since October 2017.
Lokas Software's Free 3D Shadow and Photoshop Filter
Lokas Software has only one free Photoshop filter, and it's called 3D Shadow. I include it in this list because while Photoshop has its own text shadowing feature, I find this one to be much more useful.
You can adjust the blur, axis and offset angle, perspective, and color, as well as select a preset shadow effect, such as Cast in Front, Flat Faint, and Rear shadow.
What We Like
Broad range of shadow effects.
Easy to use.
RichardRosenman.com's Free Photoshop Plugins
RichardRosenman.com has one page of free Photoshop plugins. Some of them include ones called Diffuse Glow, Box Fitting, Pinch, 3D Sphere, Pixelate, and Solid Border.
The plugins you'll find at RichardRosenman.com have a short description and sample picture to show you what the plugin does.
What We Like
Easy to browse through available plugins.
Thorough explanation of each plugin’s function.
What We Don't Like
Windows only.
No new releases since April 2015.
Despite Photoshop's unrivaled feature set, everyone has a few extra things that they wish the app could do (especially web designers). Fortunately, Photoshop has a rich community of third party developers who are regularly churning out fantastic plugins and extensions to add all kinds of functionality. From faster image exporting to better guide control, here are 25 outstanding Photoshop plugins you should try.
1. Super Spray
Stop getting stuck with boring patterns or having to craft your own. With Super Spray, you can turn any .png images into a spray pattern. All you have to do is import the picture with the plugin.
2. Screen Snap
Get high-resolution screenshots of your full screen or selected areas in a snap. Just choose where to save, how to save it and take the screen shot.
3. Renamy 3 Photoshop Plugin
This amazing timesaver plugin allows you to rename multiple layers at the same time, use find and replace in naming layers, live name filtering and autocompleting from a list of used names. This is an essential tool for easy name changes and editing.
4. Web Zap
This Photoshop Extension will cut your time making design mockups and wireframes in half. It comes with loads of UI staples (buttons, sliders, comment boxes, icons, etc) in a variety of styles and colors. With just a few clicks, you can whip up a beautiful prototype of an entire web page.
5. SpecKing Photoshop Plugin
Get precise measurements fast. SpecKing gives you measurements of each layer with one click, or if you have multiple objects on a flat layer, you can use the selection tool to measure them.
6. Zeick Photoshop SVG Export
This plugin allows you to quickly export any vector shapes to SVG files. You simply target a single layer or any group of layers, hit a button, and you're ready to go. If you're looking for a solution to reduce your file's actual size, we rounded up a great list of tips here.
7. Portraiture
Portraiture features best-in-industry skin smoothing algorithms and is a must-have for any professional portrait photographer. It's hard to find a tool that has such impressive results with such little effort. At $200, it's not cheap, but if you make your living as a photographer, it's definitely worth the expense.
8. Transform Each 2.0
Transform Each allows you to transform multiple layers at once, but in a way that makes each item independent from the rest. This is great for resizing a group of objects without screwing up their positions. Curious to learn about other common Photoshop fails? We spent some time going over those here.
9. Font Awesome
Font Awesome is one of the most popular icon fonts on the market and this plugin brings all those awesome icons into an easy-to-access Photoshop panel.
10. Ink
Ink allows you to include subtle information about crucial details like layer styles, text formatting and layer measurements.
11. CSS Hat
CSS Hat takes your Photoshop layers and gives you clean CSS code instantly. Photoshop now has similar functionality built in, but in my experience, CSS Hat is much more robust.
12. GuideGuide
GuideGuide is the single best way to quickly lay down a complex guide arrangement in Photoshop. Like some of the other panels on this list, Photoshop has now added similar functionality, but I prefer GuideGuide's interface, and since it's free, why not give it a shot?
13. Subtle Patterns
Subtle Patterns is one of the best sources online for free, simple background patterns. This plugin saves you countless trips to the website and puts the huge, ever-growing library of patterns right in your Photoshop.
14. Size Marks
Size Marks is another useful tool for quickly placing measurement information onto your PSDs. Simply draw a box with the Marquee tool, hit a keyboard shortcut, and you're done.
15. Social Kit
Make your social media site attractive with these great templates for Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and more.
16. PNG Hat
PNG Hat brings a ton of really robust image exporting features to Photoshop. It features excellent image compression and the ability to generate CSS, HTML, and even Objective C to embed your images into whatever project you're working on.
