Photoshop provides a variety of effects—such as shadows, glows, and bevels—that change the appearance of a layer's contents in a non-distructive way. Layer effects are linked to the layer contents. When you move or edit the contents of the layer, the same effects are applied to the modified contents. Kai's Power Tools special effects filters were once considered a must-have plug-in suite for Photoshop-compatible graphics software. In 1999, Corel bought Kai Krause's popular effects filters from MetaCreations and soon released a new set of effects under the title Procreate KPT Effects. Free, commercial Adobe Photoshop Plugins, Corel Paint Shop Pro plug-ins, Adobe After Effects. Includes.8bf plugins, free & commercial Photoshop.ico format plugins, FlamingPear SuperBladePro presets, Windows, Mac, and more.
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The Photoshop community is chock-full of many free resources, tutorials, tips and techniques, .psd files and even Actions. There is one area that it sadly lacks in, and that is free plugins, filters and panels. Of course, Photoshop has been the pioneer in graphic editor development for a long time now, and with each new version has added an endless supply of features and addons, and as a result, perhaps the need for free plugins or filters is no longer required. Or has it been ignored?
Further Reading on SmashingMag:
Traditionally plugins are an amateur photographer's best friend, take your shots, fire up Photoshop, apply some well preset filters, and hey presto you have a reasonably professional image. Professional photographers have been known to use plugins as a base and then tweak and add effects to achieve a personal professional touch. Plugins are basically an indispensable tool that do not receive the attention they deserve. And that brings us back to our original mystery, why are there so few free plugins and filters? Do you know the answer? I don't.
In this A-Z of free Photoshop plugins and filters you will find a few plugins that are (almost) as old as time itself, do not fear, they will work perfectly on all versions of Photoshop and the effect they produce are just as useful now as they were then. If you are looking for a simple and easy method to add effects to an image, this is the post for you.
A-Z of Free Photoshop Plugins & Filters
Watercolor Photoshop Action
Turn your photo — or only parts of it — into a watercolor painting that looks as if it comes straight out of an artist's treasured sketchbook. To apply the effect, brush onto the areas you want to turn into watercolor art and play the action. More Details and Downloads (affiliate link)
Architectum
Clean edges, precise angles — this Photoshop action turns your photo into a technical sketch. More Details and Downloads (affiliate link)
Smoky Double Exposure
The Smoky Double Exposure add-on elegantly blends the original photo into a watercolor splash. A beautiful play with sharpness and blur. More Details and Downloads (affiliate link)
Spectrum
A sleek look with a subtle, handpainted effect, that's exactly what Spectrum does. Simply fill in your subject with a color and play the action. More Details and Downloads (affiliate link)
3D Shadow
This handy plugin easily creates various types of 3D shadows from objects such as letters, numbers, shapes and so on. All settings are present in a single window - transparency level, perspective, shadow color and position, X/Y/Z angles, and many more.More Details and Downloads
Camouflage
Use the Camouflage plug-in to make army, fashion and animal camo. The Camouflage plug-in creates seamless images, this means you can use them as textures and patterns for 3D models or as a background for web sites, they can even be used as a pattern for clothing.More Details and Downloads
Chalkaholic
Chalkaholic renders chalk and charcoal type effects with artistic style and flair. It creates a uniquely effective artistic rendering options, it is an essential addition to any digital artist's effects collection.More Details and Downloads
Circle to Square
With this plugin you can convert any circle into a square.More Details and Downloads
Composer
Update multiple layer comps in Photoshop with just one click.More Details and Downloads
Craquelure 3D
This filter creates a wide range of well known craquelure (krăkloor´) effects, that is useful in designing various abstract patterns, decorative surfaces and construction materials.More Details and Downloads
CSS3Ps
Free cloud based photoshop plugin that converts your layers to CSS3.More Details and Downloads
Cut&Slice me
Use Cut&Slice me to export your assets to different devices in seconds.More Details and Downloads
Dreamy Photo
Dreamy Photo gives images a soft romantic feel. This is a superb effect for enhancing stock photography, digital camera photos and any image you want to add a warm feel to.More Details and Downloads
Duplllicator
Clone layer or group and shift it horizontally or vertically with this extension.More Details and Downloads
EasyMockups
Create Mobile App mockups in seconds. Select form the predesigned mockups, select your background and artwork layers and you're off.More Details and Downloads
Fine Threshold
Unlike the traditional threshold command of Photoshop, Fine Threshold allows you to get quickly, anti-aliased and sharp shapes.More Details and Downloads
Focal Zoom Effect
Focal Zoom generates the proper perspective and depth creating a focal point or emphasizing a particular portion of your image.More Details and Downloads
Font Awesome
Font Awesome icons right inside Adobe Photoshop.
