Photoshop is a fantastic tool for editing photos and creating magnificent works of art. Since its inception, this program has remained the most popular of its kind and continues to provide cutting-edge image editing technology and an array of mind-boggling features. If you want to edit your photos, add interesting filters, or even just add a copyright mark, Photoshop is a must-have piece of software!
Although Photoshop is undoubtedly a superb standalone product, you can use a myriad of third-party plugins that have been developed to extend its functionality. Some of these plugins are free whilst others are premium and require a one-off purchase fee. To show you how you can get the most out of Photoshop, we have listed seven useful plugins that are perfect for photo editing:
Ink
Ink is the perfect plugin for those who have to distribute their photography to other developers and designers. This plugin allows you to add instructions and specifications to your PSD files so that others can understand exactly what you have done. Ink is easy to use and is perfect for group projects where some parties may not fully understand what you have created.
Exposure 4
The exposure series of Photoshop plugins have been popular for many years and the most recent version – Exposure is simply fantastic. This simple but effective plugin allows you to create and apply some beautiful filters on top of your photos and images. The filters add some cool detail and effects to your photos, and you can also customize the filters using the built in controls. For each filter, you can change the black & white tone, add custom color effects, and add split toning too.
Portraiture
If you are a studio photographer or work consistently with portrait photography, Portraiture is the perfect Photoshop plugin. This plugin also works with Aperture and Adobe Lightroom too. Using this plugin, you can automate the retouching process that can be truly time consuming when done manually. The plugin works wonders on portraits and removes blemishes, smooth’s the skin and even maintains the quality of features such as eye lashes and skin texture. Portraiture is an absolute must for professional photographs and editors.
Aurora HDR
There is no easy way to create HDR photos…until you use Aurora HDR! This plugin for Photoshop is one of the most popular on the market and makes HDR photo creation a breeze. Once you have installed this plugin, you can upload your bracketed photos from your DSLR camera and merge them into awesome HDR compositions. The plugin features advanced tone mapping, effect masking and can be used to created full HDR photos from RAW files.
Machine Wash Deluxe
Machine Wash Deluxe is one of the most robust and intuitive filter plugins available for Photoshop. This plugin has a dual purpose – firstly you can apply a range of textured filters to create interesting and eye-catching text. Secondly, you can apply those same textured filters to your photos to create some gorgeous artistic effects. The effects and textures are simply superb and are easy to apply to both text and photos. If you are using your photos for promotional purposes or marketing, you can transform them using Machine Wash Deluxe and add a new level of depth and detail.
ScreenSnap
When working on photos, there are undoubtedly occasions where you wish to take screenshots of your work in progress. Using the standard Photoshop tools this can be an arduous process – you have to press the print screen button, create a new document, copy and paste the shot and crop it to size – do you really have time do to that? Screen Snap removes this annoying process and allows you to create screenshots of your work in a few simple clicks – you can select the file location and choose the image type etc.
Knockout 2
Cutting out a person can be a truly difficult task in Photoshop – you may be able to cut out their body easily enough, but the hair is where it becomes tricky! It is often difficult to cut out hair without the final product looking blocky and pixelated – you lose the natural waves of the hair. Knockout 2 provides a fantastic solution to this problem and allows you to remove objects from an image with ease. Whilst the Photoshop extract tool performs the same function, Knockout 2 does so in much greater detail and the depth of masking is fantastic.
Noiseware
Noise is a common problem in photography. When talking about noise in photography, we mean the background distortion – if you look closely at a photograph you will notice small grains of distortion, particularly in darker areas. This is due to the ISO setting of the camera and the light exposure when taking a shot. In most instances, noise is not an issue and unless you zoom right into a photo, you will not notice it. If you want perfect results however and a flawless picture with no noise pollution, a tool such as Noiseware is a must have. Noiseware is a fantastic tool which allows you to easily remove noise from your photos. The tool is easy to use and the end results are superb.
Color Styler
If you want your photos to have a special style, Color Styler is the plugin you should use. It recreates traditional film effects and gives your photo its own special style. It has been built to simulate over 73 color films along with various types of film grains that are backed up by special lab effects. It has over 20 different effects including, color, glow, vignette, gradient, infrared, polarizer, selective color and much more. It also has a masking tool brush and an eyedropper tool that gives you the power to adjust the brightness on a selected part of an image.
ParticleShop
This plugin has only recently become available as a Photoshop plugin but Corel has finally given in and released ParticleShop for use in Photoshop CSS. If you have not heard of this tool before then you are in for a treat. There may be instances when you are using your photography to create marketing or composites – maybe you want to add some textures or effects? Although Photoshop has a range of brushes and settings, the library is still limited – this is where ParticleShop works wonders.
ParticleShop provides an awesome set of brushes and textures that you can use to add some epic detail to your images. Brushes included are Debris, Fine Art, Fur, Hair, Light, Space, Smoke, Storm and Fabric – each one has a myriad of settings and can be used in a non-destructible way. For graphic design work this is undoubtedly one of the best brush plugins available.
We hope you have found this list useful – as you can see there is a myriad of different plugins available and these 10 examples are just the beginning. Why not try some of these plugins today and see how you can greatly improve your photo editing!