In this article, I share the six best plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom. They can help you take your photo editing to the next level by providing better sharpening, selections, focus stacking, and other creative ways to enhance your images.
I've been using some of these plugins for close to 10 years, and they are an integral part of my photo editing workflow. I'll start the overview with two free extensions before diving into the premium plugins you have to pay for to use. Here's what I cover:
- Web Sharpener by Andreas Resch
- Nik Collection
- Lumenzia by Greg Benz
- Mibreit Photo AI
- Helicon Focus
- DxO PureRAW 4
You likely won't need all of those plugins for your editing workflow. But even the ones that are not free include a trial version. So the least you should do is test those tools and see if they can help you edit your photos.
Web Sharpener Extension for Photoshop
It's not enough to resize you images in Photoshop or Lightroom to make your photos look perfect on the web. You should apply a resize and sharpening method tuned to provide the best possible results. When I learned about it more than ten years ago, there wasn'tb a plugin that did all the work with a click of a button. Back then, I created Photoshop actions to perform the multi-step resizing, the separation of the sharpening into dark and light edges, and other little tweaks. Tuning those actions involved rerecording them, which wasn't very flexible.
Thankfully, Andreas Resch bundled all the knowledge about preparing photos for the web in his Web Sharpener extension. It's free to install via his homepage or directly from Adobe.
The extension is easy to use. You can either select Quick Sharpening or Standard Sharpening, which allows you more control over the results. Once you made your main settings, including the Final Size, you can save presets for your different outlets. Instagram is already included.
Nik Collection
The Nik Collection has always been my favorite plugin collection. After Google purchased it several years ago, they made it freely available. They have since sold it to DXO, who continue to develop and improve the Nik Collection *. They also ensure it works on the latest systems. I've recently switched to the latest version of DXO's Nik Collection and tested it.
The tools I've used for more than 10 years are still there, but have been improved and extended. I've also noticed a performance boost, especially when working with the various masks. Those masks alone would be reason enough to give the Nik Collection a try. They are superior to every masking panel you'll find out there.
If you decide to purchase the Nik Collection by DXO *, you can use the code "mibreit-photo" for a 15% discount (for new customers).
The free version by Google is also still available on some sites. But there are a few limitations. The old version no longer works on a new MacOS. It works fine under Windows with some limitations, though. One of which is the size of the panels and sliders. If you have a 4k display, those might be too tiny to use properly. Best test the collection and decide for yourself if you can use it. If not, make sure to check the DXO version as they also offer a free trial *.
Lumenzia Addon for Photoshop
Greg Benz has been developing Lumenzia to become a powerful Photoshop add-on. In the beginning, its focus was simplifying the creation of Luminosity Masks. The number of ways you can tune your selections and target edits in Photoshop has grown ever since. I only know the tip of the iceberg, which is Lumenzia. If you want to harvest its full potential, follow Greg Benz's YouTube channel, where he regularly shares new workflows that Lumenzia supports.
Lumenzia is available for only 40$*. With the purchase, you get all updates, which is remarkable considering all the work that goes into the continuous improvement of the software. If I could pick only one extension I can't live without from the ones I show in this article, it's this one.
Mibreit Photo AI for Photoshop
I'm also proud to include one of my very own Photoshop plugins in this list. Annoyed by the additional subscription Adobe requires for its users to use Google's latest Nano Banana AI, I created the ultimate retouching plugin that lets you bring your own API key.
Instead of yet another subscription, you pay only for the amount of time you use the AI. I have a detailed tutorial video available on the plugin's product page, and I'm sure that some of the examples will blow your mind. It's astounding how easy it is to clean up photos using the latest Nano Banana versions. A car blocking the view toward a building - no problem. Scaffolding in front of a facade - gone. People crowding a plaza - as if they had never been there.
I also created a free version of the plugin for you to test its capabilities. If your typical retouching job never exceeds 1024x1024px, subscribe to my newsletter to get the download link.
Helicon Focus for Lightroom
I've been focus-stacking my landscape and architecture images for over ten years. Because I never liked the results I got from Photoshop's automatic stacking, I always did it manually using masks. It worked well until I visited Costa Rica and started to delve more into woodland photography. Stacking those images manually was impossible, and I needed help.
Back then, I found Helicon Focus and never looked back. It provides superior algorithms to Photoshop and can even handle detailed forest images. If there is movement, the results won't be perfect out of the box. But Helicon also provides an intuitive retouching workflow, which helps to clean imperfections quickly.
Helicon is not available as an extension for Photoshop. You will find it in Lightroom under "Export - Helicon Focus". I prefer using the DNG option, which allows me to make RAW adjustments even after the stacking.
DxO PureRAW
The most recent Lightroom plugin I've started using is DxO PureRAW 4. It has since been upgraded to version 6, making it even more powerful.
When Lightroom released their AI noise reduction, it was a game changer. Suddenly, I could shoot woodland photos at ISO 800 as if it was ISO 100. Night photos captured at ISO 6400 also became possible.
With DxO PureRAW, you can increase the image quality of your photos even more. The images look cleaner and more detailed than the results I can achieve with Lightroom or any other software I have tested. I show a comparison in the video below. You can download a free 14-day trial here *.
I've now used DXO PureRAW for two years and applied it to every photo I edited. And I can say that, without a doubt, the quality of my images has improved to a point, where I no longer have to think about buying a new camera in a few years. The times when you had to upgrade your gear to achieve higher image quality are over. Now, you just need the right software to give you that extra quality.
Conclusion
Lightroom and Photoshop are themselves powerful photo editing programs. There's nearly nothing you can't do with the tools they provide. But there are certain things you can do faster and better if you use more specialized software. The extensions I shared in this article and in the video below are examples of it.
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