17. iOS Hat
Yet another amazing plugin from Source's 'Hat' line. iOS Hat is an essential tool for iOS developers that quickly converts Photoshop layers into Objective-C or Swift code.
18. PSD Cleaner
This plugin goes through and groups your layers for you. It alerts you to any problems and gives you a simple fix instead of trudging through layers.
19. Random User
If you're a UI designer, you've come up against this problem tons of times: you're designing your app and you need some sample avatars for your comps. With Random User, great placeholder avatars are a single click away.
20. LayerCraft
LayerCraft is a great little toolkit for preparing and exporting images. There are a few quick scripts like for trimming and scaling, as well as export options for 1x, 2x, and 3x size graphics.
21. Velositey
Another mockup tool similar to WebZap. The elements that it creates are less-styled than with WebZap, which is good for generic wireframes that you can add your own style and colors to.
22. Layrs
Layrs is a tool that helps your clean up your messy PSDs with seven useful scripts. It was created by Creative Market shop owner Vadim Sherbakov.
23. Font Hero
Let's face it, if you have a ton of fonts, Photoshop's interface for sifting through them pretty much sucks. Font Hero allows you to search, preview, and organize fonts better than ever before, right inside Photoshop.
24. Retouching Panel
A powerful panel for photographers that allows you to quickly adjust colors, soften skin, and apply various professional-level effects to your images.
25. Fixel Contrastica 2 PS
Fixel Contrastica helps you effortlessly increase the local and global contrast in your images. The tool works without clipping pixels and gives you full control over tonal range.
26. GuideGuide for Photoshop
Bonus! Whether you need to create responsive grids, measure columns with margins, or just find the middle of things, GuideGuide has tools that makes working with Photoshop and Illustrator guides painless. Every feature works with your document, artboard, and even your current selection, so that you can add—or remove—exactly the guides you want.
What Are Your Favorite Photoshop Plugins?
These 26 Photoshop plugins should be enough to supercharge your workflow. Head over to this great list of tutorials if you want to learn to achieve more with this powerful tool. If we missed any of your favorite plugins, leave a comment below and let us know.
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Photoshop plugins and extensions are an easy way to add functionality to the leading image processing app and to improve your workflow.
You can find plugins for almost anything. Some will simplify the professional skin retouching you’d expect to see on the cover of a glossy magazine, and cost hundreds of dollars. Others take care of boring, repetitive tasks. All will make your life a whole lot easier.
In this guide, we’ll take a look at 10 essential free Photoshop plugins that you should start using right away.
1. Nik Collection
The best free Photoshop plugin is actually a set of seven that also function as standalone apps. The Nik CollectionHow to Get Started with Google's Free Nik Plugins for PhotographyHow to Get Started with Google's Free Nik Plugins for PhotographyGoogle made its Nik Collection plug-ins completely free. The plugins work with photo editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. Here's how to get started.Read More started out as professional photo processing software that cost $500. Google bought it and eventually made it available for free, but it’s no longer in development. As a result, the software will one day cease to be compatible with your computer. But for now, it is the gold standard of plugins.
The collection consists of:
- Analog Efex Pro 2 — Replicates the look of classic analog cameras and film stock.
- Color Efex Pro 4 — A huge collection of filters and presets for color correction and image processing.
- Dfine 2 — High-end noise reduction, with more control than Photoshop’s built-in tools provide.
- HDR Efex Pro 2 — Create stunning but natural looking HDR photos.
- Sharpener Pro 3 — A powerful sharpening tool to bring out the subtle details in your shots.
- Silver Efex Pro 2 — Create beautiful black and white conversions.
- Viveza 2 — Selective control of tone and color for making local adjustments.
Each tool installs as its own self-contained program, with the option to add it to Photoshop or Lightroom. If you only choose one of our recommendations from this list, the Nik Collection should be it.
2. Pexels Plugin
Pexels.com is one of our favorite free stock image sitesThe 15 Best Sites for Free High-Resolution Stock ImagesThe 15 Best Sites for Free High-Resolution Stock ImagesFree high-resolution images are hard to come by. Wouldn't it be nice if you could get free stock images that are curated for quality and resolution? You can!Read More. The free plugin the site provides enables you to access its content without ever leaving Photoshop.
Go to Windows > Extenstions > Pexels to open Pexels.com in its own panel. Here, you can browse images split by Recent or Popular, or view popular searches and tags under the Likes tab. There’s also a search option.
