When asked about their biggest roadblock, 27% of creative professionals say they don't have enough time to be creative. This lack of time means you need to streamline how you do work so you can accomplish as much as possible. One way to make your workflow more efficient is to enhance your main work tool with plugins.
Adobe Photoshop supports plugins, which allow you to add more useful features that help you save time and effort. Have a look at our list featuring 10 of the top free and paid Adobe Photoshop plugins that will be useful for all creatives.
1. Save Panel
Save Panel, as the name suggests, is a plugin that simplifies your file saving process. It has a bunch of features that let you customize your destination folder, image dimensions, file type, filename, and image look. With Save Panel, you have the ability to save your documents using your favorite settings with easy to configure buttons.
Price: Free
2. Pixel Dropr
Pixel Dropr is a plugin that lets you you create your own collection of pixels and drag & drop them into your Photoshop doc. Whether it’s an icon, illustration, photo, or button, you can create a custom 100-piece collection and instantly drop them into your PS docs. This plugin can streamline your workflow by letting you simply drag and drop different elements into your layers. If you’re a full time designer and have to keep track of lots of different assets, Pixel Dropr is definitely worth the boost in efficiency.
Price: $19 - $99
3. Layrs Control 2
Layrs Control 2 is a free Photoshop plugin that includes a collection of 7 different scripts. These 7 scripts help you complete repetitive PS jobs quicker. Using this plugin, you can can remove unused effects on all selected layers, rename layers and folders with greater control, flatten all your layer effects, and delete all your empty layers inside the file. In addition, you can rasterize smart objects, find similar files and folders, and convert every selected layer into individual smart objects.
Price: Free
4. specKING
Creating design specs in Photoshop is a time consuming process. SpecKing provides a plugin that will let you measure any size, margin, or font property in any Photoshop doc. With just a few simple clicks, you can have your design specs ready for your project. SpecKING provides the specs necessary to ensure your design is developed with pixel-perfect precision.
Price: $19
5. CSS3Ps
Wish there was a fast and easy way to export Photoshop layers to CSS3? Then check out the free cloud-based Photoshop plugin CSS3Ps. It converts your layers into CSS3 styles in just a single click. All it takes is for you to select the layers you want to convert, click the CSS3Ps button, and voila! You’re directed to the CSS3Ps webpage where the output is generated for you to use.
Price: Free
6. Subtle Patterns
Subtle Patterns is a resource plugin of 400 tiled patterns that can be fed directly into your Photoshop panel. The plugin gives you access to its library of patterns that can be selected through a thumbnail and applied directly as a layer style to your selected layer. Oh, and it’s always in sync, so you’ll never miss out on using a new pattern.
Price: $17.99
7. Composer
As a designer, you should be spending less time maintaining and more time designing. Composer is a free plugin that lets you update multiple layer comps inside Photoshop to do just that. It only requires three-step process to cover any change you wish to make.
- Select the layers or groups that you’ve changed
- Select any layer comps you wish to apply changes to
- Use one of four Composer commands to update your selections
- Update Layer Style
- Update Position
- Update Visibility
- Update All.
Price: Free
8. Social Kit
Sick of measuring, designing, exporting and uploading your social media assets? This easy-to-use plugin will save you a lot of time updating your social media assets. With the Social Kit plugin, you get customizable templates of some of the most popular social platforms today. Create cover images, profile photos and advertising banners using customizable templates directly within Photoshop.
Price: $39.99
9. UberColumns
UberColumns is a great plugin if you find yourself spending a ton of time editing text. You can divide your paragraph text layer into columns while eliminating manual column updates after each edit. Your text will still stay on a single text layer, but will have the number of columns you specified. Your text will even reflow if you decide to change or resize the layer to match the columns in real time.
Price: Free
10. Wrike
Escape execution hell and find creative nirvana. Wrike helps to streamline the creative brief process, easily handle requests, monitor scope creep, and accelerate the review and approval process. It's even compatible your preferred device (tablet, mobile, laptop) and available right inside your Photoshop, so you can focus on your design and NOT toggling between different apps and tabs.
Price: Free trial
Find Out How Wrike Can Help Your With Your Creative Work
Try a free trial of Wrike and see how you can use #WrikeForCreatives.
Related Reads:
- The Creative Brief Template: The Elements of an Effective Creative Brief
- 5 Steps to Implementing a Collaboration Tool for Creative Teams
- 14 Online Resources to Break Through Your Creative Block
