14 Best Photoshop Plugins for Photographers in 2023 (Free & Paid)

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How often do you use Photoshop? You can add plugins to Photoshop to make it more functional. These are some of the best plugins that you can use.

Even though Photoshop comprises many editing tools, the experts always try to add new plugins that integrate with Photoshop to supplement more features. Marketers and photographers are adding more plugins so that they can achieve good results.

If you feel you’re not content with your Photoshop experience, consider the following Photoshop plugins and see if they suit your needs. Lucky for you, there are both free and premium plugins at your disposal.

1. RH Hover Color Picker

RH Hover Color Picker

This RH Hover Color Picker plug-in is suitable for graphic designers and artists. You will get artistic features effortlessly.  It helps to manage colors. Furthermore, it has customizable color sliders to provide you with better control, increase saturation, or decrease brightness.

When you draw, it will automatically hide and will only come back when you hover your mouse over the small icon. Additionally, it automatically minimizes its version, saving you a lot of time manually picking the colors

Price: $16


2. Luminar

Luminar

Luminar plugin is more of a focused photo editing tool. It's like having a picture editor built right into your photo editing program. As strange as this sounds, it's a focused utility that excels at making the most of your photographs without any of the non-photography features found in image editing.

Sky replacement, masking, object removal, among other tasks, have been much easier with this luminar plugin. It can also be used in the lightroom. If you're often editing raw pictures, this is the ideal plugin for you! Luminar is ideal when working with raw photos.

Price: $89


3. ON1 Effects

ON1 Effects

The good thing about ON1 Effects is that you get to explore diverse photo effects, presets, and filters. For those who like experimenting and want to achieve that cinema result in a click, this could be your solution.

Photographers who need immediate effects on images such as adding noise and texture, color treatment, or creative outlines, this may be the right plugin for you. It has a pre-existing filter gallery that lets you stack enough effects to achieve the best results.

Besides, it has an opacity slider that you can easily regulate when you think the effect is high. It exists as a standalone premium tool and a free plugin. Additionally, it allows you to stack multiple effects. It will make your photograph look stylish and unique

Price: £63.30


4. Nik Collection

Nik Collection

Nik Collection is among the most powerful photographic plugins ever seen. With their wide range, you can find some for free.

Some photo quality plugins like Viveza and EFEX Pro offer high-impact photo effects that will leave individuals to admire your creations.

It also lets you export photos in TIFF formats. In addition, it tweaks the edits while safely storing the originals. Additionally, it consists of high-impact photo effects

Price: £88.99


5. Guide Guide

Guide Guide

If you are looking for the best way to make guidelines and grids, then look no further. It is best suited for graphic designers.

GuideGuide is an essential Photoshop plugin that eases things up when creating grids. While at it, it hijacks the built-in guide systems to come up with pinpoint grids that are accurate based on your settings.

To quickly access later, you may consider applying negative margins for unique hanging columns or defining individual gutters and margins. This will save you a lot of time and options to choose from. Furthermore, it makes the use of negative margins doable and easy.

Price: £33 annually


6. Fontself Maker

Fontself Maker

Are you set to start making fonts? With Fontself maker, you can turn any picture into a font. This specific plugin allows you to any vector layer into that beautiful bitmap font.

Drag and drop the layers to develop new characters, shade, color, or texture you like. You are free to configure all features and control them according to character alternates and kerning. The plugin is being updated regularly to give you nothing but the best results.

Price: $39


7. B&W Effects

B&W Effects

Any serious professional photographer must have the Black and White plugin in their possession. There isn't anything you can think that Topaz hasn't created a tool for, whether it's creating texturing effects, rendering masking simple, or transforming your images into works of art.

This should be an integral part of any photo-editing toolbox since it uses a unique B&W conversion algorithm. It emphasizes color and texture help you obtain B&W photographs that scream.

Price: Free


8. Blow Up 3

Blow Up 3

Blow up 3 allows users to make razor-sharp enlargements with pictures without sacrificing quality. The algorithm is more sophisticated than Photoshop's native bicubic filters, allowing the plugins to generate accurate photos free of artifacts.

This makes it an excellent asset for illustrators when customers supply photos with low resolution. Additionally, it has a sophisticated algorithm and can enhance low-resolution assets

Price: $79


9. Particle Shop

Particle Shop

Thanks to the brush innovation of Photoshop, Particleshop has become easier. Digital art has since become most artists' ideal editing tool.

