There are many reasons why you should use Photoshop filters and plugins. Photoshop filters can take your photos to the next level and make editing easier and faster.
Today, I will take you through the top 30 Photoshop filters and plugins available! You will definitely find a function in this extensive list that will make editing much easier!
The 30 Best Photoshop Filters
For any level of experience, in this list you will find a variety Photoshop filters and plugins that can help take you to new artistic heights.
30. Twenty One Vintage & Retro Color Effects
- File Types: PSD
- More Than One Filter: Yes (21)
- Best For: Vintage styles
- Price: $$
Vintage and retro never go out of style. Take a step back in time with Twenty One Vintage and Retro Color Effects.
It’s a Photoshop template that comes with 21 non-destructive effects. Amongst them, it has a color, a vignette, an old-style filter, and noise/dust effects.
You can choose between different color hues and even combine them for unlimited results.
29. Wanderlust
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (3)
- Best For: Adding depth and mood
- Price: $$
If you’re into travel photography, this Wanderlust filter transforms your photos with a film-inspired look.
The natural color styles of Wanderlust are perfect for travel, lifestyle, and portrait photography. With them, your blog will look modern and fashionable.
28. Oil Paint Animation
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Making an oil painting
- Price: $$
The Oil Paint Animation filter transforms your photo, making it look like a classic oil painting.
If you’re looking for something different, this Photoshop filter is for you. It also comes with a video tutorial to help you easily create your own oil paintings.
27. Old Photo
- File Types: PSD
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Simulating old film
- Price: Free
Here’s another filter that will turn your new photos into old ones. Old Photo will give your images a cross-processing look.
This was once very popular in fashion photography. Photographers would deliberately process their film in a chemical solution that was actually intended for another type of film.
26. LithPrint
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Lithograph effect
- Price: Free
Lithograph printing is the technique of overexposing black & white or color negatives onto a gelatine silver paper. Then partially developing it in a very dilute lithograph developer.
This can produce prints with special properties and characteristics. Tonal distribution and response to toners are very different. It’s a very unpredictable technique. With this Photoshop filter, you’ll create your own lithograph print in a few clicks.
25. Into The Jungle
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (10)
- Best For: Dramatic images
- Price: $$
The Into The Jungle Photoshop Actions Set is a collection of filters made for nature and travel photography.
If you want to create an adventurous mood for your travel photos, this is your set.
24. Faded Films
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (75)
- Best For: Multiple faded effects
- Price: $$
This action set is the photoshop filter if you love that faded film look. With it, beautiful, faded colors are just one click away. They’re non-destructive, fast, and easy to use and give you maximum image quality, dynamic range, and consistent results.
23. Vintage
- File Types: PSD
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Dreamy colors
- Price: Free
Looking for a vintage effect that stands out? This Photoshop filter will make your photos pop with vibrant, vintage colors.
22. Dramatic Sepia
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Light sepia
- Price: Free
Dramatic Sepia is a free photoshop filter you should download if you want a dated or sunburnt look.
This filter is great for giving your photos a timeless look. It works exceptionally well when photographing buildings or loved ones.
21. Blue Evening Action
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Blue hues
- Price: Free
If you’re looking to push your colors to an otherworldly aesthetic, Blue Evening might be the free photoshop filter for you!
Blue Evening has the unique ability to add a blue hue without making the whole photograph one color. Instead, it brings out other tints and tones that make genuinely distinctive edits.
20. HDR Tools
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (3)
- Best For: HDR effect
- Price: Free
HDR Tools is a great way to simulate an HDR effect in Adobe Photoshop. It’s a free Photoshop filter that gives you three intensity levels to produce that well-known HDR aesthetic.
This photoshop action is designed to add contrast to HDR images. This is extremely helpful if you work with the HDR technique often. Even if you don’t, this free photoshop filter will help you increase the contrast between highlights and shadows.
19. Royal Wedding Pro
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (4)
- Best For: Weddings
- Price: Free
This set of photoshop actions is a wedding photographer’s best friend. If you haven’t found editing presets or refined your method of photo editing, these photo filters will save you lots of time.
The filters and effects you get from this set produce an aesthetic that we are familiar with in wedding photography. They mute some colors while adding a vintage feel to your photographs.
18. Bridal
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (25)
- Best For: Wedding images of the bride
- Price: Free
The Bridal package is a set of free photoshop filters that have one goal—to make your images more beautiful. They are designed explicitly for bridal shoots but work well in many wedding scenarios and even in other forms of photography.
I like how they give you a range of edits. This means you can pick a different style depending on the atmosphere of various events.
17. Monochromatic
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (18)
- Best For: Monochrome
- Price: Free
Sometimes you want your image to be a bit more than simply black and white. This is where monochromatic styles come in. This set of photo filters gives you simple monochromatic edits to more styled ones like sepia tones and cyanotypes.
These photo effects are excellent for making any image seem more dramatic. I like the sepia presets as they give your photos a timeless feel. You also get a “play all” feature, making it easy to cycle through all 18 options!
16. Comic Oil Paint
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (10)
- Best For: Comic-book style
- Price: Free
This awesome Photoshop filter provides a range of styles to transform photographs into comic-style images. The photo effects make your pictures seem less like real life and more like a drawing.
With ten filters to choose from, creating a comic book of you and your friends has never been easier!
15. Analog Camera
- File Types: ATN, PDF
- More Than One Filter: Yes (24)
- Best For: Analog camera simulation
- Price: Free
This set of photoshop actions allows you to produce a range of effects. They look like they have come out of a vintage camera with outdated film! It is almost like a set of imperfections that, when used properly, produce the perfect feel for an image.