Fontea
800 Google fonts in your Photoshop. Don't guess which font will fit in your design. Try it.More Details and Downloads
Harry's Filters
The famous 'Harry's Filters' is a series of filters that contains up to 69 different image effects. The main effect categories are called Color, Artistic, Gradients, Patterns, Warp, Noise, En/Decrypt, Other and Nature. It also includes filters for changing the image color or mood, for creating artistic effects, producing colorful gradients or impressive patterns, warping images and adding special noise effects to image. Additionally they let you encrypt and decrypt images with 64 bit keys, produce zoom, mirror or paint effects as well as natural effects like lightning, tornado and polar lights.More Details and Downloads
ICO Windows Icon
This plugin gives you an easy method for creating your web site's favourites/shortcut/bookmark icon in Photoshop.More Details and Downloads
IsometrIcon
IsometrIcon is a free Photoshop plugin that helps to transform shapes into isometric orientation.More Details and Downloads
Ink
More Details and DownloadsInk is a plugin that helps you providing few extra important informations about your mockups by documenting your layers, from typography to effects and shape sizes.
Kaleidoscope 2.1
Kaleidoscope 2.1 is a plugin which uses multiple symmetries to create beautiful patterns, it uses these three spinning effects: Mirror, Copy, Transition and Blend.More Details and Downloads
Layrs Control
Remove unused Effects, flatten all Layer Effects, delete empty Layers or rasterize Smart Objects with just one click.More Details and Downloads
Long Shadow Generator
Long shadow design is still popular. The Long Shadow Generator is an easy-to-use tool that lets you create that effect with just a single click.More Details and Downloads
Luce
Luce blends radial or directional light beams into your image. There is a text box for adjusting the intensity of the effect.More Details and Downloads
Mosaic
Mosaic makes your photos look as if they were created out of a mosaic tile. Photo-realistic depth and variable tile size and color options give this effect an infinite number of looks.More Details and Downloads
Mood Lighting Effect
Mood Lighting lets you apply a darkening effect enhancing the dark mood of any digital image.More Details and Downloads
Nik Effects Collection
Create stunning images faster. Add the power of the Nik Collection by Google to your workflow today.More Details and Downloads
Noise Reduction
The freeware version of Boundary Noise Reduction lets you remove noise.More Details and Downloads
ON1 Effects
Effects 10 Standard Edition includes a select number of stackable filters, presets, borders, and textures from ON1 Effects 10.More Details and Downloads
Pixel2Vector
This little Photoshop tool may save you a plenty of time. It converts your pixel shape in a vector shape or in a Custom Shape Tool.More Details and Downloads
Polar Projection
Photoshop Plugin for 3D 360-degree stereographic projections.More Details and Downloads
Retinize It
The best Photoshop tool for preparing designs for iOS or optimized for Retina-display websites.More Details and Downloads
Retrodots
Retrodots is a simple plugin that generates dot grids which can be based on selections.More Details and Downloads
Sharpen Details Effect
Sharpen Details brings out the highlights in your digital images and brings clarity to the details in seconds. Give photos a crisp clean look.More Details and Downloads
Seamless Textures
The free Seamless Textures Generator is a simple but time-saving photoshop extension. It generates with just one click a seamless pattern from your picture.More Details and Downloads
Sinedots
Old demo effect which uses soem simple sinus calculations to generate nice patterns like this one.More Details and Downloads
Skeuomorphism.it
Become a flat design pro in seconds with this simple photoshop plugin.More Details and Downloads
Swatchy
Folders for your swatches in Photoshop.More Details and Downloads
Vibrations 1.1
This plugin has two different methods ('Levels' and 'Lines' ) for creating a streak effect of your images . The filter has an inbuilt blur, in order to ensure smoothness.More Details and Downloads
virtualPhotographer
virtualPhotographer lets you instantly apply high quality, professional photographic styles to your digital images…with just one click.More Details and Downloads
Water Ripples
The highly realistic water ripples effect designer has numerous options as well as an impressive 3D quality. The random settings generator produces unlimited variations of rippled surfaces.More Details and Downloads
Weaver
This plugin creates a weave effect of your images.More Details and Downloads
Plugin Development Resources
- Filter Meister This is another free plugin that allows users to create there own plugins. This plugin offers extensive documentation, step-by-step tutorials and free downloadable samples. This type of plugin is perfect for anyone with limited knowledge of any script language.
