Kubota describe themselves as the 'Mecca' of photo enhancing tools, and this latest industrial pak accompanies their extensive range of textures, borders and templates.
As usual with Kubota, you can try these metallic filters before you buy. With this pak you can give your images a man-made finish thanks to a selection of 50 metal themed textures. You'll be able to manipulate the filters to fit your images, giving them an edgy final touch that will make them stand out from the crowd.
Page Curl 2.0 allows you to create a page turn and page fold effect on both regular and arbitrary-shaped objects (such as non-rectangular objects, or areas with full or partial transparency.)
Ideal for ecovers and designers, this powerful plugin is straightforward to use and designed to fit in with other Photoshop tools. The latest update allows you to switch the direction of the folds and curls (choose between Upwards or Downwards), as well as supporting CMYK coloured images and much more.
Sorting through layers and layers of design work is a laborious, tedious task that is the bane of graphic designers and web designers everywhere. But thanks to PSD Cleaner, the process has got a whole lot easier.
From one simple panel, users can identify unnamed layers, recreate Photoshop effects in CSS, delete empty layers, find out if layers are beyond the canvas and much more.
The simple and efficient Velositey plugin makes short work of creating a website template. With over 60 templates to choose from and no charge (they only ask for social media mentions), Velositey is a polished, sophisticated tool that will benefit both designers and developers.
Everything has been designed to fit in with the existing Photoshop setup, so it only takes a couple of minutes at most to create a suitable website template for your project.
Currently in beta for version 4.0, Filter Forge offers thousands of filter effects, covering almost every application you can imagine. It's almost infinitely versatile and creative, and capable of a vast range of different styles and looks - and when you get bored with the presets, you can start making your own custom effects.
If you're a designer in a hurry, or you're not yet confident using Photoshop to create stylised images, virtualPhotographer is a quick and effective way to get some sophisticated looks in a hurry.
Although many web designers advocate designing in the browser, many designers remain wedded to Photoshop when creating interfaces. The problem is, Photoshop was initially designed as a retouching tool, and although it’s taken on features for working with layout, it’s still a frequently clunky tool for dealing with web design.
Subtle Patterns is a high quality library of free, tilable textured patterns by Atle Mo. The Subtle Patterns plugin feeds all this textured goodness directly into your Photoshop panel. You just click the pattern thumbnail and the texture is applied as a layer style to your current layer - a great time-saver and well worth $11.99.
Naming your layers right is the first rule of Photoshop etiquette. But sometimes you need to rename layers retrospectively, which can be a pain. With Renamy you can rename multiple layers at once, and there's even a cool autocomplete function to save your typing fingers. There's a free demo version so you can give it a try before you buy.
Pixel Dropr lets you create your own 100-piece collections of icons, buttons, UI kits or photos and instantly drop them into a Photoshop document while you work. A great way to boost your productivity when you're using assets across multiple projects.
There's a lot of swearing and obscenity on the Perspective Mockups site, which you may find either hilarious or offensive. But the plugin is definitely worth checking out. Essentially it's a great way to make perspective mockups for your designs using CSS3 3D transforms. The plugin sits within your Photoshop tools palette and includes eight different layouts to choose from.
CSS Hat is a a Photoshop plugin that turns your Photoshop styles into usable CSS3 for your website. You just click on a layer designed with some layer styles, and the markup pops up instantly, for you to copy to your clipboard.
If you want to download free icons, Freepik has launched a tool entirely dedicated to this end: Flaticon.com. The largest database of free vector icons, it enables you to download all of its thousands of icons in .svg, .psd or .png format. And this free plugin for Photoshop lets you quickly find all the icons without leaving your working environment.
This free plugin uses the cloud to perform the calculations required to convert your Photoshop layers into CSS3 layers, complete with live-rendered effects where these are achievable with CSS. So, drop-shadows, strokes, outer glows, text and rounded corners are all converted to CSS3 automatically. Well worth a try to see if it could save you valuable coding time.
This plugin carries an expensive price tag, but the results it can produce are absolutely stunning. Like Nik's Viveza plugin (number 25 on this list), there's a wide range of options with easy-to-use controls, but all focused around producing the best black and white photographs possible. Give the free trial a go and see what you think.
This unusual plugin uses fractal patterns, apparently hidden within the source image, to generate procedural effects that are reminiscent of pencil sketches, or stylised light glow streaks.
This all-encompassing suite of effects covers everything from textures to pseudo-3D effects, tonal correction and borders. It's not cheap, but covers such a wide range of effects that if you want to buy just one plugin, this should be in your shortlist of options.
Exposure is a creative tool that allows you to simulate film effects on your digital images, rendering analog-style finishes, borders, scratches and processing in a realistic and rewarding style. Version 4 adds to the already excellent Exposure 3 with additional controls for black/white, split toning and custom colour effects.
This filter brings insanely beautiful scratchy textures to your designs and images with accurate, believable weathering and aging effects. Effects include the ability to place artwork on a leather base, render onto wood with the grain visible through the artwork and rust effects. It produces especially nice effects on simple typography.
While Photoshop has come on leaps and bounds with its own 3D engine and rendering, there's still room for additional tools that can simplify the process of creating complex 3D scenes and models. This plugin features a simple object editor that uses a pen-like tool for drawing and editing shapes.
Blow Up allows you to create pin-sharp enlargements from photos without compromising on quality. The algorithm is more advanced than Photoshop's own bicubic filters, which allows the plugin to produce accurate images without artifacts. This makes it a great tool for designers where clients send over images that aren't of a high-enough resolution.
Photomatix Pro is an High Dynamic Range (HDR) processing and toning tool that integrates with Photoshop either standalone or as a plugin (depending upon which version you go for). This tool goes beyond Photoshop's built-in HDR processing capabilities, especially with the toning aspects and allows for the creation of extreme HDR images with relative ease.
