Links

On this page you'll find links to some of the most popular Photoshop resources.

Third-Party Filters, Brushes, and Actions

I scrubbed the Internet looking for the most useful and professional-looking actions, filters, and brushes available through Photoshop user sites. Some are free; some are available at a reasonable price. The sites listed here are supported by individual Photoshop users or small graphics companies. Always use a virus scanner when downloading content from the Internet.

Adobe has its own dedicated Web site for listing additional resources. Adobe Studio Exchange has thousands of free downloads for actions, filters, brushes, layer styles, and more, created by Photoshop users and collected by Adobe to help users find resources quickly. You can visit Adobe Studio Exchange at http://share.studio.adobe.com.

Filters

In order for Photoshop to recognize filter plug-in files, you'll need to place them in a special filters folder. You'll need to restart Photoshop for it to recognize your newly added files.

Where to install filters:

Photoshop Filters

Over 300 freeware and commercial filters. Great color examples of the filter effects.

Mister Retro
www.misterretro.com
Maker of Machine Wash II. Fantastic texture filters for adding a worn look to images.

Free Photoshop
www.freephotoshop.com
Free downloads of brushes, shapes, gradients, styles, filters, and more.

Redfield Plug-ins www.redfieldplugins.com Free and affordable 3-D special effects filters.

Xaos Tools
www.xaostools.com
Makers of the popular Paint Alchemy, TypeCaster, and Terrazzo plug-ins for Photoshop. Xaos has been making professional-quality filters for nearly as long as Photoshop has been on the market.

Andromeda Software Inc
www.andromeda.com
Creator of professional plug-ins for Photoshop and InDesign. Filters include photographic tools and lens effects, artistic screening tools, and graphic design resources.

Flaming Pear
www.flamingpear.com
I particularly like the SuperBladePro filter package with natural texture filters like water stain, moss, dust, and grit. If you like the distort filters that come with Photoshop, you'll love Flaming Pear's Flexify set. There are two sets for making stars, space, and planets.

Digital Film Tools
www.digitalfilmtools.com
Free and fantastic photo filters. Filter sets for simulating specialized lenses, film grain, and lighting effects.

Akvis Software
www.akvis.com
Makers of professional Photoshop filters. They offer a free trial download so that you can take them for a test drive. If you are colorizing old photos, they have a great product called Coloriage.

AV Bros.
www.avbros.com
Makers of Page Curl Pro and Puzzle Pro.

Graphic Authority
www.graphicauthority.com
Bundles of filters, brushes, and stock photos available for purchase on DVD.

Brushes

Photoshop brushes have their own file extension of .ABR and need to be installed in Photoshop's Brushes folder.

You can install Photoshop brushes by copying .ABR files to these locations:

8 Nero
www.8nero.net
This Web site has a large selection of contemporary and artistic brushes for creating texture. There are many great brush options for creating gritty, organic, and industrial-looking images.

Miss M
www.rebel-heart.net/brushes
Curvaceous and creative art nouveau-style brushes.

Photoshop Brushes
www.photoshopbrushes.com
Tons of stamp and icon brushes that can be used as clip art or background images.

VBrush
http://veredgf.fredfarm.com/vbrush/main.html
Great brushes for creating textures like crumpled paper, dashes, old paper, and scratches.

500ml.org
http://brushes.500ml.org
Theme-based brushes including vintage, art nouveau, birds, board games, dragonflies, fossils, fruit labels, street signs, x-rays, and zombies.

Free Photoshop
www.freephotoshop.com
Huge collection of free brushes. Given a high rating in Photoshop User Magazine.

Fragile Decay
www.brushes.fragiledecay.com
Brushes for creating broken glass, bullet holes, and peeling paint.

Actions

Actions have a special file extension of .ATN and need to be installed in a Photoshop Actions folder. You must restart Photoshop in order for the newly installed action to appear in the Actions list.

You can install Photoshop actions by copying .ATN files to these locations:

Action Addiction
www.actionaddiction.com
Actions for creating fun text styles. Some styles include chrome, charmed, liquid bubble gum, concrete decay, snacky cake, snot nose, yee-haw, and frisco writers. Over 300 actions available on a CD for about $11.

Photoshop Action!
www.liknes.no/photoshop
Action sets for borders, special effects, and text. There are seven collections of borders to choose from.

Action Central
www.atncentral.com
A user community supported Action-sharing Web site. Nice special effects actions for artistic color manipulation. Some professional-looking framing actions including a great matte board emulation.

Shutter Freaks
www.shutterfreaks.com/Actions/Actions.html
A wide variety of actions for frames and mattes, image enhancement, and special effects.

Photoshop Cafe
www.photoshopcafe.com/actions_dl.htm
Tons of text effects that take advantage of layer styles.

Elated
www.elated.com
Free Action kits including 47 different text and special effects actions.

Cybia
www.cybia.co.uk/actions.htm
This graphic resources Web site offers an action pack for resizing Photoshop documents. Actions include resizing to standard screen sizes and lines per inch for printing, and reducing image size by percentage.

Scream Design
screamdesign.daz3d.com/files/freebies/actions
Text, image, texture, and button effects. The text effects like underexposed, grungy text, and starburst text are nice.