Adobe Photoshop stands alone as the most powerful and widely utilized editing tool suite for graphic illustrators and designers across every skill level. This heavyweight standalone application lets you work wonders with just about any image file, and several new AI features from Adobe have only made the job easier.
While Photoshop’s core capabilities lead the industry, there is always room for improvement. Professional designers start experimenting with plugins because they present clear opportunities to boost efficiency through a more simplified workflow. With just a few clicks, a plugin could sharpen pictures instantly or create gradients. Others let you source high-quality stock images without ever leaving the app. Now, let’s take a look at the best 10 Photoshop plugins for 2022.
Pexels Photoshop plugin
Easy access to a diverse pool of free stock images is crucial for designers. Stock photos enhance backgrounds and textures and make good starting points for conceptual and experimental design projects. Pexels provides designers with a free Photoshop plugin on its website. Apart from its exceptional image library, the best feature of this plugin is you don’t have to open a new window or navigate to Chrome for the stock image you have in mind.
Luminar 4
For workflows that entail a lot of photo editing, the Luminar 4 plugin for Photoshop is an invaluable tool. The plugin, which is essentially a spinoff of Lightroom, includes more than 300 photography-specific editing tools, such as single-click presets, a long list of filters, and the Accent AI filter. It plugs directly into Lightroom, as well, and is available to Mac and PC users at an affordable one-time fee.
ON1 Effects
The ON1 Effects plugin supplies Photoshop users with an easy-to-use one-click panel. Interestingly, you can use the plugin as a standalone app and perform many of the same editing functions as Photoshop and other graphic design applications from Adobe. ON1 Effects lets you choose from a wide selection of filters displayed in a well-organized panel and apply them on top of your Photoshop layers in a single click.
RH Hover Color Picker
Those familiar with Photoshop know that the software includes a perfectly suitable color picker. However, the RH Hover plugin makes color picking easier than Photoshop’s inbuilt feature, which many users regard as too touchy and unnecessarily complicated. The RH Hover Color Picker streamlines the color selection process by simplifying access to the same wide range of colors found in the Photoshop version of this tool. This plugin also gives you a full, unobstructed view of your project.
The Fontself Maker plugin
Despite the many free resources for creative fonts online, Fontself is worth the investment to ensure a consistently unique project outcome. The plugin works with Illustrator and Photoshop, letting you effortlessly turn your lettering into OpenType fonts.
Layers Control 2
Experienced Photoshop users know how important layers are to the design process. Some projects require so many layers that keeping track of them all is almost impossible. Layers Controls 2 improves layers management through several accessible actions displayed in an easy-to-interpret panel. You can use this plugin for everything from naming new layers and resizing smart projects to removing unused effects and deleting empty layers.
Camera Raw
Serious designers and photo editors capture their images in raw format. If that’s you, then the Camera Raw plugin for Photoshop is a must-have. It’s one of the best tools for editing raw images, and you can even use it for the JPEG and TIFF file formats. The most convenient aspect of Camera Raw is that you don’t have to jump from Photoshop to Lightroom anymore. You can complete all your typical Lightroom edits in Camera Raw.
Aurora HDR
If you’re into creating rich HDR images and want to get the most out of this type of file, the Aurora plugin is your best option. Aurora HDR’s straightforward interface and advanced editing features make HDR image control easy.
Boris FX Optics
The Optics plugin is new to Photoshop, offering an impressive suite of lens flares, film looks, lighting effects, and gobo patterns. Boris FX Optics is one of the best plugins for applying the cinematic look to your photos. This add-on has over two decades of awarding-winning experience in producing video effects software.
Infinite Color
This Photoshop plugin provides an accessible smart color grading tool that helps you create a truly unique image through a randomized set of adjustment layers. Infinite Color is aptly named. This extension renders so many different color permutations that the results are always one of a kind. This is the go-to Photoshop plugin for designers looking to cut hours off the Photoshop color selection process while achieving the same professional-looking results.
Get the most out of Photoshop with the latest plugins
Photoshop is a marvelous and largely unrivaled tool, but each plugin listed above has a specific purpose that helps you get the most out of the image editing software. Experimenting with Photoshop plugins is a great way to unlock and simplify many powerful Photoshop features that might otherwise take months to learn. For more Photoshop tips, check out our quick tutorial about creating duotone images.
