Best Free Photoshop Plugins
21. Perspective Mockups
Create perspective mockups using CSS3 3D transforms.
Publisher: BlazRobar Price: $19 Best for: Artists, designers
If you can forgive or overlook the gratuitous use of swearing and obscenity on the Perspective Mockups site, the plugin is definitely worth checking out. Essentially it's a great way to make perspective mockups for your designs using CSS3 3D transforms. The plugin sits within your Photoshop tools palette and includes eight different layouts to choose from. Simply click to set. It’s a quick way to give your artwork punch and lift.
22. CSS Hat 2
Turn your Photoshop styles into clean CSS3.
Publisher: Source Price: $39.99 Best for: Web designers
CSS Hat turns your Photoshop styles into clean CSS3 for your website. Simply click on a layer designed with some layer styles and the styling markup pops up instantly, for you to copy to your clipboard. This is especially useful when rendering specifically sized elements on your page or copying text styles as everything is translated pixel-for-pixel between Photoshop and CSS3. Version 2 also supports both Less and Sass for cleaner code output.
23. FlatIcon
Publisher: Freepik Price: Free Best for: Designers
FlatIcon is a large database of thousands of free vector icons that you can download in SVG, PSD or PNG format. This free Photoshop plugin lets you quickly find all the icons without leaving your working environment, inserting them directly into your design from a panel.
24. Shutterstock
Access Shutterstock's full library from within Photoshop.
Publisher: Shutterstock Price: Free (licence images via plugin) Best for: Designers
Working across the full Creative Suite, this plugin from Shutterstock provides direct in-app access to the huge range of stock imagery available in the Shutterstock library. Search inside Photoshop, click to select and insert, and license directly for an easier workflow. This is especially useful if you commonly licence royalty-free images for use in your designs.
25. Fractalius
Publisher: RedField Price: $39.90 Best for: Artists and designers
This unusual plugin uses fractal patterns, apparently hidden within the source image, to generate procedural effects that are reminiscent of pencil sketches, or stylised light glow streaks. Fractalius is useful either as the start of a piece of artwork, or to generate abstract imagery for use within a design project.
26. Dream Suite Ultimate
A pricey but powerful suite of effects.
Publisher: Auto FX Price: $179.99 (currently $89.99) Best for: Photographers
This all-encompassing suite of effects covers everything from textures to pseudo-3D effects, tonal correction and borders. Dream Suite Ultimate is not in any way cheap (although we've seen special offers of up to 50% off on the download page), but as it covers such a wide range of effects it’s worth adding to your shortlist if you’re looking for a single purchase that will give you a lot of power and options without having to maintain a disparate collection of plugins.
27. Machine Wash Deluxe
Add beautiful, scratchy weathering effects.
Publisher: Mister Retro Price: $99 Best for: Artists and designers
One of our personal favourites, Machine Wash Deluxe filter brings insanely beautiful scratchy textures to your designs and images with accurate, believable weathering and ageing effects. Effects include the ability to place artwork on a leather base, render onto wood with the grain visible through the artwork and rust effects. It produces especially nice effects on simple typography.
28. 3D Invigorator
This Photoshop plugin simplifies the complex 3D process.
Publisher: Digital Anarchy Price: $175 Best for: Designers
It’s true that Photoshop’s own 3D engine has come on leaps and bounds, there's still room for additional tools that can simplify the process of creating complex 3D scenes and models. The 3D Invigorator Photoshop plugin features a simple object editor that uses a pen-like tool for drawing and editing shapes. The final renders are polished and look good with little input required, making this a good choice for designers who need to generate 3D elements with little fuss.
29. Blow Up 3
Create enlargements without compromising on quality.
Publisher: Alien Skin Price: $99 Best for: Photographers and designers
Blow Up allows you to create pin-sharp enlargements from photos without compromising on quality. The algorithm is more advanced than Photoshop's own bicubic filters, which allows the plugin to produce accurate images without artefacts. This makes it a great tool for designers where clients send over images that aren't of a high-enough resolution.