You get a range of photo filters to choose from that all produce different hues of colors. If you enjoy travel photography with a twist, this is the tool for you.
14. Animated Real Paint FX
- File Types: ATN, PAT, JSX, PNG, PSD
- More Than One Filter: Yes
- Best For: Accurate paintings
- Price: $$$
Animated Real Paint FX is an Adobe Photoshop add-on that produces stunning paintings from your images. You can easily modify your photos and decide the level of detail and textures you want.
I like how you can see the individual brushstrokes. I am also a big fan of how it comes with an animation effect so you can turn your process into a work of art itself!
13. Old Photo
- File Types: ATN, JPG
- More Than One Filter: Yes (48)
- Best For: Accurate old photographs
- Price: $$
The Old Photo Photoshop plugin is the most convincing old film simulator on this list! You can turn any photograph into a timeless masterpiece in just two clicks.
You also get a range of overlays that make the image seem like an old school photo print. This includes a selection of dust and scratch JPEGs and a set of different paper types.
12. Glitch Effect
- File Types: PSD
- More Than One Filter: Yes (45)
- Best For: Glitch effects
- Price: $$$
This set of glitch effects gives you high-quality edits of your image through distortion. These special effects make it seem like your photographs have had a processing error in a beautiful and unique way.
This set is quite expensive, but you get a wide range of different effects. I enjoy how the process is straightforward.
11. Instalight
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Punchy lighting
- Price: $
Instalight is a Photoshop plugin that helps you create amazing lighting effects. The developer’s main goal was to get images ready for Instagram, hence the product’s title.
This filter gives you lighting effects that add a punchy brightness to your photograph. If you need a one-stop-shop for Instagram editing, this one’s for you!
10. Anaglyph
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (4)
- Best For: Glitch effects
- Price:
Remember those blue and red-colored glasses used for 3D movies? Anaglyph 3D images contain two filtered colored images—red and cyan.
When viewed through those glasses, each of the two images reaches the eye it’s intended for. That reveals a stereoscopic 3D image. This Photoshop action lets you create your own anaglyph images.
9. Nightmare Photoshop
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: Yes (20)
- Best For: Moody aesthetic
- Price: Free
Nightmare Photoshop is a free Photoshop filter you must-have if you’re aiming for a moody aesthetic.
This action filters colors and drags them down into murky depths that would be hard to edit yourself. As well as desaturating, it will increase the shadows and highlights, giving a contrasty yet unsettling feel to your images.
8. Divide
- File Types: ATN, PAT, ABR
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Odd graphic art
- Price: $
Divide is a Photoshop plugin that allows you to create unique art in a few simple steps. You cut out your subject. Then the filters are automatically applied to the background and subject.
This photoshop filter is a great way to create graphic art if you aren’t skilled in graphic design.
7. Chalk Drawing
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Chalk drawings
- Price: $
This filter is a fun way to produce an image that looks like a chalk drawing on a traditional blackboard. It has a one-click approach and saves you photo editing or drawing hours!
6. AKVIS Coloriage
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Colorizing
- Price: Free
AKVIS Coloriage is one of my favorite photo filters on this list. It allows you to apply color to your black and white images. You pick the desired colors, then the program recognizes the object’s border and tailors the color to the image’s greyscale.
This photoshop filter is great for many uses. You can take old images and bring them back to life. And you can even change the colors in a color image.
5. Magic Bokeh
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Magical edits
- Price: $$
Magic Bokeh is a photoshop action that makes your subject the center of attention. You get tools that quickly cut out your subject, allowing you to place them in front of a dreamy backdrop easily. With MagicBokeh, those illuminated balls of background light will stand out all the more.
4. Vector Art
- File Types: ATN, ABR, PAT
- More Than One Filter: Yes (30)
- Best For: Digital painting
- Price: Free
Vector Art provides Photoshop actions that turn your images into amazing digital art. In this pack, you get a selection of background presets, image presets, and overall color presets to mix and match!
Not only this, the photoshop filter turns your images into vectors! Any graphic designer knows this is great as it allows you to scale your photo in many different ways, and it will always be sharp. This is particularly useful if you plan to print the work out in various sizes.
3. Animated Allure
- File Types: ATN, ABR
- More Than One Filter: Yes (200+ presets)
- Best For: Dramatic sparkle
- Price: $$
Animated Allure is a dramatic Photoshop plugin that turns your subject into a dreamy explosion of colorful sparkles. You can create a unique photo that highlights the subject and puts them in an epic environment.
This photoshop plugin also turns your edits into a GIF! The sparkles emanate from the subject, adding motion to your image. The photo effect itself is easy to apply and edit.
2. MicroPro Fantasy Pink
- File Types: ATN
- More Than One Filter: No
- Best For: Infrared effect
- Price: Free
MicroPro Fantasy Pink is a Photoshop filter that turns your photos into otherworldly scenes. It makes your images look like they were shot on infrared film, turning the vegetation pink.
Something unique happens when turning something as plain as grass and leaves into a different color. It looks attractive and emphasizes the subjects that remain untouched.
1. 66 Colors Duotone Master Kit
- File Types: ATN, PSD
- More Than One Filter: Yes (66)
- Best For: Selection of duotones
- Price: $$
Are you using photos to create artwork or posters? Try 66 Color Duotone Master Kit to create modern and popping duotone effects.
This photoshop filter contains a mood board to preview all images before applying any effects to your images. And you can adjust colors, saturation, and contrast.
Conclusion
So, there you have it! These are the 30 best Photoshop filters and plugins. Each will improve your photography and help you create a unique photographic look.
Experiment by combining different plugins and filters until you find your signature aesthetic.
And don’t forget to check out The Preset Collection for more resources to quickly and easily create stunning images!