Just click a photo and it will download and insert itself onto a new layer in your open Photoshop file (or will create a new one if none are open). Stock photos are great if you ever need to add a texture to an image, change the backgroundHow to Change the Background of a Photo in PhotoshopHow to Change the Background of a Photo in PhotoshopWant to change the background of a photo in Photoshop? Adobe has made it quite easy to edit the background of a photo.Read More, or for countless other purposes. Having a stock library essentially built into Photoshop really helps simplify your workflow.
You can also get plugins for commercial stock photo services like iStock and Getty. These are free, but you need to pay for the images.
3, ON1 Effects
ON1 Effects adds Instagram-style functionality to Photoshop. It provides a massive array of presets covering generic looks like “Hipster” or “Cinematic”, to those fashioned around specific film stock. It also offers a large number of filters that can enhance the colors and tone of your image.
ON1 Effects works as a one-click panel in Photoshop, or you can open the accompanying standalone app for more granular control over how you apply the presets to your photos.
4. Ink
Ink is an add-on for web designers who put their layouts together in Photoshop. It converts the elements in your document into HTML and CSS code so they can be faithfully recreated on a web page.
The information Ink generates is pretty detailed. It’ll give you info on fonts used, and their size, color, leading and tracking, and so on. It’ll create code for shadows and gradients, and also pixel-perfect measurements between the various elements that make up your design.
5. CSS3Ps
Another tool for web developers, CSS3Ps turns individual layers into CSS code. Photoshop has some of this functionality built in, but the plugin goes further by giving you SCSS and SASS code as well.
CSS3Ps can also be quicker when you’re working on complex designs, as it’s all cloud based. It’s an excellent tool, and takes a lot of the pain out of designing buttons, especially when using shadows, glows, and other effects.
6. SuperPNG
Photoshop offers support for many file formats into which you can save your images. PNG is one of them, but the options you get when saving are very limited.
You get a lot more control with SuperPNG. There are more settings to find the right balance between speed and quality — somewhat counterintuitively a lower quality image takes longer to save, due to the sluggishness of PNG compression. You can also retain transparency in an image, and keep or remove the metadata.
7. Fontea
When you’re working with typography in Photoshop you’re limited to using the fonts you’ve got installed on your computer. There are a few plugins that can give you more fonts — — but sometimes these cost money, and you have to check the usage rights for each font.
A simpler choice is Fontea, which gives you access to Google FontsHow to Use Google Fonts in Adobe PhotoshopHow to Use Google Fonts in Adobe PhotoshopTired of downloading fonts only to test them and realize that they aren't exactly what you need? With this Photoshop plugin, you can test and use over 800 fonts provided by Google.Read More. They’re all free and open source, so there’s no issue with usage. Just browse through the fonts, filtering down to the styles that you’re after. Each font will download automatically when you need it, and you can remove them just as easily.
8. Long Shadow Generator 2
Some of the most essential Photoshop plugins and extensions are the ones that simplify common tasks. That’s certainly true of Long Shadow Generator 2, which does exactly what its name suggests.
The options are deliberately sparse. You can adjust the angle, length, and darkness of the shadow you want. You can also choose between a flat shadow or one that fades the further it travels. And you can produce white shadows when your text or objects are on a dark background. But if you prefer, you can do it all with just one click.
9. Layrs Control 2
Layers are an integral part of Photoshop10 Must-Know Introductory Photoshop Skills for Beginner Photographers10 Must-Know Introductory Photoshop Skills for Beginner PhotographersIn this guide, we take a look at some Photoshop features you can dive straight into, even if you have little or no previous photo editing experience.Read More, but once you’ve got a lot in your document managing them becomes a tedious task.
Layrs Control 2 makes the process a lot easier. It makes seven common layer management actions accessible through a single panel. They are:
- Layer name editor.
- Remove unused effects.
- Flatten all layer effects.
- Delete empty layers.
- Rasterize smart objects.
- Find similar files/folders.
- Convert to smart object.
You’d usually have to do all these tasks manually, or find or create your own scripts to handle them. That’s no longer the case with this plugin, which is a real time saver.
10. Font Awesome PS
If you ever need to drop a Twitter or Shopping Cart icon onto your website you probably use Font Awesome to do the job. With Font Awesome PS you can now use the same iconic font in your Photoshop designs as well.
There are 675 icons to choose from. They’re added to your image as vector shapes, so they can be resized, colored, and edited with no loss of quality.
