There are so many amazing free Photoshop plugins you can download but a lot of them are not compatible with Photoshop CS6. To save you time, we spent the entire day finding and testing the best Photoshop plugins you can download free. There are plugins for photo effects, noise reduction, painting, abstract art, layouts, and more! Download some Photoshop plugins today!
Photographers
There are LOTS of photography plugins for Photoshop. Unfortunately, many of them were too outdated or did something that wasn’t very useful/could already be easily done in Photoshop. But out of the ones that we liked, there were two that stood out: Boundary Noise Reduction and ReFocus DC. Boundary Noise Reduction is a good noise reduction plugin that rivals their expensive competitors and ReFocus DC can fix your blurred photos with amazing results.
Perfect Effects 4 Free
Apply one of 73 photo effects to your photos and combine them for even more effects! This plugin lets you apply these effects with control over masking, painting, and blending. The effects look nice but they don’t quite match up to many of the free retro Photoshop actions. Downloading this plugin requires your email address which will automatically subscribe you to their newsletter. You can opt out of the newsletter at any time. After installation, you can access it by going to Window > Extensions > onOne.
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Freeware Boundary Noise Reduction
This is the freeware version of the Boundary Noise Reduction plugin used to reduce noise in your photos. This isn’t a trial or watermarked software; it works just like the commercial version except it’s simplified with less controls. To install, copy the files in the ZIP file to your Photoshop\Plug-ins\Filters folder. The filter can be accessed in the Filter > Colormancer menu. The results were superior to Photoshop’s noise reduction filters and it’s really easy to use. Reducing just the noise can make your image look soft but the filter can bring back some of the original B&W details to keep your image sharp.
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Wire Worm
Although there are already many tools in Photoshop that lets you remove powerlines, you might benefit from this plug-in made exclusively for removing wires. Wire Worm works pretty similar to the Clone Stamp tool with its own color matching algorithm. I found Wire Worm to be easier than the Clone Stamp tool and it gives better results too! I just wished there was a zoom tool because the preview area is stuck to 100%. To install, copy the file to your Photoshop\Plugins\Filter folder. This plugin only works on the 32-bit version of Photoshop (not the 64-bit).
Pano Warp
Photoshop is a great tool for creating panoramas but as with many panoramas, they can look distorted. To fix it, you can use this Pano Warp plugin which applies distortion corrections so that the curved lines in your panoramas look straight. It works much different than the Lens Correction filter. To install, copy the file to your Photoshop\Plugins\Filter folder. Unfortunately, this plugin is also only compatible with 32-bit version of Photoshop (not the 64-bit).
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ReFocus DC
Every photographer has a nice photo ruined by misfocusing. If you need to rescue that photo, this plugin will deblur your photo. It won’t magically fix the most blurry photo and it isn’t made for motion blur, but for small blurs, it does a surprisingly good job. I did some tests and used the Gaussian Blur filter to give it a 1px blur and it was able to deblur it with great results (see thumbnail on the left). For images with motion blur, the streaks are still there but the sharpness is improved and you can see much more details with it deblurred. This plugin only works with the 32-bit version of Photoshop and you can install it by copying it to your Photoshop\Plug-ins\Filters folder.
31 thoughts on “18 of the Best Freeware Photoshop Plugins That Actually Work”
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Can these plugins be used in Photoshop Elements?
Unfortunately not
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If you stay on the site long enough looking around it will give you the option to sign up.
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This looks like a great tool. I’m going to try it out. Currently.
this information most important for me.
Thank’s, very usefull.
Some default plugins was removed in CS5, but they are still very useful. You can download them free here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4688
Matur Suwun Gan
Bojan Živković thanks friend
Thanks for recomendation :-)
Two outstanding free plugins, especially for painters:
– Deep Paint 2D (includes a standalone);
– Impressionist (from Microsoft?!?).
Google it.
Tested on all Win32 versions, CS2 –> CS6.
thank you
mAaA KI PhuDdDI :P
Thanks for the tips on plug-ins.
photo fil
There is also “Export Pro” it’s a new plug-in still in beta
http://www.sugarvds.com/ExportPro/
Its a one-click exporter for Photoshop, worth taking a look
Filter Forge is excellent but not free and quite pricey.
Since it was said that I could give a freeware plug in one that I know of is Colorus the colorwheel
this post is very helpful which iwas looking for.
Appreciate your efforts but most of these look so dated or tacky. The good ones are not free, but you get what you pay for.
Agreed. Most are tacky and not worth looking at. ReFocus appears to pretty interesting… deblurring at its finest. Just hope it’s not just another “sharpening” plugin.
Good list! You even tell us if it’s for 64-bit or not
What about this one?
http://www.artistic-effects.com/3d-shadow/
We tried that one but couldn’t recommend it because the preview window didn’t let you zoom in/out or pan around. It was stuck at 100% zoom which meant that you can’t see the preview if you were working on a high-res photo.
There are and Russel Brown scripts not mentioned here http://www.russellbrown.com/scripts.html,
Thanks for the links! We didn’t bump into Russel Brown’s scripts but they look useful. MEHDI has a lot of great filter plugins too
On the site MEHDI you can find lot of free Ps plugins. I found most useful Kaleidoscope http://www.mehdiplugins.com/english/kaleidoscope.htm
How did you install Kaleidoscope so that it works in
CS6? I put it the plug-ins folder and also tried using the preferences>plugins to create a different folder and put it in there and pointed the plugin to c:\plugs. Nothing seemed to work.