Adobe Photoshop is a very popular graphics editing program that comes
with a ton of features – way too many to name. It’s hard to imagine
that anyone could even need more features. Yet
Photoshop supports extensions, which allows you to
add even more useful features to the program. Some extensions add a single feature, while others add a multiple amount of new features.
It’s not necessarily used by just
web and
graphic designers but can also be
utilized by any creative out there, ranging from photographers to bloggers, as it’s quite a handy tool to have. Have a look at our list featuring
18 of the best free Adobe Photoshop extensions that will be useful for all creatives.
This extension gives you instant access to
free and premium design content
from Creative Market, which is a large community for independent
creatives around the world. Each week you can get free graphics,
templates, fonts, brushes and more.
With BlendMe.in you can browse through thousands of
icons,
vectors
and other assets provided for free under a Creative Commons Attribution
3.0 Unported License. When you find something you like, you can easily
drag it into your Photoshop composition for use.
Flaticon gives you quick access to over
25,000 vector icons
right from within Photoshop. A search bar is included, which makes it
really easy to find just the icon that you’re looking for.
It’s often quite a challenge removing noise, such as unwanted dots
and unnecessary pixels of color, from images. This extension simplifies
that task by removing noise from
DSLR (digital single-lense reflex) images and film scans. It’s basically a filter that you can add to Photoshop, and it comes with Smooth Area Detector.
Photoshop comes with a large selection of fonts by default, but with
the addition of the Fonts.com Web Fonts extension you can get access to
thousands more. The extension lets you
preview and try out Web fonts within your Photoshop projects. You will need a Fonts.com account to use this extension.
Natural Media Toolkit gives you access to a
versatile collection of natural media, texturing and product tools.
You can do things like create documents that you look like real paper,
use realistic watercolor brush and blending tools, add dimension with
texturing tools, add guides to your projects, and much more.
This extension is good for photographs that have a lot of white in them as it helps to
balance out the white level.
As said by the creator, “…highlight recovery offers the possibility of
increasing dynamic range compared to no highlight recovery.”
This easy-to-use extension lets you update multiple layer comps in
just one click. First select any layer(s), then select any layer
comp(s), finally use one of the four commands to update the selected
layer comps. The four commands are:
update layer style, update position, update visibility and
update all.
Here’s another Web font extension. It gives you access to
thousands of WebINK Web fonts from foundries like MoreType, OurType, TypeTogether and more. You can also connect to
Google Fonts and get access to 1100+ more font families. You will need a WebINK account in order to use this extension.
If you use CSS3 in your designs, you’ll love this cloud-based extension. It lets you convert your layers to actual
CSS3 code right from Photoshop. All you have to do is
select the layer(s) and click a button to convert them. It’s extremely easy to use.
Sometimes changing something as small as the tint of an image can
make a huge difference. This extension does just that. You can
add artistic effects using sepia tone, warm/cool filters, bleach bypass and more. You can also
convert images to black and white
and there are sliders that let you manually change things like the tint
strength, tint hue, brightness, contrast and saturation.
VirtualPhotographer is the ultimate extension for
applying professional looking styles and effects to your images,
in just one click. You can also make adjustments to the color, film
grain, focus, brightness, ambiance and contrast. Plus, it lets you add
high quality effects, convert images to black and white, create stunning
portrait effects and more.
Similar to VirtualPhotographer, Perfect Effects 4 lets you enhance
your images with styles and effects. You can choose from over
70 effects, textures, borders
and more. This tool can actually be used as a standalone program, as
well as an extension for Photoshop. In just one click, you can add any
effect, and you can even
combine effects to create unique looks.
If you like to
use guides in Photoshop (ie. for
wireframing or tables) this extension is for you. You can use it to
create columns, rows, midpoints and baselines. You can also save
frequently used guide sets for easy access.
Cut&Slice Me is an advanced extension that you lets you
cut and export your assets to different devices in png format in the size of you want. In addition to exporting to your computer, you can also export to iOS and Android devices.
The Mr. Stacks extension is a script that can
create layer comp storyboards, stacks and PDF files
in seconds. This is great for client presentations since it provides a
single banner for them to look at, as opposed to you having to switch
between multiple items.
Photoshop Tones Action is a simple Photoshop extension that can
take a single color and create tones
(shades and tints) from it. This is really useful for creating color
palettes or for finding different variation of colors for a design
scheme.
Long Shadow Generator
is a Photoshop extension that can create extremely long shadows in a
single click. You can play around with it to create really neat effects.
The plugin allows you to customize the length and opacity level, choose
black or white, change the angle, and choose flatten or gradient.
Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments any other free Photoshop extensions that you think should be on this list.
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