Jun 01

hawksmont brushes are packed in archive files (usually with .zip extension), so the first thing you have to do is to unpack the brushes files form the .zip after downloading it from any site.

To unpack the archive you can simply right-click on your downloaded file and check if there’s the “unpack” option. If there is, just choose it and unpack the files from the archive to your brushes folder. If you can’t see that option, it’s possible that you don’t have any compression software and you have to install one. Anything compressing into .zip files will do :)

Adding brushes

In all versions of Photoshop the ways of adding brushes are similar.

How to add brushes without starting Photoshop

This is the fastest way :D You just have to copy your brushes (.abr files) into the Photoshop brushes folder: Program Files > Adobe > Photoshop (7.0 CE or CS or CS2 etc.) > Presets > Brushes. Then your new brushes will load automatically when starting Photoshop. You can find them from menu panel in Brushes window and you can choose to add brushes to existing ones (click Append) or replace them (click OK)

ps_brushes4.jpg

If you copy .abr files while working in Photoshop, they’ll appear the next time you start the software.

How to add brushes when Photoshop is open?

You just have to load them :)

ps_brushes11.jpg

1. Choose the Brush Tool and then click on the down-arrow to open the Brush Preset picker

ps_brushes2.jpg

2. Click on a small right-arrow in the upper-right corner of the box. Another menu panel should appear. Choose Load Brushes and locate on your computer brushes you’d like to add. Open the .abr file and now your new brushes set is ready to use :)

There is the second way of adding brushes in Photoshop. Actually it’s just another place, cos the way is similar :)

ps_brushes3.jpg

You can open Brushes window (usually it is open by default in the upper-right corner of the Photoshop workspace). Then choose a small arrow next to Brushes and Load Brushes

Where can I find cool brushes?

Here on this site! :D Just go to Photoshop Brushes category and have fun :D

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66 Responses to “Photoshop: How to add brushes?”

  1. sarah Says:

    just wanted to say thanks for the gimp brushes– they’re great. I recently jumped into doing larger design and none of my brushes worked for me any more. And it’s sometimes tough to find good ones for Gimp. Thanks!

  2. judith Says:

    i can’t load my downloaded brush.=[

  3. Maiko Says:

    I loaded my brushes to photoshop 6.0 but the file is not compatible to Photoshop. Please help!!

  4. hawksmont Says:

    I’m sorry :( , all brushes were created in Photoshop 7.0 and they should be compatible with higher versions, but unfortunately they won’t work with lower ones. I’ll think about creating brushes for lower versions, but I cannot promise anything now.

  5. ~tracy Says:

    I just wanted to say thank you so much for making these wonderful brushes available to us all to use :)
    Much appreciated!

  6. lil Says:

    whats ARA file??? I can’t load it into photoshop cs2

  7. hawksmont Says:

    ARA file? Where did you get that? Maybe you mean RAR? You won’t load it to Photoshop cos it’s archive file. Brushes are inside. If you have problems with .rar try to download .zip file and unpack it. Then you should be able to load your .abr files to photoshop

  8. krista Says:

    hey…where can i find or rather download a compression software for me 2 b able 2 unpack the .zip brushes?and may i know the name of that compression software?please?thanks a lot.. :)

  9. hawksmont Says:

    You can download 7-Zip http://www.7-zip.org/ This is freeware. Or check the right click on the downloaded brushes. maybe you already have the “unpack” option available so you don’t have to install anything

  10. arcguy Says:

    really nice blog and thanks for this trick of adding brushes.
    I want curly brushes and looking in your site next month or so for this request..

  11. Florian Says:

    Can brushes, created with Adobe Photoshop CS3, be used with Adobe Photoshop CS 2?
    And is there any appication which makes Brushes Made with PS CS2+ compatible with PS 7?

  12. kndch ngxrsu Says:

    jrlhqnxtk jnvgdxclw iflnyh hyxrnz wuxly fcbl qgmkxw

  13. created. Says:

    Cool site. Thank you!

  14. yaamor Says:

    hey man i downloaded this and its not having .abr ewxtension but .gbr extension? how to load this as a brush ?

