Ready to become a Photoshop power-user? Good, because the Photoshop plugins, add-ons, and extensions we list in this post will supercharge the already impressive capabilities of Adobe's preeminent software.
The Photoshop mosaic process doesn't take the colors and shapes of the main picture into account. The mosaic effect made in Photoshop is a result of superimposing the main image. On the contrary, mosaic made in TurboMosaic doesn't require super-imposition of the main picture. It is a result of the intelligent placement of tile pictures.
Yes, Adobe Photoshop CC is outstanding on its own. But there are plenty of features that users wish they had access to but don't. Plus, there's no way that Adobe could've packed in every add-on, extension, or plugin and still kept the software at its current price point.
- Adobe Photoshop. A pixel perfection grid from Mosaica Studio to Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Illustrator.
- We may add some additional colors to our mosaic. Add a new layer and change layer mode to Overlay.Set up foreground color as purple (#8a00ff) and with Brush Tool selected (soft round brush with 300px) apply on the right side of mosaic.
- Ignite your creativity with the PhotoStudio Mega Bundle of Photoshop Plugins, Actions, Brushes, Overlays and Location Photos! Creating beautiful composites using Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop brushes, and Photoshop layers, the way professional graphic artists and Creatives do, just became a few mouse click reality. Learn More and Buy Here.
- This Photoshop plugin gives you access to a set of 4 actions that simulate a double exposure effect. This effect works well with other Photoshop actions you may have installed. Quickly and easily generate a mosaic.
Lucky for you, not all of the plugins you'll read about today cost money!
That's not to say that you should only look for free plugins. Some of the premium Photoshop plugins we list are so good, you'll want to buy them immediately — if you're really serious about upping your Photoshop game, that it. But before we get into the best free and premium Photoshop plugins for 2020, let's quickly cover how to install Photoshop plugins:
How to Install Photoshop Plugins
Here's a simple way to install Photoshop plugins:
- Open Photoshop.
- Select Edit from the dropdown menu, and select Preferences > Plugins.
- Check the 'Additional Plugins Folder' box to accept new files.
- Download a plugin or filter to your desktop.
- Open your Program Files folder and select your Photoshop folder.
- Open your Plugins folder, found inside your Photoshop folder.
- Drag your new Photoshop plugin from your desktop into the Plugins folder.
- Reopen Photoshop and find your new plugin under Filters in the dropdown menu.
Now that you know how to use Photoshop plugins, let's take a look at some of the best free and premium Photoshop plugins available in 2020.
Note, if you prefer Sketch, check out our guide to the best Sketch plugins.
Best Free Photoshop Plugins
As the old saying goes, 'the best things in life are free.' Of course, these plugins may not be 'the best things in life' (unless Photoshop IS your life), but they're pretty good and can be used completely free of charge.
1. Camera Raw
Camera Raw is a Photoshop plugin that lets you edit and enhance raw files from your digital camera, along with JPEG and TIFF files. If you're unfamiliar with a raw file, it's simply the unprocessed picture data from your digital camera.
With the Adobe Camera Raw plugin, you can sharpen raw pictures, set white balance, and adjust the contrast among many other features.
The best part is, Camera Raw uses non-destructive editing, which means it doesn't alter the original picture file in case you want to revert back to it after you've finished editing. This plugin has been a must-have tool for photographers and should definitely be in your editing toolkit.
2. Ink
Ink is one of the best free Photoshop plugins on this list. It allows designers to create useful mockups and user interfaces, which lets an inexperienced Photoshop user — like a developer, for example — understand the design elements within a coding framework.
In other words, Ink makes it easy to communicate your design by generating full specs such as text formatting, layer styles, and dimensions.
This is especially helpful if you have to hand off work to a developer on GitHub and want to ensure that he or she will accurately interpret your design. Fortunately, this handy app can be accessed and used for the low price of zero dollars!
3. Texture Anarchy
Texture Anarchy is a Photoshop plugin that offers its users a library of different filters and textures to edit their photos with. What sets it apart from similar plugins like ON1 Effects is the fact that the textures it produces are based on fractal noise, which makes it easy to create natural images like fire, smoke, or marble.