Perfect Effects 3 FREE is a handy tool for getting a quick effect on an image, whether that's a colour treatment, addition of texture and noise, or creative borders. The plugin features an effects library (a bit like the filter gallery in Photoshop) and allows you to stack multiple effects to achieve interesting new results.
Noise is a problem for everyone, but no more so than Photographers who need to present clients with clean images regardless of the conditions when the shot was captured. Noiseware is a specialist noise-suppression tool that will both remove noise and sharpen at the same time making it a really useful addition to Photoshop.
A combination of three different filters for Photoshop that each provide seamless and rich textures you can incorporate into your designs. Some of these are a little predictable, but the sheer range available, along with the ability to generate true fractals, makes this a great addition to Photoshop.
Masking is a fine art all in itself, and while Photoshop has improved its built-in masking tools with CS5 and CS6, there's still plenty of room for a dedicated tool to help you get the cleanest and most accurate masks possible - especially around problem areas such as hair and fur. Fluid Mask makes this normally laborious process quick and (relatively) easy!
Portraiture is a combined plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture that automates the process of retouching portraits for a perfect-skin look. The plugin automatically smooths skin tones while removing blemishes and, crucially, avoids softening or destroying detail areas such as eyelashes and skin texture.
If you're a regular user of the PNG format, you'll know that Photoshop can sometimes struggle a bit to render PNGs quickly. SuperPNG aims to fix this by offering more control over your PNG output, allowing for a balance between speed and file size, control over the alpha channel and meta data. SuperPNG's a handy tool for taking control of your image export, and is free!
Wire Worm is a free plugin with a single, simple purpose that may save you a lot of time removing telephone wires, fences and similar obstructions in your images. The interface is simple, allowing you to select an area around a wire or other obstruction and have the tool automatically remove it. Results are surprisingly good, especially for the price!
EyeCandy has been around for over a decade, offering a broad range of effects ranging from fire to chrome, glass to extrusions. Useful for many different scenarios, a lot of the effects need dialing down from the default settings to achieve something other than a cheesy result, but there’s a lot of hidden gems in the suite.
Viveza 2 is a great solution for applying localised colour and lighting effects to your image. Working in a similar way to Lightroom’s local corrections feature, Viveza allows you to place points on your image and apply a series of effects that are automatically blended to give a professional result. Fantastic results are pretty easy to achieve, and above all else it's quick to use!
ToonIt is a straightforward way to turn regular photos into a cartoon-style image, suitable for use in graphic novels or other scenarios where you don’t want photo-realistic images but need to base images on a photographic original. The plugin works automatically on an image, but there is a degree of control you can exercise to change the final output. Niche, but fun!
Similar to its After Effects big brother, Knoll Light Factory for Photoshop allows you to create a host of advanced lens flares, integrating them into your image and adding immediate impact. There are over 100 presets, and you can build new flare effects to your own taste. A great tool for adding instant drama to photographs.
This straightforward plugin makes it simple to create diptych (double), triptych (triple) and ntych (quadrule+) panels within Photoshop. Choose the alignment, number of rows and columns, or hybrid layouts, and Tych Panel 2 will create the layout for you utilizing Smart Objects and layer masks to avoid destructive editing.
This simple Photoshop plugin makes it easy to create a grid system in your Photoshop document, hijacking the built-in guides system to create a pinpoint accurate grid according to your chosen settings. You can use negative margins for special hanging columns, separately define individual margins and gutters, and save your preferred options for quick access in the future. Perfect for anyone using a grid to help them create their layouts.
This super-handy CS6-only plugin makes it easy to export your designs from Photoshop to the web. Rather than rely on Photoshop's outdated export for web functionality, Cut&Slice me offers a new way of doing things; allowing overlapping slices, multiple button states and even exporting different resolutions of the same assets to cater for different screen sizes and devices.
This in-depth plugin integrates with Photoshop to allow for the creation of complete, functioning WordPress themes directly from a PSD file. You start by generating a PSD from within the plugin's own screens, then adapt the boilerplate design to suit your own aesthetic treatment. Once complete, you can export directly to WordPress, and edit otherwise static content using a special WordPress plugin. Ideal for non-technical users who want to get started in web template development.
This handy Photoshop script converts layer comps into a storyboard view, compositing your individual comps into a layout that can be easily output as PDF for printing and sharing with others. This turns Photoshop into a great place to create your blockbuster's storyboard, doing away with all the tedious manual positioning and exporting associated with generating your own board manually.
This Photoshop plugin is a freeware version of the full Boundary Noise Reduction plugin from Colormancer. Offering a simplified set of user controls when compared to the pro version, it's superior to Photoshop's own noise reduction filter.
While Photoshop offers a handy Lens Correction feature, this filter takes an entirely different approach. Use this Photoshop plugin to adjust the focal length, roll and horizon height to correct for panorama distortion easily.
This amazing free Photoshop plugin provides a new panel in Photoshop CS5 and above, allowing you to quickly access real-media preset effects in order to generate documents with natural paper backgrounds, realistic water-colour brush strokes and many more.
If you're looking for a quick way to generate abstract, random wave patterns for use as background art, this Photoshop plugin could be just what you need. It's phenomenally complex, and it’s surprisingly old - having been around for at least a decade - but still does the trick and creates some amazing patterns.
It's frustrating working on mockups where you plan to use web fonts in the final rendered web page, as up until recently it's been impossible to legitimately get those web fonts onto your system. This Photoshop plugin is one of a few solutions that are arriving, allowing you to instantly install and use Google Web Fonts inside Photoshop.