Working With Photoshop Plugins
Plugins and extensions install and work in different ways. Some are installed just like regular programs. Some download in ZIP files and need to be copied manually to the Photoshop plugins or extensions directory — check the website for instructions in these cases.
If the add-on is in the ZXP format, try the app ZXPInstaller, available for both Windows and Mac. This replaces the now defunct Adobe Extensions Manager, which used to be used to install these files.
You can access the add-ons in one of a few different places. You’ll normally find them under Windows > Extensions. Sometimes you’ll find them in the Filter menu. In the case of SuperPNG, above, you’ll find it as a file format in the Save As… menu.
All the plugins work non-destructively. Any edits they make to your images go on separate layers, leaving you free to experiment to find the ones that best suit how you work. Plugins, among other advanced features, make Photoshop one of the most essential resources for graphic designers7 Essential Tools, Software, and Services for Illustrators7 Essential Tools, Software, and Services for IllustratorsWorking as an illustrator can be a daunting task. However, these essential tools for illustrators will help keep you on track.Read More of all stripes.
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I know that the Nik Collection plugins work in Photoshop Elements, but what about the rest of them?
The link for Long Shadow Generator is throwing a 403 error..
Photoshop plugins offer a quick and easy way to extend Adobe’s seminal image-editing tool with time-saving, feature-adding and workflow-easing goodness. Despite ever-growing competition, Photoshop continues to rule the roost as the best-in-class, go-to image manipulation and generation tool – but that doesn't mean it can't be improved with a great plugin.
While it was once solely about pixel-based bitmap images, Photoshop CC is now a capable vector editing tool, with 3D and video support built in. This collection of core features offers a powerful range of possibilities out the box, but occasionally it's worth adding a few extras to get the most out of your investment.
As it’s been around for such a long time, Photoshop has support from thousands of plugins. It can be bewildering trying to sort through the array of options available, so we've selected the cream of the crop that you can download and use straight away.
For plugins of a slightly newer addition to Adobe's roster, you can also check out our list of the best Adobe XD plugins.
Promoted: Filter Forge 8
Publisher: Filter Forge | Price: $38-$100 at a 75% discount for CreativeBloq readers | Good for: 3D artists, photographers, photo editors, graphic designers
Filter Forge offers over 12,000 effects and textures, covering almost every use case you can imagine. In version 8.0, tabs have been added. You can now load any image or filter into separate tabs, and compare them or fine-tune their settings. Essentially you now have multiple Filter Forge copies under one hood. Need to move from one computer to another? The new backup tool compresses filters and settings into a single archive file that you can restore later on another computer, another version of Filter Forge or even another platform. Discover all the new features here.
01. RH Hover Color Picker
Fine colour control at your fingertips, when you need it.
Publisher: Rico Holmes | Price: $16 | Best for: Artists and designers
If you've ever wished Photoshop's colour picker was just a little less ugly and cumbersome, Rico Holmes' Hover Color Picker might be what you've been waiting for. It's there when you need it with a good-looking set of customisable sliders that give you a lot more control than the standard picker, and when you're done it'll minimise itself automatically.
02. Ultimate Retouch Panel
Publisher: Pro Add-Ons | Price: $29+Tax | Best for: Retouchers and photographers
For professional retouching results that go a lot further than the default Photoshop filters, it's worth having a look at Pro Add-Ons’ Ultimate Retouch Panel. Although it’s now getting a little long in the tooth, this cost-effective tool features over 200 functions in one panel, including seven frequency separation methods, four fast-retouch methods, and 15 tools for local retouching.
03. ALCE 3
Publisher: Davide Barranca | Price: $34.95 | Best for: Photographers
Local contrast enhancement is a useful method for bringing out extra details in photography, and while you can do it in Photoshop using the Unsharp Mask filter, it can be a bit hit-and-miss if you don't really know what you're doing. ALCE 3 takes all the guesswork out of it, adding shape and depth to your shots without losing detail across shadows and highlights.
04. Fontself Maker
Turn any image into an OpenType font.
Publisher: Fontself | Price: £43 for Photoshop, £69 for Photoshop+Illustrator | Best for: Designers
Ready to start creating your own fonts? It’s easier than you think with this handy Photoshop plugin. Fontself Maker lets you turn any image or vector layer into colourful bitmap fonts using Photoshop CC 2015.3 and above. It’s worth noting that if you want to create vector-based fonts, the plugin can also be purchased for Illustrator.
