Rinniee Ginsburg
The designers who have hands on expertise on how to operate Photoshop can only create special effects on photographs or images in very less amount of time. But this thing does not apply with Photoshop plug-ins; one who doesn’t possess sound knowledge of Photoshop, can even perform bigger task with the blinking of an eye with the help of Photoshop plug-in.
The emergence of Photoshop plug-ins has made the work of designers very easy and led them to perform the same task which they used to perform in Photoshop alone, in a more effective and in a much better way without putting any more efforts. No doubt, Photoshop is an amazing graphics application that has changed the world of graphic design, Web design and digital photo editing. So one can imagine what one can do if this remarkable application will be used along with Photoshop plug-ins. Photoshop plug-ins add additional functionality to the Adobe Photoshop, which in turn helps designers to attain additional image effects or performing those tasks that are impossible or hard to perform using Adobe Photoshop alone. Photoshop plug-ins make even complicated task much easier and help users in creating amazing effects, designing faster & better.
These days, there are lots of free Photoshop plug-ins available which can fire the skills of designers. This post aims to present most comprehensive list of Photoshop plug-ins which might be appreciated by you. These plug-ins will make your work easier, faster and better and even reduce the number of steps to accomplish tasks which you used to take while working on Photoshop alone. So, get ready to check out these plug-ins. Please convey us your thoughts what you have gained from this post by your valuable comments. We are sure you will find this post useful.
Wire Worm
The Wire Worm plug-in is really very effective and comes with a set of features that distinguishes it from other tools. It can remove wires and other unwanted objects from your images and possess ability to fine-tune patches after placement. It performs advanced color matching for seamless patches without color bleeding.
Soft Focus Photoshop Plug-In
Soft Focus is another Photoshop plug-in which is responsible for applying a soft focus effect on images. Soft focus is often useful in portraits or fashion photography. This plug-ins possesses various controls to adjust the focus softness, the overall strength of the effect and the blending mode of the overlayed blurred image.
ReDynaMix HDR
ReDynaMix HDR is another important Photoshop plug-in which has an easy-to-understand interface, with immediate previews for settings and gives HDR-like effect to your images.
Virtual Photographer Photoshop Plug-in
Virtual Studio is a well known Photoshop plug-in which allows you to open and save more than 30 file formats including jpg, jpeg2000, png, bmp, gif, tiff, psd and some other RAW files. It enables you to instantly apply photographic effects to digital images in a single click and in this way save your time.
Chalkaholic Photoshop Plug-in
Chalkaholic plug-ins facilitates you with uniquely effective artistic rendering options which let you to add chalk and charcoal type effects with artistic panache and flair on your images. It is of highly importance for those who want more flexibility and control.
Weaver Photoshop Plug-in
Weaver Photoshop is very useful Photoshop plug-in which imitates weave pattern. With the help of this, you can better control size of image, specify the range of size you wish to work with, as well as specify the texture size.
Photomatix
Photomatix is an effective Photoshop plug-in which is generally used for creating high dynamic range (HDR) photographs. With the help of this plug-in, the photographers can merge photographs of various exposures into one image with increased dynamic range, and can also reveal highlight and shadow details in an HDR image created from multiple exposures.
Julijulia’s Curves Photoshop Plug-in
JuliJulia’s Curves is extremely plug-in and is a part of a family of mathematical curves (fractals) which is renowned for their beauties. It allows endless zooming, to customize colors, to save settings, and to track down an interesting curve.
Retro Dots
Retro Dots are an amazing Photoshop plug-in which generates dot grids which can be based on selections. It’s helps the beginners to create colorful dot patterns easily with a single click.
Blots
Blots are a remarkable plug-in which is very ideal to create textures. It is available in three modes, i.e. normal, camouflage & gradient as described below:
Normal: This mode is the most simple in which blots combine the background color and the foreground color to create an extra ordinary effect.
Camouflage: This mode allows you to stack blots of different colors to obtain a “camouflage” texture.
Gradient: This mode exploits the Gradient Map effect and works with gradients made by Gradient Smithy plug-in.
Color Megamix
Color MegaMix modifies the colors of any image and is used to choose a column use radio buttons, to define a source color use the eyedropper as well as to define the target color use R/G/B or H/S/B controls. It is based on two rows of colors: 8 source colors and 8 target colors.
AutoEye
AutoEye is a useful Photoshop plug-in for image editing which can instantly correct and enhance images. If you have not that much idea about color correction or processes such as adjustment, curves, levels, cast removals, contrast and histograms, this plug-in is best for them. It can automatically improve digital images by rebuilding color detail, sharpness and image vibrancy using a totally different set of adjustment methods.
Eraser Genuine – Erase Certain Parts of Images
Eraser Genuine is another plug-in which modifies image transparency by erasing based on two criteria. The first one is the color you wish to erase and the second the color which you wish to protect. This plug-in is of extreme importance particularly where two colors oppose clearly in a image.
Altostorm Rectilinear Panorama
Altostorm Rectilinear Panorama is a unique tool that corrects panorama distortion, including geometric image distortions perspective shift, curved horizon, lens distortion, skewing, and rotation, complex asymmetrical and irregular distortions of panoramic images. It recovers real shapes and sizes of objects; restore the natural look of images, and corrects panoramic and conventional (not panoramic), scanned and digital images. It is well compatible with Adobe Photoshop CS5, Photoshop CS5 64-bit, Photoshop Elements 9 and other host applications.
