{"id":56259,"date":"2026-03-03T21:42:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T20:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/excire.com\/?p=56259"},"modified":"2026-03-12T13:04:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T12:04:30","slug":"best-lightroom-plugins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/excire.com\/en\/die-besten-lightroom-plugins\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Lightroom Plugins in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lightroom Classic is a versatile program that offers a great combination of image-management features and<\/em> photo-editing tools. That\u2019s why I chose it 15+ years ago as my main editor and photo manager, and it's why I still use it regularly today.<\/p>\n

But while Lightroom\u2019s features are certainly impressive, there are a handful of areas where the program just doesn\u2019t meet my needs. I don\u2019t want to get rid of Lightroom\u2014like I said, I\u2019ve been working with the software for nearly two decades, and at this point, I'm heavily invested in a Lightroom workflow\u2014so I rely on Lightroom plugins to expand and enhance the software's capabilities.<\/p><\/p>\n

With the right plugins, I can have the best of both worlds: the consistent, smooth, reliable workflow provided by Lightroom in addition to<\/em> the latest technology (often powered by artificial intelligence<\/a>) for rapidly finding, organizing, culling and editing my images. <\/p>\n\n

There are dozens of great Lightroom plugins you can buy, but I've discovered a few that I use regularly and absolutely love, which I share below. Of course, every photographer is different, and there are indeed plugins that I don't use myself but that could be a perfect match for your own needs. Therefore, in this article, I also include Lightroom Classic plugins that I don't use as part of my workflow but <\/em>that I've tested extensively and wholeheartedly recommend to my photography students.<\/p><\/p>\n

Each of the plugins on this list has a purpose, and while you don\u2019t need to go out and buy all <\/em>of them, I\u2019d be surprised if you aren\u2019t tempted by one or two.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

Let\u2019s dive right in!<\/p><\/p>\n

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Excire Search 2026: The Best Plugin for Photo Organization<\/h2><\/h2>\n

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Most of the best Lightroom plugins offer tools for enhancing your photos, but Excire Search 2026<\/a> goes in a different direction: instead of helping you edit your images, Excire\u2019s plugin leverages powerful AI to help you find, cull, and organize them. It's a plugin that I use constantly on my own image collection, and it saves me so much time when I need to find images for editing or for display on my website.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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My favorite Search 2026 feature is the amazing Search by Text Prompt tool, which lets you instantly find any image in your Lightroom catalog by inputting a text description. In other words, you type \u201cBarn owl perching on a tree,\u201d and the plugin immediately shows you all the images in your Lightroom catalog of tree-perching barn owls<\/em>. It's not based on keywords or tagging; instead, Search by Text Prompt uses Excire's in-house AI model to recognize the relevant features in each image. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Excire\n
I've loved Excire's Search by Text Prompt feature ever since I first tried it. It's astonishingly good at finding photos, no matter where they're located in my Lightroom Classic catalog.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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Excire Search 2026 also includes plenty of other AI-powered image-management features<\/a>. The Search for Faces and Search for People tools use facial-recognition software<\/a> to find photos in your catalog based on specific features or even a reference image, and the new AI-assisted culling tools can dramatically speed up the photo-selection process. <\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n

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(Lightroom Classic does now offer its own AI-assisted culling feature, but I tested it side by side with Excire Search 2026, and the Excire plugin came out on top.) There\u2019s even an AI keywording feature, which can automatically apply keywords to your images so you don\u2019t have to. It\u2019s also worth mentioning that Search 2026 is unusually well-integrated into Lightroom; unlike other programs on this list, Search 2026 allows you to work within <\/em>Lightroom so you\u2019re not stuck going back and forth between the main Lightroom interface and a separate plugin window. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Excire Search is integrated directly into Lightroom, and it has an extensive set of photo-management tools.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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Excire tools are easily accessed via the Excire Search Panel, which can be configured as a floating toolbar or a larger pane. It even offers a few extra features to streamline organization and culling, including magnified face previews and automatic face-sharpness detection. \nExcire Search is integrated directly into Lightroom, and it has an extensive set of photo-management tools. <\/p>\n\n

Basically, if you ever wish you could find your photos more quickly\u2014or organize them more effectively\u2014then Excire Search 2026 is a plugin you don\u2019t want to miss. Of course, Lightroom already boasts solid image-management features, but as I said above, I've been using Adobe's program for a long time. I know from experience that it takes a lot of effort to tag, search for, and cull files. With Excire Search 2026, you can take advantage of Lightroom\u2019s existing features while also streamlining your workflow, saving time, and keeping your catalog organized. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Luminar Neo: The Best Plugin for AI Editing<\/h2><\/h2>\n

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Luminar Neo is another excellent AI-powered plugin, and I love the futuristic, cyberpunk-esque design.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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I\u2019ve spent a lot <\/em>of time testing Skylum\u2019s Luminar software over the years, and while I\u2019ve always been frustrated by the lack of comprehensive organization features, as a Lightroom editing plugin, Luminar Neo<\/a> excels. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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The plugin is reasonably easy to access from within Lightroom, and the interface is wonderfully sleek, but for me, Luminar Neo\u2019s biggest selling point is the bevy of easy-to-use AI editing tools. Every time I check, there seem to be more features: Sky AI, for instance, lets you swap out an image\u2019s original sky for a replacement file, while the Sunrays tool seamlessly incorporates sunrays into your shot, and Composition AI (as part of the Crop AI tool) analyzes the image and automatically suggests a crop for maximum impact. You\u2019ll also find plenty of AI-powered retouching features so you can edit skin (Skin AI), eyes (Face AI), portrait backgrounds (Bokeh AI), and more with almost zero <\/em>effort. <\/p>\n\n\n