30. PhotoMatix Pro
Publisher: HDR Soft Price: $99 Best for: Photographers
PhotoMatix Pro is a high dynamic range (HDR) processing and toning tool that integrates with Photoshop either standalone or as a plugin (depending upon which version you go for). This tool goes beyond Photoshop's built-in HDR processing capabilities, especially with the toning aspects and allows for the creation of extreme HDR images with relative ease. If the $99 price point is too steep for you, there's PhotoMatix Essentials at $39 for those looking for something simpler.
31. ON1 Effects 10.5
Add a range of effects quickly.
Publisher: ON1 Price: $59.99 Best for: Artists and designers
ON1’s Effects is a handy tool for getting a quick effect on an image, whether that's a colour treatment, addition of texture and noise, or creative borders, this plugin features an effects library (a bit like the filter gallery in Photoshop) and allows you to stack multiple effects to achieve interesting new results.
32. Noiseware
This specialist tool removes noise and sharpens images.
Publisher: Imagenomic Price: $79.95 Best for: Photographers and designers
Noise is a problem for everyone, but no more so than for photographers who need to present clients with clean images regardless of the conditions in which the shot was captured, and designers who receive sub-par quality images from clients. Noiseware is a specialist noise-suppression tool that will both remove noise and sharpen at the same time making it a really useful addition to Photoshop’s in-built noise management toolset.
33. Texture Anarchy
Publisher: Digital Anarchy Price: Free Best for: Designers
Texture Anarchy is another plugin that used to charge a premium price, but is now available free of charge. This pack offers a combination of different filters for Photoshop that each provide seamless and rich textures you can incorporate into your designs. Some of these are a little predictable, but the sheer range available, along with the ability to generate true fractals, makes this a great addition to Photoshop.
34. Portraiture 3
Publisher: Imagenomic Price: $199.95 Best for: Photographers and designers
Portraiture is a combined plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture that automates the process of retouching portraits for a perfect-skin look. The plugin automatically smooths skin tones while removing blemishes and, crucially, avoids softening or destroying detail areas such as eyelashes and skin texture. The price may seem a bit 'whoa!' but this is a top-quality plugin for portrait photographers.
35. SuperPNG
Improved control over PNG images in Photoshop.
Publisher: FNord Price: Free Best for: Designers
If you're a regular user of the PNG format, you'll know that Photoshop can sometimes struggle a bit to render PNGs quickly. SuperPNG aims to fix this by offering more control over your PNG output, allowing for a balance between speed and file size, control over the alpha channel and meta data. SuperPNG's a handy tool for taking control of your image export, and is free! This is becoming less useful as Adobe have substantially improved export for web in recent releases, but if you’re using an older version of Photoshop it’s well worth a look.
36. Exposure X4
Simulate film effects for digital projects.
Publisher: Alien Skin Price: From $149 Best for: Photographers and designers
Exposure is a creative tool that allows you to simulate film effects on your digital images. For its X4 release, publisher Alien Skin has improved its shadow and highlight recovery, as well as adding fully adjustable light effects and transform tools that correct tilted or skewed perspectives. Users can also now create smart collections to automatically organise your photo library (and, boy, is that required around here). Exposure X4 is available as a plugin for Photoshop or Lightroom, or as a complete standalone raw photo editor.
37. GuideGuide
An easy way to create a grid system.
Publisher: Cameron McEfee Price: From $35/year Best for: Designers
GuideGuide is a simple Photoshop plugin makes it easy to create a grid system in your document, hijacking the built-in guides system to create a pinpoint accurate grid according to your chosen settings. You can use negative margins for special hanging columns, separately define individual margins and gutters, and save your preferred options for quick access in the future. Perfect for anyone using a grid to help them create their layouts.
38. Screensnap
Easily create screenshots from your PSDs.
Publisher: PluginMate Price: $9.99 Best for: Designers
Easily create screenshots from your PSDs with ScreenSnap. The Photoshop plugin aims to make it easier to share screenshots of your WIP or designs. There’s no need to manually crop or use Save for Web: just select a folder, choose your settings and hit the button. And if you’re designing at standard resolution, you can export your screenshot to Retina.
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