Top Free Plugins for After Effects & Premiere Pro

ProductionCrate bosts a fantastic collection of Free plugins for After Effects and Premiere Pro. Enhance your workflows in video editing, VFX and motion graphics using the Free plugins that are designed to give you the biggest boost in creativity.

• Crates God Rays: Add high-end volumetric lighting to any scene.
• Crates Light Wrap: A "secret weapon" for compositors to blend foreground subjects into new backgrounds seamlessly.
• Unmult: Quickly remove black backgrounds and generate alpha channels for fire, smoke, and glows.
• Crates Chromatic Aberration: Add realistic lens distortion to make digital renders look like they were shot on real glass.
• Crates Rec Overlay: The fastest way to add customizable camera viewfinders and UI elements.

The Complete ProductionCrate Plugin Suite (2026)

If you're looking to supercharge your workflow, the ProductionCrate Plugins (formerly known as the LaForge Suite) offer some of the most powerful tools available for creators today.

1. Filters and Effects

These tools are designed to transform your raw footage into cinematic masterpieces with a single click.

• Crates VHS Master: The industry-standard plugin for realistic analog damage, magnetic tracking errors, and retro aesthetics.
• Crates Rec Overlay: Generates customizable CCTV, viewfinder, and "REC" overlays for surveillance looks.
• Crates Hologram: Instantly converts any layer into a digital projection with scan lines and flickering interference.
• HyperGlitch: A versatile After Effects and Premiere Pro tool for high-energy glitch transitions and stylized digital artifacts.
• Halftone: A specialized motion graphics tool for creating comic-book dot patterns and retro print effects.
• Crates ASCII: Converts video into real-time text-based art (ASCII), popular for high-tech or "matrix" style visuals.

2. Beautiful Glow Plugins

A good glow makes any project beautiful. ProductionCrate's Glow plugins are built for accuracy, speed, customization and photorealistic results.

• Crates Easy Glow: Widely considered the best After Effects plugin for realistic glow, utilizing the inverse square law for natural light falloff.
• Crates God Rays: A volumetric lighting generator for creating stunning light beams and underwater "crepuscular" rays.
• Crates Star Flare: Adds anamorphic-style star glows and colorful diffraction to bright light sources.
• Chromatic Aberration: Essential for adding realistic lens color fringing to help composite 3D elements into live footage.
• Height Relight: A powerful tool that uses depth maps to dynamically relight 2D layers as if they were 3D objects.
• Crates Ring Bokeh: A high-performance lens blur plugin for creating customized out-of-focus light shapes.

3. Essential Video Editing & Utility Tools

These plugins streamline the "boring" parts of post-production so you can focus on creativity.

• Crates Camera Shake: Adds procedural, physics-based movement with realistic motion blur to static shots.
• Crates Film Grade: A comprehensive film emulator that includes halation, grain, and professional color grading presets.
• Crates Final Grain: A lightweight, fast-rendering film grain generator for Premiere Pro.
• Unmult: A legendary utility to remove black backgrounds and restore transparency in one click.
• Edge Blur: Softens the edges of keyed footage for seamless compositing.
• Crates Light Wrap: A crucial compositing tool that bleeds background light onto foreground subjects.

4. Motion Graphic Tools

Elevate your brand visuals and social media content with these high-performance motion graphics tools. These plugins are designed to create clean, modern aesthetics with minimal effort.

• Long Shadow: Generate infinitely extendable, customizable shadows for text and shapes—a staple for modern After Effects design.
• Long Gradient: Create smooth, stylized color transitions that follow the direction of your movement.
• Crates Glass: A sophisticated plugin for creating realistic glass refractions, frosted textures, and liquid-style overlays on your graphics.
• Halftone: Instantly apply a classic "comic book" or pop-art aesthetic using procedural dot patterns.

5. Generative & 3D Design Plugins

Go beyond standard 2D layers with these generative engines built into the LaForge framework.

• Cubic Fractal: Creates stunning, animated 3D fractals and abstract backgrounds for sci-fi environments.
• Crates Aurora: A 3D-aware Northern Lights generator that reacts to your After Effects camera.
• Long Shadow: A free long-shadow generator for classic motion graphic shadows.‍
• Long Gradient: Essential tools for clean, modern motion graphics and flat design styles.

What is ProductionCrate Portal?

The ProductionCrate Portal is the centralized management hub designed to streamline your creative workflow. Think of it as the "Command Center" for your VFX and motion graphics library.

• Plugin Management: Instantly install, update, and license your entire suite of After Effects plugins and Premiere Pro extensions from one interface.
• Asset Manager: A built-in database that allows you to browse thousands of 4K textures, sound effects, and video assets without leaving your workspace.
• Auto-Sync: Keeps your creative tools synchronized across different versions of Adobe Creative Cloud, ensuring you never lose access to your favorite plugin during an upgrade.

How to Install ProductionCrate Plugins?