Drag and drop layers to create new characters, and capture any colour, shade or texture you desire. All the features you’d look for can be configured and controlled, including per-character kerning, ligatures, character alternates and more. The team behind the tool are also actively developing and updating the plugin – in part supported by Kickstarter backers – so you can expect ongoing feature enhancements.
05. Fluid Mask 3
A dedicated tool for creating clean, accurate masks.
Publisher: Vertus | Price: $99 | Best for: Photographers and designers
Masking is a fine art in itself, and while Photoshop has good built-in masking tools, there's still plenty of room for a dedicated tool to help you get the cleanest and most accurate masks possible – especially around problem areas such as hair and fur. Fluid Mask makes this normally laborious process quick and relatively easy.
06. Getty Images
Turnitin for students. Easily add video, photos and vectors from Getty Images.
Publisher: Getty | Price: Free (licence images used via plugin) | Best for: Designers
Everyone needs a bit of stock imagery now and then, so why make things difficult for yourself? Getty Images' plugin makes it easy for you to search for and filter images and hi-res comps, not only for Photoshop but also Illustrator and InDesign. Once you’ve made your edits and used comps to get client approval, you can licence a high-resolution image and retain all your edits making for a smooth workflow.
07. ParticleShop
Publisher: Corel (Painter) | Price: $49.99 | Best for: Artists
Painter is a long-established digital art favourite among illustrators, but, thankfully, Corel has finally brought its brush technology to Photoshop with ParticleShop. Brushes can make a huge difference to your creativity and productivity, and this powerful Photoshop plugin offers non-destructive brushstroke layer support and 11 updated brushes, including Debris, Fabric, Fine Art, Fur, Hair, Light, Space, Smoke and Storm. Currently you’ll get a free brush pack when purchasing too.
08. Ink
This specification generator is ideal for handing off UI designs.
Publisher: Chrometaphor | Price: Free | Best for: Web and graphic designers
Free Photoshop Cc Plugins
Ink is a specification generator built for designers creating user interfaces to hand off to developers who aren’t necessarily conversant Photoshop users. Ink makes it easy to communicate your design by generating full specs, including text formatting, layer styles, typographic settings, dimensions and more.
All the meta data is embedded directly into your PSD document, for quick and easy reference. And once output, it’s all compiled into one handy folder to keep everything neat and tidy. This workflow helps ensure that the final product is an accurate interpretation of your design, rather than a developer’s approximation.
It’s also worth noting that this Photoshop plugin is free, but the developers suggest you make a donation to Water4 if you enjoy using it.
09. Fixel Contrastica 2
This smart tool intensifies both local and global contrast.
Publisher: Fixel Algorithms | Price: $29.99 | Best for: Photographers
Available for both Photoshop and After Effects, Contrastica is a smart contrast intensifier. From Fixel Algorithms, a company specialising in developing and implementing 'advanced and innovative image and video processing algorithms' in order to expand image and video manipulation abilities.
Contrastica is a simple to use, focused and highly tuned filter. It targets both local and global contrast at the same time – making it easy to add pop and create the effect you want in less time than it would take to use Photoshop’s native toolset.
10. On1 Resize 2017
Enlarge photos without losing image quality.
Publisher: On1 | Price: $79.95 (currently $59.99) | Best for: Artists and designers
On1 Resize (also known as Perfect Resize 9) will enlarge images taken on your DSLR or smartphone by up to 1000 per cent. The plugin uses genuine fractals’ powerful algorithms for optimising clarity and detail enhancement. This is more than just an image resizing tool, however. Featuring a full file browser, it also offers batch processing, image compression and a host of built-in presets and manual controls.
11. B&W Effects
Turn coloured images into beautiful monochrome photographs.
Publisher: TopazLabs | Price: $59.99 | Best for: Photographers
More or less any of Topaz Labs’ products would happily make it into this list; its Photoshop plugins are almost a must-have for any serious digital photographer. Whether it’s providing texture effects, making masking easy, or turning your photographs into impressionist paintings, there’s not much you can imagine that Topaz hasn't developed a tool to create.
That said, this black and white effects plugin is especially good. Using a unique B&W conversion engine that emphasises tone and texture to help you get B&W images that pop, this should be an essential part of your photo-editing toolset.