Fine Threshold
Fine Threshold plug-in allows you to get quickly, anti-aliased and sharp shapes and works particularly well with scanned logos. If anybody is wishing to reproduce a logo for a website, then this is the most suited plug-in for them. You may use this plug-in and compare the result with normal threshold.
Flat Median
Flat Median provides a median-like effect which has some advantages over the “regular” median filter. With the help of this plug-in, you can control the level of flatness and you will be able to see how at low level of flatness the result look like a regular blur, while at high level the result look more contrasty. In addition to these, you can apply the effect on horizontal or vertical directions.
Sinedots
Sinedots plug-ins as the name reveals are used to create sine wave patterns in your design works. It is well featured with enhanced anti alias, color support, blend modes, more parameters for enhanced control, 16 bit support, enhanced compatibility and much more. The below presented figure will make you more clear.
Melt Photoshop Plug-in
Since, size, intensity, and aspect ratio of waves are customizable, this plug-in allows deforming image, by setting the size of the wave, and setting relation between the width and height of waves.
Projection Photoshop Plug-in
The Projection plug-in possess the ability to tile image in infinite space (copy or mirror mode), or to repeat edges. It provides a collection of interactive perspective effects and with it 3D effect can be reached simply by moving the corners of the image.
Posterizer Photoshop Plug-in
Posterizer is a renowned Photoshop plug-in which offers the possibility to posterize the luminosity and the hue and also controls the number of levels for the posterization of the luminosity. It should be noted that the posterization of the hue is limited to three levels only.
Stereogram Lab Filter
Stereogram Lab Filter allows you to generate hidden image stereograms right in your Photoshop, which is quite convenient. It is available free which you can use for both for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
Turn Your Images into Mosaic
Mosaic is Adobe Photoshop compatible plug-in which makes your photos look as if they were created out of a mosaic tile. Mosaic is a part of the Dream Suite Series product line. Its features like photo-realistic depth and variable tile size and color options give an image an elegant effect along with an infinite number of looks.
Auto FX – Dreamy Photo
Dreamy Photo is an effective plug-in which gives a soft romantic feel with a superb effect to the images digital camera photos and any image you want to add a warm feel. It is really a useful plug-in for graphic and web designers.
Background Remover
Background Remover is a Photoshop-compatible plug-in whose main purpose of the Background Remover is to extract some part of an image i.e. ‘the object’ and remove part that which is unwanted, i.e. ‘the background’. It is capable of determining areas of pixels to be modified, areas of pixels to be partly modified and areas of pixels to remain unmodified and ensures that the cut-out object will blend or composite correctly with a different background. With the help of this plug-in you can easily remove the background images from your photos.
Xpose – Photoshop Plug-in To Adjust Exposure
Xpose is an exposure adjustment plug-in which facilitates the user with quick adjustment of highlights and shadows with a rapid preview feedback and a simple, intuitive interface. With just a few sliders in this plug-in, you can attain better exposure of your digital photos.
Gradient Blur
This is a versatile plug-in which applies a gradient blur that can help the designers to draw the views attention to the photograph’s main subject. It consists of various sliders which are used to control the position where the blur starts.
High Pass Sharpening
This is a remarkable plug-in which is used to sharpen photos with the classic high pass method. The user can easily adjust the high pass filter radius, and control the blending with the original image and also helps the user adjust the filter radius up to the point the edges to be sharpened show up. Generally, high pass sharpening is considered to produce fewer halos and other sharpening artifacts than USM.
Photoshop Black-White Conversion Plug-in
Photoshop Black-White Conversion Plug-in is a powerful plug-in which is very useful for Black and White conversion. It takes total control over the tonal response of Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue and Magenta, and the intermediate hues and offers presets that accurately simulate the tonal response of the most popular b/w films. It can excellently introduce a grain effect of controllable intensity and density.
Fur 2
The Fur 2 is an excellent Photoshop plug-in which disperse a simple figure (line or circle, configurable dimensions/thickness) over the whole image.
Water Ripples Creator
Water Ripples is a freeware Adobe Photoshop compatible plug-in filter which produces highly realistic water ripples effect on image and facilitates the designer with numerous options to enrich their designs with variations of rippled surfaces effect as well as an impressive 3D quality effect.
Jama 3D Photoshop Plug-in
Jama 3D is another freeware Adobe Photoshop compatible plug-in filter and is the simplest way to create corrugated and cellular like patterns from 2D images. This plug-in is extremely compact and accessible with the help of which one can easily make various bricks and herring bone textures.
Lattice Composer
Lattice Composer is a freeware Adobe Photoshop compatible plug-in filter which effectively designs grids and nettings and produces a variety of weave patterns, fabric textures, body art tattoos and skeleton simulations.
Local Contrast Enhancement
Local Contrast Enhancement plug-in is used for increasing the contrast between a pixel’s value and the mean value of the adjacent pixels in a local area of the photo. With the help of this plug-in, one can control the amount of the increase of contrast, the size of the local area and the amount of blending with the original photo.
Smart Refinement Filter
Smart Refinement Filter is an Adobe Photoshop plug-in which is used for the enhancement of photographic images. This plug-in allows the designers for sharpness and depth-of-field (DOF) enhancement, and noise (dust) reduction etc.