Brushes can drastically improve your performance and creativity, and this compelling Photoshop plugin provides non-destructive brushstroke texture support as well as updated brushes such as Debris, smoke, art, Fabric, Fine, Hair, Light, fur Space, and Storm. Additionally, it has a non-destructive layer system, over 10 updated brushes, and is run by powerful painter technology.

Price: $44.99


10. ON1 Resize

ON1 Resize

Have you ever tried zooming in a picture and noticed some quality change? Well, with ON1 resize, images can enlarge to over 100% and still retain their quality.

The good thing about this particular plugin is that it uses its powerful algorithms from fractals to optimize clarity and enhance image details.

ON1 resize is not only an image resizing tool but also offers image compression, built-in presets, manual control, and batch processing. It’s ideal for photographers and designers for batch processing.

Price: £63.60


11. CSS3Ps

CSS3Ps

It is ideal for any web developer since it converts Photoshop layers into CSS3. How easy is it to change your layers to CSS3? You can do it by clicking the CSS3P button.

It's entirely cloud-based, so there is no need to stress about revisions, and you can check your workout. This plugin is handy since it supports various features such as multiple layer selection, vendor prefixes, stroke, size, and inner shadow. Additionally, it supports many fantastic features

Price: free


12. Texture Anarchy

Texture Anarchy

This is yet another Photoshop plugin that provides users with a collection of diverse filters and textures to use while editing photographs. What distinguishes it from comparable plugins like ON1 Effects is that the textures it generates are based on fractal noise, making it simple to create natural visuals like fire, smoke, or marble.

Don't worry if the preceding text seems complicated if you're new to Photoshop or photo editing in general! Texture Anarchy is quite simple, even for newbies. It also comes with defaults to help you start from the right foot.

Price: free


13. Camera Raw

Camera Raw

This is a bare necessity that a good photographer would occasionally use. It helps edit raw pictures and can be used along with other file formats like TIFF and JPEG. If you don’t know what raw images are, they are the unprocessed data from that excellent digital camera you own.

With this adobe plugin, set white balance, adjust contrast and sharpen your raw pictures to your liking. In addition, it has the non-destructive feature that keeps the original copy. In case you wish to revisit after edits. This is a must-have tool.

Price: free


14. Eye Candy

Eye Candy

For decades now, Eye Candy has been among the popular plugins worldwide. Its seventh version contains a range of effects.

Even though many appear to be solely helpful for generating cheesy effects at first glance, you'll be surprised at how many circumstances you'll find them handy in. This is doubly true for freelance designers working under tight deadlines. When the effects are reduced from their normal levels, they become less phony and more functional.

Price: $89


How to install the plugins

How to install ps plugins

Step 1: Launch Photoshop.

Step 2: Choose “edit” from the menu bar that appears, then Preferences > Plugins.

Step 3: To accept new files, check the “Additional Plugins Folder” option.

Step 4: Install a plugin or filter on your computer.

Step 5: Open the Program Files folder and go to the Photoshop folder.

Step 6: Open the Plugins folder within your Photoshop folder.

Step 7: Move your new Photoshop plugin to the Plugins folder from your desktop.

Step 8: Reopen Photoshop and look for your new plugin in the Filters menu that appears.


How to use the plugins

How to use ps plugins

  1. Before installing any new plugins, ensure you shut down the running Adobe Photoshop application. The new plugin will fail to function unless you restart your PC.
  2. While closely following manual user instructions, install your plugin. Since every publisher is different, read the instructions carefully.
  3. Now restart adobe Photoshop and run the plugin to an available file. Confirm if the publisher needs you to verify the software, then proceed.
  4. A Smart Object can be created from a complete file, a set of layers, or a single layer. A Smart Object can be created from a complete file, a set of layers, or a single layer. To alter the outcomes of a Smart Filter, double-click its item in the Layers panel.
  5. Use appropriate third-party plugins installed in another program or an older version of Photoshop. Select the folder containing your plugins and click the “OK” button–the “Select” option on the Mac. Avoid choosing the main “Plug-ins” directory from a previous version since it will load earlier duplicates.
  6. If you have issues with a plugin, consider disabling it until the vendor releases a working version. On most computer keyboards, type a tilde— the” symbol that appears to the left of the numeral 1.

Edit Your Images Like A Pro

Plugins are essential to designers and photographers. They can take your creations overboard and leave people wondering how you did it. As they say, the best photographers never reveal their secrets.

All these plugins have roles to play; you just have to pick one that works for you. Try mixing them up until you get your signature look.

This article has not only outlined some of the best plugins but has also shown step by step guide to using and installing them. I hope they guide you into choosing the right plugin.

Good luck!

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