Optional Plug-ins | Photoshop

  As of July 2024, Photoshop’s legacy 3D features have been removed. However, now in the Photoshop (beta) app you can seamlessly add 3D objects to your 2D Photoshop design using the Adobe Substance 3D Viewer (beta) app. Click here for more details.

The optional plug-ins for Alias, SGIRGB, SoftImage, HSB & HSL, Electric Image, and Wavefront RLA are not installed by default, but are available via download below.

Compatibility

See Photoshop - Supported versions for complete details.

Download and installation instructions

Install optional plug-ins:

  1. Quit Photoshop.

  2. To work with optional plug-ins, download them here: 

  3. After you download the plug-in file above, double-click it to decompress it. If asked, extract all the files.

  4. Optional plug-ins can be installed to one of two locations:

    • Version-specific location - which will only load the installed plug-in for a specific version of Photoshop (e.g. only Photoshop 2020)
    • Shared Creative Cloud location - which will load the plug-in for all installed versions of Photoshop without having to reinstall the plug-in

    For instructions on locating these folders on macOS and Windows, see Locate plug-in folders.

  5. Relaunch Photoshop.

Plug-in descriptions

Alias

The Alias file format plug-in allows you to read and write files in the Alias .pix format. This format is commonly used for 3D rendering software from Alias/Wavefront, and in some image-editing software on UNIX systems.

Electric Image (part of Optional Multiplugin)

The ElectricImage Multiplugin format plug-in allows you to read and write files in the ElectricImage picture format. ElectricImage 3D rendering software uses this format.

HSBHSL (part of Optional Multiplugin)

The HSL&HSB plug-in allows conversion from RGB > HSL (Hue, Saturation, and Lightness) and back, and from RGB > HSB (Hue, Saturation, and Brightness) and back within Photoshop. This plug-in allows you to make changes to the Hue, Saturation, or Luminosity of an image as independent channels, or make changes in HSL/HSB using channel operations (calculations).

SGIRGB

The SGIRGB format plug-in allows you to read and write files in the SGI image format. This format is commonly used by software on the Silicon Graphics platform. The SGI image format plug-in recognizes the file extensions .sgi, .rgb, .rgba, and .bw.

SoftImage

The SoftImage format plug-in allows you to read and write files in the SoftImage picture format. This format is commonly used by 3D rendering software from SoftImage.

Wavefront RLA

The Wavefront RLA (Run-Length Encoded Version A) format plug-in allows you to read and write files in the Wavefront file format.  This format is commonly used by 3D rendering software from Wavefront.

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