The plugin also includes standard image-editing features. Many of these overlap with Lightroom\u2019s own editing tools, but there are some unique options for creative post-processing, including layers, relighting tools, and glow effects, not to mention some really nice built-in presets:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\"Luminar\n
With a single click, I was able to transform my moody night scene into a stylish black & white.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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Finally, there are the more recent add-ons. Some of these were originally offered as extensions and are now packaged into the core plugin, including Noiseless AI for intelligent noise reduction and Supersharp AI to help you recover details, both of which come in handy when attempting to process lower-quality files; in my testing, I often found myself relying on Noiseless AI to handle high ISO images shot at night, and I was genuinely impressed by the results (though as with most AI-intensive tools, both Noiseless AI and Supersharp AI did take a while to run, which can be a drawback if you need to edit many images at once).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Supersharp AI was frustratingly slow, but Luminar Neo does display a cool little animation while you wait.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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Unfortunately, a few of Luminar's add-ons are not available as part of the Lightroom plugin; Focus Stacking, for instance, lets you combine multiple shallow depth-of-field images into a single deep depth-of-field shot, but it's only available in the standalone version. And the latest generative AI features\u2014such as GenErase, GenExpand, and GenSwap\u2014are unavailable in the Lightroom plugin.<\/p>\n

The good news is that when purchasing a copy of Luminar Neo, you can install both the plugin and the standalone version, which prevents you from needing to choose between one or the other. And you also have the option to select from several perpetual-licensing packages, none of which are terribly expensive (as long as you buy during a sale).<\/p>\n

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DxO ViewPoint 5: The Best Perspective Correction Plugin<\/h2><\/h2>\n

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When I first published this article, I explained that DxO\u2019s ViewPoint 4 plugin was the Lightroom editing plugin that I used more than any other. I do a lot of street and architectural photography, so my photos frequently include subjects in need of perspective correction: building exteriors, building interiors, and even landscape features such as trees.\u00a0A few months after I published my original Lightroom plugin recommendations, DxO released ViewPoint 5<\/a>, which I immediately purchased, and which has now replaced its predecessor on this list. In my view, it\u2019s a major step up from the (already excellent) ViewPoint 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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You see, I\u2019m a longtime Lightroom user, but while Lightroom does include a few perspective-correction tools in its Transform panel, I\u2019ve found its performance to be mixed. For fairly simple architectural shots with clear verticals and horizontals, Lightroom can deal with converging lines without much fuss; you can just tap the Auto <\/strong>or Vertical <\/strong>button, and the program will straighten up your buildings almost instantly. But when dealing with more complex images\u2014files with deliberately non-straight building elements, with high-contrast lines on the ground, with horizon lines that are obscured by foreground elements, and so on\u2014Lightroom fails to do a good job. It often seems like Lightroom is tricked by irrelevant lines in my photos and makes the images worse, rather than better, as a result.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s when I turn to DxO ViewPoint, which includes an amazing perspective correction panel but also boasts an array of other handy features for adjusting perspective and framing: tools for cropping, leveling, handling distortion, and creating a fun tilt-shift effect. I currently spend most of my time in ViewPoint 5 working with the perspective correction panel, and I couldn\u2019t be more pleased.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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But I want to emphasize: In addition to the slew of perspective correction and framing tools, ViewPoint 5 includes the handy Reshape Fusion tool, and it is incredible<\/em>. Yes, a similar tool, called Reshape, did exist in ViewPoint 4, but the new Reshape Fusion is on an entirely different level. Not only can you push and pull a grid to reshape elements in your image, but you can select from a variety of different grids, including a wild-looking 32x32 option, for extreme control over each portion of the image:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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This is a 32x32 Reshape Fusion grid. I can adjust each green point separately, which ensures that I can fine-tune my perspective corrections like never before.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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And you can also use a new Propagation slider to adjust the amount that each Reshape adjustment will affect the other Reshape pins:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Look at the grid overlaying the image. See the red patch surrounded by all the green dots in the grid? That red portion would be affected if I were to drag its point around. But if I were to boost the Propagation slider, the affected (red) area would expand.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

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The plugin doesn\u2019t have much of a learning curve, but it offers a ton of power. When I first tried ViewPoint for myself, I couldn\u2019t believe what I\u2019d been missing\u2014so if you\u2019re a photographer who often captures architecture or you simply run into perspective issues when editing, I think ViewPoint 5 is worth the $120 price tag.<\/p>\n

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Nik Collection 8: The Best Plugins for One-Click Adjustments<\/h2><\/h2>\n

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If you\u2019ve been in the photography world for a while, you\u2019ve likely heard of the Nik Collection<\/a>. The Collection has had something of a turbulent history; it was developed by Nik, then bought by Google, which made the plugins free to use. A few years later, it was bought by DxO, which has continued to develop the product alongside its own editing software but also brought back the paid model. In 2026, it\u2019s still the most effective Lightroom plugin for one-click adjustments, and plenty of photographers use it to give their photos that final, professional touch.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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The Nik Collection actually consists of seven different plugins, each with its own theme, including:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n