- Photoshop SDK If you are feeling really adventurous, you could develop a plugin using the Photoshop SDK. Previously you would have to pay just shy of $200 for the SDK, it is now free, the only thing you have to do is register with Adobe.
- Photoshop Scripting A script is a series of commands that tells Photoshop to perform one or more tasks, Photoshop CS4 supports scripts written in AppleScript, JavaScript or VBScript. Download the latest documentation on scripting here: Photoshop Scripting Documentation.
Typography plays a very important role in both web and print projects, and that is why we see more and more font designs being released each day, and also notice that designers have started to give a special attention to embellishing and making typography stand out even more.
How is this done? Most of the time, they use CSS animation effects for web projects, but also Photoshop text effects, which can be applied to both web and print.
If you want to make sure your typography looks smart and catches the viewers' attention, then you should take a look at these 40 best free Photoshop text effectswe have selected in the list below. These will help you make your designs more visually appealing, but also keeping them readable and functional.
FREEBIE PSD: NEON TEXT EFFECT
This is a neon text effect that you can use to give to your headings/titles a neon glow look. It loos great on clubbing flyers.
RETRO TYPOGRAPHY TEXT EFFECT
This is a retro typography text effect, perfect for giving any text a retro effect with ease.
80'S RETRO TYPOGRAPHY EFFECT
This is a retro / vintage style typography. This free 80's inspired typography effect can be used for retro gaming related flyers or posters.
SPACE TEXT LAYER STYLE
This is a free PSD text effect, perfect for adding some sci-fi style to your designs.
STYLIA PSD TEXT EFFECT
This is a PSD text effect that can be downloaded for free and that can help you ad a cool, 3D glow effect to your texts.
3 RETRO 3D WOOD TEXT LAYER STYLES FOR PHOTOSHOP
This is a package that comes with 3 retro wooden text effects that can be used to showcase your logo designs.
This is a great text effect with a vintage style, that will help you make your headlines and designs even more cooler!
FREE PSD EFFECT
This is a vintage style PSD text effect that you can download freely use in your personal or commercial projects.
DOFONT PSD TEXT EFFECT
This is a great PSD text effect you can use if you want to give any text modern and elegant look.
BOUNCE PSD TEXT EFFECT
This is a free PSD text effect that will look elegant on a flyer or poster design.