  15. hawksmont Says:

    There are Photoshop brushes and GIMP brushes on this site.
    I think you’ve downloaded the archive with GIMP brushes. You should download the file with Photoshop brushes inside.

  16. Martina Says:

    hey that’s a cool site !
    But I have a problem to install the Brushes,
    Where can I find the Photoshop brushes folder ?
    :S
    I hope you could understand my question,
    my english suck ! xD
    Well, thanks!

  17. Joanna Says:

    OMFG, i’VE BEEN TRYiNG TO FiND A TUTORiAL!
    HAHA, i JUST GOT PHOTOSHOP.
    THANK YOU SOO FRiKEN MUCH!

  18. pam Says:

    this site rocks!!! thanks so much!!!!

  19. Carmen Says:

    hey ;; i have amazinq brushes ! // but i`m new t0 thizs’ =]
    && i have N0o0o0o idea wut i`m d0in . i d0wnl0aded da qun brushezs’ but i d0n`t see n0o unpack butt0n …. =[
    can y0u email me 0r sumin ;; plz =/

  20. Carmen Says:

    0mq . i meant t0 say y0u have amazinq brushezs` l0l =]

  21. stary Says:

    i can’t load my downloaded brush :(.. plz help me…

  22. thnxicouldneverworkitout Says:

    thnx alot, i finaly got it to work, i have been using photoshop with the costum brushes.. and now i can actally make em alot better..

    thnx for ur help.

  23. Heather Says:

    Easy to understand! Thanks very much!

  24. MACY Says:

    THEY WONT lOAD!

  25. hawksmont Says:

    MACY what version of Photoshop do You have and what exactly do you do to load them?

  26. nel Says:

    does it only work for photoshop?

  27. nel Says:

    i mean. only for adobe photoshop. can we use it in other photo shop like corel?

  28. Mara Says:

    oh my ! i’ve been looking for skyline brushes and backgrounds FOREVER. you have gorgeous brushes, & i love your skills. Keep it up, i’ll totally refer you to friends :)

  29. Mirjana Says:

    hey, i have Adobe Photoshop CS2 , does it work with that?

  30. Mirjana Says:

    Also, i can`t see the unpack thing when i right click.

    help plz :]

  31. DEMONcat Says:

    you have GREAT brushes!! anyways…
    i have trouble finding that program files folder. i’ve found it before but…it got away this time.
    also, i’m not sure if i have compression software, but if i just right click and select open it seems that i can get the brush without the other stuff…

    i dunno if that helps, but there ya go.

  32. NO-CTRL Says:

    This brush set is AWESOME! Thanks so much!!

  33. ChibiGirl Says:

    i couldn’t change the font color. can you help me please????? :(

  34. samira-mp3 Says:

    Good work!!!
    Welcome dear friends on tne my blog with Samira!!!

  35. swalkr Says:

    I have Photoshop Elements 4.0. Will your brushes work with that version?

  36. shails Says:

    hey dear this realy good thing you have provided to us thnx

  37. Kris Says:

    Hey,

    I think you brushes are very nice especially the floral ones. I think designers should be recognized for their work so if I use your brushes in any of my designs I will reference you for sure!

    Cheers,

  38. pharmacy Says:

    It is nice article! Thanks, good info!

  39. Laura Says:

    I downloaded the 7-zip - how do you use it?

  40. penny Says:

    it’s really useful…thanks very much easy to understand…

  41. HaCe Says:

    huwaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,,why i can’t archieve ur brush??i want it so bad..T.T

  42. denice Says:

    THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE ADOBE BRUSHES TUTORIAL! <3

  43. Miki Says:

    I have photo explosion and I can’t upload brushes what do I do?

  44. Sharon Kay Says:

    Thank you for sharing this!!

  45. Idetrorce Says:

    very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
    Idetrorce

  46. G Says:

    [...]

  47. How To Guide: How to use and add brushes Says:

    [...] Universe Has a tutorial on how to add your downloaded brushes into Adobe Photoshop. It really is a worthwhile read and can help you understand the basics of [...]