If you're new to Photoshop, or photo editing in general, and the above paragraph sounds confusing, don't worry. Texture Anarchy is actually pretty easy to use. It even comes with presets to help you get started on the right foot.
4. FlatIcon
FlatIcon is a Photoshop plugin that will give you access to thousands of free vector icons, which can be downloaded in multiple formats such as SVG or PNG.
With FlatIcon installed, you can search through its database of icons from within Photoshop and insert them directly into your design panel. What kind of icons are we talking about? Just about anything! FlatIcon has millions of icons available for use.
Now, FlatIcon does have thousands of icons available for free. But, they require attribution to use legally. Alternatively, you can sign up for a FlatIcon subscription and get access to many more, attribution-free icons and priority support. FlatIcon plans start at $8.25 a month.
Best Premium Photoshop Plugins
As Warren Buffett once said, 'Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.'
While these premium Photoshop Plugins come with a price tag, they pack a serious punch and provide artists, photographers, and casual Photoshop users alike with tons of value. Here are the six paid plugins that we believe will make the biggest impact on your output and workflow:
1. RH Hover Color Picker
RH Hover Color Picker is a Photoshop color plugin that isn't ugly or cumbersome (unlike the color picker built into Photoshop) and gives you more control over the colors you pick with its set of customizable sliders.
It's aptly named the 'Hover' Color Picker because it only reveals itself when you hover over its minimized version, and then conceals itself once you're done using it. Convenient!
RH Hover Color Picker is really easy to use and will speed up your Photoshop workflow dramatically. Luckily, it can be had for just $16. Make the process of picking colors much easier and more enjoyable with this premium plugin.
2. ON1 Effects
ON1 Effects is a Photoshop plugin that gives you access to hundreds of built-in presets, filters, LUTs, textures, and borders. These effects can then be combined, blended, and otherwise customized to create a unique look for each of your photographs.
If you're looking for an all-in-one tool for adding complex effects to your photos, ON1 Effects is the solution you need. Get it for a one-time payment of $59.99.
3. Fluid Mask 3
Fluid Mask 3 is a Photoshop plugin that can be used to remove backgrounds and perform cutouts — a necessity for most modern photographers and graphic artists.
Masking, i.e. making part of a layer invisible, is a delicate and often difficult process. Fluid Mask 3 is one of the few plugins that will give you a clean and accurate mask, especially with problem areas like hair and fur.
Even though Fluid Mask 3 costs $99, its ability to detect edges, blend layers, and simplify painstaking tasks makes the high price tag worth it. That's why big companies like Disney, NBC, and Macy's use it on a regular basis.
4. Noiseware
Noiseware is an award-winning Photoshop plugin for noise reduction. Noise is the colorful grains or discoloration found in Photographs that give it a splotchy or blurry look. In simple terms, it's the part of your photographs that you usually don't want.
Noiseware removes graininess from images and sharpens them simultaneously, allowing you to clean up your photos quickly and professionally.
Although it costs $79.95, it justifies its premium price tag with unparalleled targeted noise reduction that few other plugins can even come close to matching.
5. PortraitPro
Have you ever taken a picture of yourself and thought, 'Oh no, is that what I really look like?' Don't be ashamed, it's happened to all of us. The camera can be quite unkind at times. When you're not happy with the results of your latest portrait, get PortraitPro.
PortraitPro is a Photoshop plugin that helps users retouch and edit portraits without giving them a 'Photoshopped' finish. It prides itself on being a software built to enhance human beauty without making faces look plastic or fake.
PortraitPro accomplishes this feat by using a slider interface to sculpt and refine a subject's features. Use this editing tool to smooth skin, apply makeup, correct poor lighting, change hair color, and more.
Whatever aspect of your portraits that you need to adjust, PortraitPro can help you do it for a one-time payment of $89.90.
6. Machine Wash Deluxe
Last, but certainly not least, we have Machine Wash Deluxe, which is a Photoshop plugin that adds scratchy, weathering effects to your photos. When you want your images to have that cool, retro vibe, Machine Wash Deluxe is the app you need.