3D Shadow
This handy plugin easily creates various types of 3D shadows from objects such as letters, numbers, shapes and so on. All settings are present in a single window - transparency level, perspective, shadow color and position, X/Y/Z angles, and many more.More Details and Downloads
Camouflage
Use the Camouflage plug-in to make army, fashion and animal camo. The Camouflage plug-in creates seamless images, this means you can use them as textures and patterns for 3D models or as a background for web sites, they can even be used as a pattern for clothing.More Details and Downloads
Chalkaholic
Chalkaholic renders chalk and charcoal type effects with artistic style and flair. It creates a uniquely effective artistic rendering options, it is an essential addition to any digital artist's effects collection.More Details and Downloads
Circle to Square
With this plugin you can convert any circle into a square.More Details and Downloads
Composer
Update multiple layer comps in Photoshop with just one click.More Details and Downloads
Craquelure 3D
This filter creates a wide range of well known craquelure (krăkloor´) effects, that is useful in designing various abstract patterns, decorative surfaces and construction materials.More Details and Downloads
CSS3Ps
Free cloud based photoshop plugin that converts your layers to CSS3.More Details and Downloads
Cut&Slice me
Use Cut&Slice me to export your assets to different devices in seconds.More Details and Downloads
Dreamy Photo
Dreamy Photo gives images a soft romantic feel. This is a superb effect for enhancing stock photography, digital camera photos and any image you want to add a warm feel to.More Details and Downloads
Duplllicator
Clone layer or group and shift it horizontally or vertically with this extension.More Details and Downloads
EasyMockups
Create Mobile App mockups in seconds. Select form the predesigned mockups, select your background and artwork layers and you're off.More Details and Downloads
Fine Threshold
Unlike the traditional threshold command of Photoshop, Fine Threshold allows you to get quickly, anti-aliased and sharp shapes.More Details and Downloads
Focal Zoom Effect
Focal Zoom generates the proper perspective and depth creating a focal point or emphasizing a particular portion of your image.More Details and Downloads
Font Awesome
Font Awesome icons right inside Adobe Photoshop.
Fontea
800 Google fonts in your Photoshop. Don't guess which font will fit in your design. Try it.More Details and Downloads
Harry's Filters
The famous 'Harry's Filters' is a series of filters that contains up to 69 different image effects. The main effect categories are called Color, Artistic, Gradients, Patterns, Warp, Noise, En/Decrypt, Other and Nature. It also includes filters for changing the image color or mood, for creating artistic effects, producing colorful gradients or impressive patterns, warping images and adding special noise effects to image. Additionally they let you encrypt and decrypt images with 64 bit keys, produce zoom, mirror or paint effects as well as natural effects like lightning, tornado and polar lights.More Details and Downloads
ICO Windows Icon
This plugin gives you an easy method for creating your web site's favourites/shortcut/bookmark icon in Photoshop.More Details and Downloads
IsometrIcon
IsometrIcon is a free Photoshop plugin that helps to transform shapes into isometric orientation.More Details and Downloads
Ink
More Details and DownloadsInk is a plugin that helps you providing few extra important informations about your mockups by documenting your layers, from typography to effects and shape sizes.
Kaleidoscope 2.1
Kaleidoscope 2.1 is a plugin which uses multiple symmetries to create beautiful patterns, it uses these three spinning effects: Mirror, Copy, Transition and Blend.More Details and Downloads
Layrs Control
Remove unused Effects, flatten all Layer Effects, delete empty Layers or rasterize Smart Objects with just one click.More Details and Downloads
Long Shadow Generator
Long shadow design is still popular. The Long Shadow Generator is an easy-to-use tool that lets you create that effect with just a single click.More Details and Downloads
Luce
Luce blends radial or directional light beams into your image. There is a text box for adjusting the intensity of the effect.More Details and Downloads
Mosaic
Mosaic makes your photos look as if they were created out of a mosaic tile. Photo-realistic depth and variable tile size and color options give this effect an infinite number of looks.More Details and Downloads
Mood Lighting Effect
Mood Lighting lets you apply a darkening effect enhancing the dark mood of any digital image.More Details and Downloads
Nik Effects Collection
Create stunning images faster. Add the power of the Nik Collection by Google to your workflow today.More Details and Downloads
Noise Reduction
The freeware version of Boundary Noise Reduction lets you remove noise.More Details and Downloads
ON1 Effects
Effects 10 Standard Edition includes a select number of stackable filters, presets, borders, and textures from ON1 Effects 10.More Details and Downloads