12. Texture Tools Industrial
Publisher: Kubota | Price: $69 | Best for: Artists and designers
Kubota describes itself as the 'Mecca' of photo-enhancing tools, and the Texture Tools Industrial pack accompanies its extensive range of textures, borders and templates. As usual with Kubota plugins, you can try these metallic filters before you buy. With this pack you can give your images a manmade finish thanks to a selection of 50 metal themed textures. You'll be able to manipulate the filters to fit your images, giving them an edgy final touch that will make them stand out from the crowd.
13. PageCurl 2
Create convincing page turn and fold effects.
Publisher: AV Bros | Price: From £20.95 | Best for: Graphic designers
Its website looks like something out of the 1990s, but AV Bros’ Page Curl plugin is a cost-effective solution for creating convincing page turn and fold effects on both regular and arbitrary-shaped objects (such as non-rectangular objects, or areas with full or partial transparency). Ideal for ebook promotional work, this simple but powerful Photoshop plugin is straightforward to use and refreshingly limited in its functionality. It’s designed to do one thing, and do it well.
14. PSD Cleaner
This plugin makes layer management less painful.
Publisher: Source | Price: $19.99 | Best for: Artists, designers, photographers
Sorting through layers and layers of design work is a tedious, laborious task that can be the bane of the lives of graphic designers and web designers everywhere. PSD Cleaner aims to take away the pain of this essential housekeeping process, making it a whole lot easier. From one simple panel, users can identify unnamed layers, recreate Photoshop effects in CSS, delete empty layers, convert point text to paragraph text, find out if layers are beyond the canvas bounds and much more.
15. Eye Candy
Choose from a wide range of photo effects in this well-known plugin.
Publisher: Alien Skin | Price: $129 | Best for: Designers
Alien Skin’s Eye Candy is one of Photoshop’s most recognisable plugins, and has been around for well over a decade. Version 7 provides a huge range of effects ranging from fire to chrome, glass to extrusions. While many seem initially to be useful only for creating cheesy effects, it’s surprising how many scenarios you’ll find them useful in. This is particularly true for freelance designers working to tight deadlines, and when the effects are dialled down from the default settings, they become less cheesy and more useable.
16. Luminar 2018
A focused photo editor for use within Photoshop.
Publisher: SkyLum | Price: £64 (Currently £53) | Best for: Photographers
Luminar is a little bit like having a photo editor inside your photo editing software. As odd as that sounds, it’s a focused tool that excels at making the most of your images without any of the non-photography stuff that Photoshop is full of. Using an AI routine alongside some 50 preset effects, this plugin simplifies masking, sky replacement, object removal and more. Available for both Photoshop and Lightroom, it’s well worth a look if you find yourself editing raw photographs frequently.
17. Nik Collection
A range of powerful photographic plugins available for free.
Publisher: DxO | Price: $69 | Best for: Photographers
We've long valued the many photographic plugins featured in the Nik Collection. Recently Google bought it, then agreed to hand over the collection to DxO in order to ensure continued development, and the upshot of this turmoil is that you can now grab the entire collection for $69 instead of the original $95 purchase price.
Equip yourself with top quality plugins such as Silver EFEX Pro and Viveza that provide a huge range of high-impact photographic effects. This is a no-brainer (figuratively, of course).
18. Fixel Edgehancer
Publisher: Fixel | Price: $29.99 | Best for: Designers and photographers
If you're a designer in a hurry, or you're not yet confident using Photoshop to create stylised images, Edgehancer is a quick and effective way to get some sophisticated looks. Edgehancer, as the name suggests, is used to enhance and emphasize edges. Unlike sharpening tools, EdgeHancer emphasizes the edges exclusively instead of increasing the contrast of the surrounding pixels. Edgehancer's effects can be recorded in Actions and are entirely scriptable, allowing simple automation.
19. Subtle Patterns
Publisher: Source | Price: $17.99 | Best for: Designers
Subtle Patterns is a high quality library of free, tileable textured patterns. The Subtle Patterns plugin feeds all this textured goodness directly into your Photoshop panel. You just click the pattern thumbnail and the texture is applied as a layer style to your current layer – a great time-saver and well worth the asking price.
20. Renamy 4.0
The Photoshop plugin takes the pain out of renaming layers.
Publisher: Klaia | Price: $14.99 (free demo) | Best for: Artists, photographers and designers
Naming your layers right is the first rule of Photoshop etiquette. But sometimes you need to rename layers retrospectively, which can be a pain. With Renamy you can rename multiple layers at once, and there's even a cool autocomplete function to save your typing fingers. There's a free demo version so you can give it a try before you buy.
Next page: More of the best Photoshop plugins