The plugin comes with over 3,500 presets, which can be used to texturize and alter photographs in thousands of different ways and make them look old, vintage, or otherworldly.
Machine Wash Deluxe is an incredibly fun plug-in to play with and will help you create unique images that stop viewers in their tracks. It will cost you $99 to access. But if you have a little extra cash to spend, you'll love the abstract photo transformations you can make with it.
Honorable Mention: CloudApp
CloudApp isn't technically a Photoshop add-on, plugin, or extension — at least not yet. But it will help you get the 'raw materials' you need to create great photos.
Our free screen recorder lets you record videos and take screenshots on mac and win of virtually anything, edit them in Photoshop, and then pass them on to your developer. If your developer has questions, they can take a screenshot of your finished product, annotate it, and send it back to you. You'll then be able to comment on those annotations and easily make the required changes.
CloudApp is available as a Mac App, a Windows App, and as a Chrome Plugin. This means that just about anyone can create visual content from their desktop device of choice!
If you want to streamline your Photoshop workflow and easily create the stunning visual materials needed to get the job done, consider signing up for CloudApp — it's free.
In Conclusion:
There you have it, the 10 best photoshop plugins in 2020. If you regularly use Adobe's legendary software, these tools will help you supercharge your workflow and create better visual content. Now you just have to decide which ones you want to use!
And don't forget about CloudApp! Our visual communication software is a great way to create the raw materials you need to edit inside of Photoshop. From screenshots to annotated images, use CloudApp to capture anything on your computer screen. Get started today for free!
Photoshop is, indeed, a powerful tool for editing your photos. But if you want to make sure you maintain consistency in your editing workflow or if you simply want to speed up the editing process, you'll need a quality Photoshop plugin.
From applying HDR effects to converting your images to black and white, there is a plugin for every situation and in this post, we've gathered the best free Photoshop plugins for photographers.
You might also like this collection of free Photoshop plugins for UI designers.
HDR Sharpener Tool
This tool makes it easy to create HDR-like effects for your images instantly. It will increase the dynamic range of the image and sharpen it in a non destructive manner.
KinemaPhoto-LITE
This Photoshop extension makes it easy to unleash your creative potential creating cinemagraphs, GIFs, and other animations. You will be able to create still images from a video layer, create video loops, and more.
CineStock Photoshop (Envato Elements)
This resource gives you the 18 Photoshop actions to simulate the look of cinematic effects popularized by movies and television series. Each action contains all the adjustment layers and is non destructive so you retain your original.
Photo FX Photoshop Plugin
Gain access to 18 cool effects and filters to use when editing your images. The plugin includes 8 different filters, 9 different light leak effects, and a film grain effect that you can use immediately.
Tint and Black & White Conversion Plugin
This Photoshop tint plugin is perfect for adding tints to an image for artistic effect. Quickly apply a range of color tones or convert images into black and white for that retro feel.
Skin Beauty Retouch Plugin
Easily retouch skin tones with this plugin. With a 1-click application you can make any skin tone free of blemishes and look beautiful. This is a handy plugin when you want to make all your photos look their best.
Double Exposure (Envato Elements)
This Photoshop plugin gives you access to a set of 4 actions that simulate a double exposure effect. This effect works well with other Photoshop actions you may have installed.
Enhanced Sub-Pixel Diffusion
Thanks to this Photoshop plugin, you'll have the power to perform sub-pixel diffusion effects. With sub-pixel diffusion you can apply this effect when and where you would need to apply antialiasing.
Generate Ascii Art
This Photoshop plugin makes it easy to convert your images into an ASCII stylized image. ASCII art works by mapping heavier toned ASCII characters to dark areas of your image and lighter toned ASCII to the lighter areas. Not all images will translate well.
Oil Paint Photoshop Plugin
Convert any of your image into a realistic painted look without all the effort. In one click you can transform any image with a resolution size of 1000 to 4000 pixels.
Anaglyph Photoshop Actions (Envato Elements)
Save time, money and effort with this Photoshop resource. You will be able to quickly apply one of 4 basic anaglyph or 11 experimental anaglyph actions with a simple nondestructive click.
