Adobe Photoshop, a widely recognized and influential image editing software, has gained immense popularity among photographers, graphic designers, web developers, and artists for its robust image manipulation and enhancement capabilities.
While Photoshop is a powerful tool, many users incorporate third-party plugins to extend its features and optimize their creative workflow.
In this article, we will learn about the essential plugins for Photoshop, which play a pivotal role in elevating the quality of creative projects and enhancing productivity.
Here is a list of the best essential plugins for Photoshop you should try.
A collection of image editing plugins known as the Nik Collection was first created by Nik Software, which was later acquired by Google and then by DxO.
This set provides a range of plugins, each one made to address specific aspects of photo editing. Analog Efex Pro is a highly notable plugin in the Nik Collection that enables the replication of the nostalgic appearance and feel of analog photography.
This plugin gives your digital photos a retro feel by offering an abundance of vintage camera and film effects.
In addition to Analog Efex Pro, the Nik Collection offers several other essential plugins:
Color Efex Pro has a multitude range of filters and effects. Color Efex Pro enables you to make vibrant color adjustments and creative enhancements to your photos.
Silver Efex Pro for those who appreciate the art of black and white photography.
Viveza precise, selective adjustments are at the core of Viveza.
Dfine makes use of strong algorithms to minimize noise in your images while keeping all the important details, guaranteeing that your high-quality photos stay unaltered.
Sharpener Pro one of the most important aspects of photo editing is getting the ideal amount of detail and sharpness in your photos.
Luminar AI, developed by Skylum, is an all-in-one photo editing solution that also functions as a Photoshop plugin.
It combines the power of photo editing with AI-powered improvements, resulting in an easier and faster editing process that’s accessible to photographers and designers of all levels.
The key features of luminar AI include, enhancing portraits, wide range of templates, skin retouching, removing imperfections, etc.
Luminar AI is a great option for photographers and designers looking for an easy-to-use, AI-powered solution that makes complicated editing tasks simpler and enables them to quickly produce stunning results.
ON1 Effects is a collection of over 200 presets and filters for Photoshop that can be used to add stunning effects to your images. It is a great tool for photographers and graphic designers who want to create unique and professional-looking images.
ON1 Effects includes a wide range of effects, such as portrait effects, landscape effects, HRD effects, black and white effects, and creative effects.
A range of Photoshop plugins from Topaz Labs are available for specialized tasks like HDR imaging, noise reduction, and sharpening. Topaz Labs offers several plugins, such as Topaz Adjust, Topaz Sharpen, and Topaz Denoise.
Alien Skin Exposure is a film simulation plugin that offers a vast selection of historical, vintage, and modern film looks. This plugin is best for film emulation, covering everything from color to black and white, including cross-processing.
Its most recent version, Exposure X7, offers non-destructive RAW editing, retouching, and effect layering as well. Other popular plugins include Snap Art and Blow up 3.
This plugin stands out due to its 3D functionality. You can adjust the rotation in Photoshop using its pre-rendered 3D objects, providing you with a realistic 3D perspective.
With the help of its well-organized library, you can easily add 3D elements to your compositions and make your design ideas a reality.
Optics by Borix FX is a Photoshop plugin that provides various tools for adding realistic optical effects to your images. It is especially useful for filmmakers and video editors who want to create professional-looking effects.
Optics’ unique filters and thousands of presets across various categories make it simple. It features distortions, blurs, tints, and a brand-new particle illusion that can produce video animations and other sci-fi effects like smoke, fire, water, sparkles, and dust.
It functions as a stand-alone application or as a Photoshop plugin.
With the help of the Photoshop plugin Adobe Camera Raw, users can improve their RAW, TIFF, JPEG, and other file types. You can combine colors, sharpen, adjust contrast, and more for your unprocessed RAW image data with this plugin.
Adobe Camera Raw uses non-destructive editing. It provides a wide range of tools for adjusting exposure, contrast, color, and other aspects of your images.
Photoshop itself includes Adobe Camera Raw. Therefore, installing and using the plugin requires a $10 subscription.
The Filter Forge Photoshop plugin has a wide range of applications, with over 14,000 effects and textures available. As of right now, Filter Forge is on version 10, but version 11 is expected by the end of 2021 and will be given away for free to users who buy version 10 now.
Users can now load any image or filter into different tabs, compare them, and adjust the settings because of a useful feature. Plus, there’s a useful backup tool.
This allows you to compress your filters and settings into a single archive file that you can restore later on a different computer, a different version of Filter Forge, or even a different platform if you need to move from one computer to another.
The Photoshop plugin BrushBox offers a way out of the Photoshop brush maze, which may easily be overwhelming. BrushBox allows you to group your brushes and color-code them (you may also add different backgrounds).
This will help you arrange your brushes more effectively. To avoid having to repeatedly make the same adjustments, you can override a brush’s default parameters and designate your favorite brushes.
All these plugins boost Photoshop’s capabilities and allow you to experiment with your photos in various creative ways.
However, the ‘essential plugins for Photoshop can vary depending on individual needs, preferred genres, and level of expertise. Always consider your specific needs and workflow while choosing plugins.
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