  48. Marta Says:

    I have got a problem. I can?t load my downloaded brushes. I unpacked them but they not work.
    I put them into presets>brushes…
    Do you know what is wrong?

  49. Jenny Says:

    If someone have this problem:

    “you download the brushes and put them in preset>brushes but when you try to load them it says the folder is empty”

    I had this problem and placed the brushes in a totally different folder example my documents and then it suddenly worked!

    hope I can help someone though my english is poor

  50. crazy4franz Says:

    I have photoshop 7.0 and I downloaded brushes but I can`t put them in photoshop, it says file is not compatible. When I want to put them via C: program files: photoshop:patterns- I can`t find brushes anywhere. I`m desperate.

  51. macuser Says:

    Hey!
    What if I’m a Macintosh user, will ther load in my computer??? I have Adobe CS2 in a Mac Book Pro running Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)!
    Thanks!

  52. atique Says:

    thanks… it really help me

  53. Darien Says:

    omg i love you! thank you so much! <<33 *hug*

  54. kero Says:

    omg yes awsome i got the wings there awsome took awhile to figure out but there purfect thnx

  55. anndante Says:

    Thank you so much for the brushes, they’re wonderful tools. It’s very very kind of you to share this.

  56. Fareeha Says:

    hey.
    i can’t “unpack” the zipped folder.
    it doesn’t have anythinq that says you can unpack it.
    how can i unpack it without the button not beinq there?

  57. shadolen Says:

    thanks for the short tutorial, it really help me out in so many ways…
    I’m just starting out in school right now with a Photo Shop CS3 class, and I need all the help I can get.

    Cool Beans

  58. sm4310 Says:

    Rar files u have to download a program Winrar is the name .
    Here is a link to download it http://www.rarlabs.com/download.htm
    u can use that one or search for it type “how to extract rar files”, or “winrar downloads”
    u install it then if it says something if u wanna buy it a pop up window ignore it just close it ^^ it works even thou it tells u to buy it (it’s annoying everytime u wanna extract somethin it pops out so don’t be alarmed)

    then u click on the folder of the download of the brushes. It should look like an emoticon of 4 lil books stacked open it then say u want to extract it. (second icon from the left “Extract to”) From there u can extract it to any folder u want or the desktop.

    Then u open photoshop go to EDIT->PRESET MANAGER->click LOAD-> then click where u um extracted the brushes then—>click LOAD and they should appear then click –>DONE

    and u r done ^^

  59. plaubar Says:

    thank you for your help, nice tip

  60. namrata Says:

    hey there…..

    awesome stuff..just one big lil problem…i’ve been downloading brushes on to my mac book …but its all super pixelated!

    what could be the issue…
    cheers

  61. cindy d Says:

    hi
    first-thank you for sharing your time and talents. i see you’ve helped a lot of people :)
    i am frustrated b/c i have the same prob as everyone else it seems-i cannot load the brushes into my elements 4.0 . I collected the brushes i have downloaded, put them into a folder, put that folder into program files-preset-brushes…but they don’t appear. i also tried the other way; opening the drop down menu in brushes and selecting “load”, finding my folder-but when i get that far nothing happens. hmmmm…… i’m missing something. i haven’t unzipped or unpacked anything. i will read up on that. you have to understand i am new to all of this and i so desperately want to learn more! i feel great everytime i learn one more new trick b/c it takes so much to be self taught! i know there is an easy answer but have to figure it out on my own mostly. thanks for any help :)

  62. Tolik Says:

    http://www.dizmex.com - Photoshop, PSD, Templates, Frame FREE

  63. Judy Says:

    Can anyone tell me if brushes created in CS3 can be somehow converted to be used in Photoshop 7???
    I would appreciate any help or advice.
    Thanks

  64. sarahjaeyin Says:

    thank you so much for your help! I’m new to Photoshop ^_^

  65. Alijayne Says:

    I don’t understand how to get to Program Files > Adobe > Photoshop (7.0 CE or CS or CS2 etc.) > Presets > Brushes.

    I’m new to all this… please help?

  66. anajo Says:

    thanks a lot!!!

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