Pixel2Vector
This little Photoshop tool may save you a plenty of time. It converts your pixel shape in a vector shape or in a Custom Shape Tool.More Details and Downloads
Polar Projection
Photoshop Plugin for 3D 360-degree stereographic projections.More Details and Downloads
Retinize It
The best Photoshop tool for preparing designs for iOS or optimized for Retina-display websites.More Details and Downloads
Retrodots
Retrodots is a simple plugin that generates dot grids which can be based on selections.More Details and Downloads
Sharpen Details Effect
Sharpen Details brings out the highlights in your digital images and brings clarity to the details in seconds. Give photos a crisp clean look.More Details and Downloads
Seamless Textures
The free Seamless Textures Generator is a simple but time-saving photoshop extension. It generates with just one click a seamless pattern from your picture.More Details and Downloads
Sinedots
Old demo effect which uses soem simple sinus calculations to generate nice patterns like this one.More Details and Downloads
Skeuomorphism.it
Become a flat design pro in seconds with this simple photoshop plugin.More Details and Downloads
Swatchy
Folders for your swatches in Photoshop.More Details and Downloads
Vibrations 1.1
This plugin has two different methods ('Levels' and 'Lines' ) for creating a streak effect of your images . The filter has an inbuilt blur, in order to ensure smoothness.More Details and Downloads
virtualPhotographer
virtualPhotographer lets you instantly apply high quality, professional photographic styles to your digital images…with just one click.More Details and Downloads
Water Ripples
The highly realistic water ripples effect designer has numerous options as well as an impressive 3D quality. The random settings generator produces unlimited variations of rippled surfaces.More Details and Downloads
Weaver
This plugin creates a weave effect of your images.More Details and Downloads
Plugin Development Resources
- Filter Meister This is another free plugin that allows users to create there own plugins. This plugin offers extensive documentation, step-by-step tutorials and free downloadable samples. This type of plugin is perfect for anyone with limited knowledge of any script language.
- Photoshop SDK If you are feeling really adventurous, you could develop a plugin using the Photoshop SDK. Previously you would have to pay just shy of $200 for the SDK, it is now free, the only thing you have to do is register with Adobe.
- Photoshop Scripting A script is a series of commands that tells Photoshop to perform one or more tasks, Photoshop CS4 supports scripts written in AppleScript, JavaScript or VBScript. Download the latest documentation on scripting here: Photoshop Scripting Documentation.
Typography plays a very important role in both web and print projects, and that is why we see more and more font designs being released each day, and also notice that designers have started to give a special attention to embellishing and making typography stand out even more.
How is this done? Most of the time, they use CSS animation effects for web projects, but also Photoshop text effects, which can be applied to both web and print.
If you want to make sure your typography looks smart and catches the viewers' attention, then you should take a look at these 40 best free Photoshop text effectswe have selected in the list below. These will help you make your designs more visually appealing, but also keeping them readable and functional.
FREEBIE PSD: NEON TEXT EFFECT
This is a neon text effect that you can use to give to your headings/titles a neon glow look. It loos great on clubbing flyers.
RETRO TYPOGRAPHY TEXT EFFECT
This is a retro typography text effect, perfect for giving any text a retro effect with ease.
80'S RETRO TYPOGRAPHY EFFECT
This is a retro / vintage style typography. This free 80's inspired typography effect can be used for retro gaming related flyers or posters.
SPACE TEXT LAYER STYLE
This is a free PSD text effect, perfect for adding some sci-fi style to your designs.
STYLIA PSD TEXT EFFECT
This is a PSD text effect that can be downloaded for free and that can help you ad a cool, 3D glow effect to your texts.
3 RETRO 3D WOOD TEXT LAYER STYLES FOR PHOTOSHOP
This is a package that comes with 3 retro wooden text effects that can be used to showcase your logo designs.
This is a great text effect with a vintage style, that will help you make your headlines and designs even more cooler!
FREE PSD EFFECT
This is a vintage style PSD text effect that you can download freely use in your personal or commercial projects.
DOFONT PSD TEXT EFFECT
This is a great PSD text effect you can use if you want to give any text modern and elegant look.
BOUNCE PSD TEXT EFFECT
This is a free PSD text effect that will look elegant on a flyer or poster design.
TEXT EFFECTS
This is an awesome PSD text effect that can easily be changed using smart layer objects.
BOLD 3D TEXT EFFECT
This is a PSD text effect that will give your headlines an extra depth. Make them bold and 3D.