Installing professional-grade VFX tools shouldn't be a headache. Follow these three simple steps to get your After Effects and Premiere Pro environment ready:

1. Download the Portal: Download the Portal installer for Windows or macOS.
2. Run the Installer: Open the application and log in to your ProductionCrate account.
3. One-Click Deployment: Select the "Plugins" tab. Click "Install All" to automatically move the plugin files into your Adobe MediaCore folders.

Ensure that After Effects and Premiere Pro are closed during the installation process to prevent registration errors.

What Software do ProductionCrate Plugins Support?

The ProductionCrate Plugin library is optimized for Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro.

ProductionCrate does offer Asset-Importing plugins for Blender, that allow you to import stock media directly into the 3D software.

What are the Best Plugins for After Effects?

For power users of After Effects, the ProductionCrate library offers advanced tools that replace hours of manual work with professional, one-click results.

• Crates Easy Glow: The gold standard for realistic light falloff. It replaces the stock "Glow" effect with physically accurate, inverse-square law results.
• Crates Glass: A premier motion graphics plugin for creating sophisticated glass refractions, frosted textures, and organic liquid-style overlays.
• Crates CRT Factory: Instantly simulate the look of vintage monitors, television screens, and pixel-grid displays with customizable phosphor trails and scan lines.
• Crates VHS Master: Essential for creators needing authentic retro-distortion, magnetic tape damage, and nostalgic 90s aesthetics.
• 3D Displacement: A game-changer for VFX artists, allowing you to displace 2D layers into complex 3D geometry using high-fidelity depth maps.
• Crates Chromatic Aberration (FREE): A "must-have" compositing tool that adds realistic lens color fringing, helping to blend 3D renders into live-action footage seamlessly.

What are the Best Plugins for Premiere Pro?

Elevate your video editing directly in the timeline. These Premiere Pro plugins are optimized for speed and high-end cinematic finishes.

• Crates CRT Factory: Perfect for editors who need to transform modern footage into a retro screen display or "security cam" look without leaving the timeline.
• HyperGlitch: The most efficient tool for high-energy music videos and digital transitions, offering advanced distortion without the need for dynamic linking.
• Crates Film Grade: A complete color-grading suite that emulates physical film stock, halation, and organic grain for a true Hollywood look.
• Crates Star Flare: Instantly adds anamorphic-style flares and diffraction patterns to your highlights, perfect for high-fashion or sci-fi edits.
• Crates Chromatic Aberration (FREE): Use this free tool to add a subtle "lens-feel" to your final export, giving your digital footage a more organic, optical quality.
• Crates Final Grain: A lightweight, high-speed plugin designed to add cinematic texture to your final export without significantly increasing render times.

Why Choose ProductionCrate Plugins? (The Advantages)

Unlike many legacy plugins that slow down your render queue, the ProductionCrate suite is built on the LaForge Framework. This proprietary engine is designed for delivering artist-first high performance tools:

• GPU Accelerated Rendering: ProductionCrate optimizes every step to maximize the quality and speed.
• Multi-Frame Rendering (MFR) Support: Fully optimized for the latest versions of After Effects, utilizing every core of your CPU.
• Unified UI: No more searching through messy menus. Every plugin shares a clean, intuitive interface for a seamless user experience.
• Apple Compatibility: High-performance support for M1, M2, M3, and M4 Mac chips.

ProductionCrate vs. The Competition (2026)

ProductionCrate vs. Red Giant (Maxon)

ProductionCrate’s Plugins are optimized for speed, offering essential professional tools without the high system overhead. ProductionCrate also offers an extensive library of high quality video, audio and 3D assets that can be used in any project.

ProductionCrate vs. Boris FX (Sapphire/Continuum)

Boris FX is a powerhouse for high-end film but comes with a steep learning curve and price. ProductionCrate provides comparable cinematic effects (like Easy Glow and VHS Master) with an intuitive, artist-friendly set of parameters and presets.

Where can I download the LaForge Suite?

The LaForge Suite was renamed to ProductionCrate Plugins. This rebranding has simplified the download and installation process to make it easy to install our entire collection of flagship plugins. Simply install Portal, log-in, and then click Install on ProductionCrate Plugins.

Can I try ProductionCrate Plugins for Free?

It's easy to try ProductionCrate plugins! You can register for a Free account through Portal or visiting this page.

You are able to try all of our Pro plugins with a watermark. Free plugins will instantly be unlocked and can be used forever.

How do I remove the watermark from ProductionCrate plugins?

To remove the orange "X" watermark, ensure you have an active Pro subscription and are logged into the ProductionCrate Portal desktop app. Once logged in, go to the effect controls panel in After Effects or Premiere Pro and click the "Refresh License" button within the plugin interface. This will instantly validate your account and remove the watermark from your timeline.

Can I use these plugins for commercial and client projects?

Absolutely. Any content created using the unlocked (Pro or Free-Forever) plugins is licensed for commercial use. This includes YouTube monetization, broadcast television, feature films, and freelance client work. For large-scale corporate entities or teams, ProductionCrate also offers an Enterprise License to ensure full legal compliance across the organization