Generate Barnsley Fern Fractals
The plugin comes with over 3,500 presets, which can be used to texturize and alter photographs in thousands of different ways and make them look old, vintage, or otherworldly.
Machine Wash Deluxe is an incredibly fun plug-in to play with and will help you create unique images that stop viewers in their tracks. It will cost you $99 to access. But if you have a little extra cash to spend, you'll love the abstract photo transformations you can make with it.
Honorable Mention: CloudApp
CloudApp isn't technically a Photoshop add-on, plugin, or extension — at least not yet. But it will help you get the 'raw materials' you need to create great photos.
Our free screen recorder lets you record videos and take screenshots on mac and win of virtually anything, edit them in Photoshop, and then pass them on to your developer. If your developer has questions, they can take a screenshot of your finished product, annotate it, and send it back to you. You'll then be able to comment on those annotations and easily make the required changes.
CloudApp is available as a Mac App, a Windows App, and as a Chrome Plugin. This means that just about anyone can create visual content from their desktop device of choice!
If you want to streamline your Photoshop workflow and easily create the stunning visual materials needed to get the job done, consider signing up for CloudApp — it's free.
In Conclusion:
There you have it, the 10 best photoshop plugins in 2020. If you regularly use Adobe's legendary software, these tools will help you supercharge your workflow and create better visual content. Now you just have to decide which ones you want to use!
And don't forget about CloudApp! Our visual communication software is a great way to create the raw materials you need to edit inside of Photoshop. From screenshots to annotated images, use CloudApp to capture anything on your computer screen. Get started today for free!
Photoshop is, indeed, a powerful tool for editing your photos. But if you want to make sure you maintain consistency in your editing workflow or if you simply want to speed up the editing process, you'll need a quality Photoshop plugin.
From applying HDR effects to converting your images to black and white, there is a plugin for every situation and in this post, we've gathered the best free Photoshop plugins for photographers.
You might also like this collection of free Photoshop plugins for UI designers.
HDR Sharpener Tool
This tool makes it easy to create HDR-like effects for your images instantly. It will increase the dynamic range of the image and sharpen it in a non destructive manner.
KinemaPhoto-LITE
This Photoshop extension makes it easy to unleash your creative potential creating cinemagraphs, GIFs, and other animations. You will be able to create still images from a video layer, create video loops, and more.
CineStock Photoshop (Envato Elements)
This resource gives you the 18 Photoshop actions to simulate the look of cinematic effects popularized by movies and television series. Each action contains all the adjustment layers and is non destructive so you retain your original.
Photo FX Photoshop Plugin
Gain access to 18 cool effects and filters to use when editing your images. The plugin includes 8 different filters, 9 different light leak effects, and a film grain effect that you can use immediately.
Tint and Black & White Conversion Plugin
This Photoshop tint plugin is perfect for adding tints to an image for artistic effect. Quickly apply a range of color tones or convert images into black and white for that retro feel.
Skin Beauty Retouch Plugin
Easily retouch skin tones with this plugin. With a 1-click application you can make any skin tone free of blemishes and look beautiful. This is a handy plugin when you want to make all your photos look their best.
Double Exposure (Envato Elements)
This Photoshop plugin gives you access to a set of 4 actions that simulate a double exposure effect. This effect works well with other Photoshop actions you may have installed.
Enhanced Sub-Pixel Diffusion
Thanks to this Photoshop plugin, you'll have the power to perform sub-pixel diffusion effects. With sub-pixel diffusion you can apply this effect when and where you would need to apply antialiasing.
Generate Ascii Art
This Photoshop plugin makes it easy to convert your images into an ASCII stylized image. ASCII art works by mapping heavier toned ASCII characters to dark areas of your image and lighter toned ASCII to the lighter areas. Not all images will translate well.
Oil Paint Photoshop Plugin
Convert any of your image into a realistic painted look without all the effort. In one click you can transform any image with a resolution size of 1000 to 4000 pixels.
Anaglyph Photoshop Actions (Envato Elements)
Save time, money and effort with this Photoshop resource. You will be able to quickly apply one of 4 basic anaglyph or 11 experimental anaglyph actions with a simple nondestructive click.