PIECE OF CAKE PSD TEXT EFFECT
This is a free PSD text effect that will make your content look colorful and bright. You can edit the shape and colors according to your needs.
TEXT EFFECT
This is a uniquely designed PSD text effect that will be perfect to decorate any text, logo, etc.
Rules Craft Psd Text Effect
This is a very original psd Photoshop text effect with a 3D ruler visual style. Easily change the background color and add your own text.
Metropolis PSD Text Effect
Metropolis is a modern and elegant psd text effect. Easily add your own text with the smart layer and change the text effect metallic colors.
Superfont Psd Text Effect
Superfont is a crazy superhero Photoshop text effect. Easily add your own text thanks to the smart layer.
Sky Blok Psd Text Effect
This is an isometric psd text effect. This 3D Photoshop text effect uses smart layers, so customization is extremely easy.
Block Wood PSD Text Effect
This is an elegant 3D isometric Photoshop text effect. Easily create this psd text effect with your own letters thanks to the use of smart layers.
Words of Lord PSD Text Effect
This is a very subtle medieval metallic text effect. Comes with a great grunge high-res texture as background.
Stripes Shadow Text Effect
This set contains 6 different text styles to create vintage inspired typography with Photoshop. Use the smart objects to edit the text and change the colors.
Crocodilo Psd Text Effect
Crocodilo is a bold collage styled psd text effect with a subtle 3D style.. Add your own text easily with the use of smart layers.
Cheti Psd Text Effect
Cheti is a colorful and fancy 3D Photoshop text. It lets you easily add your own text.
Fix It PSD Text Effect
This is a colorful 3D Photoshop text effect to make your design pop! You can easily change the color.
Tenue Psd Text Effect
This is a very elegant text effect with a mix of shadows and lights. Use your own text and customize it as you please.
Coot Paper Cut Psd Text Effect
This is a new and original Photoshop text effect that mimics a paper cut collage design. Just edit the text and let the smart layer do the work.
Gold Spark Psd Text Effect
This is a vintage 3D spark and gold text effect. You can edit this Photoshop gold text effect with ease thanks to smart layers.
Cinematic Title Text Effect
This is a high detail cinematic title effect. All you have to do is to type the desired text inside the smart object and your work is done.
Sketch Text Effect PSD
This PSD template uses smart objects to create a realistic sketch effect for any text or shape. The file includes 3 different styles with changeable color via adjustment layer.
3 Illustrator Graphic Styles
This is a set of 3 eye candy text effects. These graphic styles are perfect for cartoon logos and titles.
Accordion PSD Text Effect
This is an original 3D character psd text effect with an accordion style.
Soft White Text Effect
This PSD resource allows you to apply a soft 3d look to your text. Just edit the text inside smart object, save it and the effect will be created automatically for you.
Lightbox Text Effect
With this Photoshop text effect you will be able to give any text or shape a neon light appearance and make them stand out on a dim background. The PSD file contains smart layers.
Cinematic 3D Text Effect
Free Kpt Effects Adobe Photoshop Cs2
This is a cinematic 3D text effect that lets you create a stunning effect for your logos or text and give them a new dimension. The PSD file includes smart objects.
PSD Square Text Effect
Free Kpt Effects Adobe Photoshop Online
This is a colorful perspective Photoshop text effect. It will make your content extra special.
3D WOOD TEXT STYLE
(no longer available)
This is an awesome free PSD text effect with a wood text style that can be used for flyers, posters, billboards or others.
METAL TEXT STYLE
(no longer available)
This is a free metal Photoshop text effect with fire particles, perfect for showcasing your logo design in style.
10 VINTAGE & RETRO STYLES
(no longer available)
This is a text effect in a retro style that you can use in posters, flyers, apps or website designs.
ERASER TEXT STYLE
(no longer available)
Free Kpt Effects Adobe Photoshop Software
This is a PSD text effect that can be used for making posters for kids/school related products.
QUICK RETRO STYLES
(no longer available)
This is a cool retro Photoshop effect. You can download this resource for free!