Generate Barnsley Fern Fractals
With this Photoshop plugin you will be able to create wonderfully looking fractal designs. Generate eye catching patterns in any color with a little mathematical help and create random fractals or manifest your creative streak with controls for asymmetry and scaling.
White Balance / Highlight Recovery Plugin
This powerful Photoshop plugin will apply a white balance to your images. This makes your photos brighter and have more contrast. Using images shot in a RAW format will produce the best results.
Halftone Print Simulation Plugin
This Photoshop plugin will simulate halftone imagery through the use of dots. The images you create with this plugin can be printed with each color channel independently or all together. You can lock or unlock the color channels for black and whites or creating masks.
VHS Photoshop Action (Envato Elements)
With this plugin you will be able to quickly apply a glitched or VHS look to all your photos. Simply install the plugin, load your image and click play on the plugin. You will receive 1 action file, 1 pattern file, 1 file with brushes and instructional PDF.
Lens FX Plugin
Use this plugin to achieve special effects for all of your images. Choose from a pinch, push, sine variants, concave and convex versions as well as waves or ripples. This plugin can help you create wonderful pieces of art.
stylize!
Stylize is a wonderful and artistically based plugin that transforms your images into something that looks painted, water colored, or drawn. With dozens of styles to choose from, this will be a welcome addition to your Photoshop workflow.
Multi Purpose Pixelation Photoshop Plugin
With this plugin you will be able to make pixel art out of any of your images. This plugin supports an 8 and 16 bit channels with a color channel mode for professional workflows.
Watercolor Photoshop (Envato Elements)
This Photoshop action can be used to create digital artwork in 1 click. This plugin will generate the watercolor art and multiple layers that you can further tweak and customize.
Remove.bg Plugin for Adobe Photoshop
With this plugin you will save time working on backgrounds. Quickly and easily remove the backgrounds, even around challenging edges like hair. Use the layer mask to quickly remove or restore regions of an image.
Composition Grid Plugin
Photoshop Mosaic Plugins
This plugin will help you generate a grid that you can apply over your photo for easier editing. Each grid is generated as a separate layer so that you can apply the theory behind the Rule of Thirds, Golden Ratio, and Dynamic Symmetry.
Generate Randomly Fitted Boxes
Quickly and easily generate a mosaic of randomly sized boxes out of your images. This is a wonderful way to give your images a whole new artistic look. The box fitting tool provides control over how many boxes to create, the maximum size allowed, as well as an option to sample color from the original image or to use custom colors.
Summer Duotone (Envato Elements)
Save time with your image editing workflow with this resource highlighting the summer colors. This resource gives you 20 custom summer duotone actions to help get your summer design juices flowing.
Variable Channel Inversion Plugin
This simple but unique plugin allows precise, independent and variable color channel inversion. This will yield impressive results when full control of each channel is used. Choose colors from 8 or 16 bit channels for your project.
Adobe Photoshop Elements Plugins Free
Action Launcher Extension
If your Photoshop has amassed a large collection of actions and actionsets then you will want to get this launcher. Quickly and easily find all of your actions, sort them through a favorites selection, as well as run the actions right from the launcher.
Highpass Sharpen Photoshop Plugin
This Photoshop plugin introduces another high fidelity method of sharpening your images by using highpass frequencies. This is a method used by professionals in the production industry and a technique favored by professional photographers and photo retouchers alike.
Lens Vibrant Effects (Envato Elements)
With just a click you can apply any of the twenty vibrant filters to make great images that can be used for blog posts, book covers, social media, and more.
PolarProjection Generator
This polar projection plugin turns your panorama pictures into their own little worlds. The plugin takes the pain out of the long process to manually morph your panorama images into stereographic projections.
Automate Diptych & Triptych Layouts
Tych Panel is an extension that automates the creation of triptychs and diptychs. It also offers an easy way to set up your rows and columns for your image placement.
Stock Photo Site Photoshop Plugins
Use this article to fill up your creative library with useful Photoshop plugins that will save you hours of time during the photo-editing process.
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