1Your Photoshop brushes are not only used in the traditional sense of how a paint brush can be used. Your brush also acts as a stamp to add interesting shapes or pattern and textures to your images.

 

Using a brush is very easy. With your image open in Photoshop select your brush tool from the tools menu.

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Then at the top of you page you will see a menu appear that lets you select and adjust your brushes.

(You can also bring up this menu by right-clicking your mouse on your image)

 

 

 

1)     - this button brings up the menu to adjust your brush options

2)     - this slider sets the size of your brush

3)     - this slider sets the softness of the edges of your brush (feathered or not) *number 3 won’t work on custom brushes

4)     - this little arrow brings up your settings menu

5)     - lets you load your new brushes that you have made or downloaded

6)     - these are your standard brush menus to select from

 

Now that you know the layout  - lets see how to download and install a brush from busheezy.

 

I have chosen a photo of a rose to work on and I would like to add some pretty vines of some sort. So I will hop into brusheezy (or any of the other sites that share free Photoshop brushes) and I will type in the search bar at the top of the page “vines” and then click search.

 

An assortment of brushes relating to the search are now going to come on screen. At the top of the page are the free brushes, underneath them you will also find sponsored brushes that you will need to pay for if you would like them.

 

I like one of the free ones so I will click on the picture of the brushes I like.

Some of the older brushes aren’t compatible with the newer Photoshop versions – but trial and error will tell you what’s what (some of the brushes have a write up and will note if they are not compatible with a certain version).

 

Once you have opened the page for the brushes you like  – there will be a big blue button saying DOWNLOAD. Click it.

 

A little warning will pop up telling you that you are about to download something and ask your permission – you can accept or click yes or you might even need to tell the computer where to save the brushes. (Computers have different download processes so I can’t tell you exactly what will happen but it will be very simple to follow)

 

Once your brush is downloaded (make sure you DO know where your computer saved it to) go to the folder and unzip the brush pack. You can do this by double clicking the file you just downloaded and then dragging and dropping the .ABR (brush) file out of the zip folder and on to your desktop (or wherever it is that you have saved it)

 

Now you can go back into Photoshop.

 

With your brush tool selected – go to number 5 above (load brushes) and when the screen pops up you can tell the computer where you saved your new brushes – click on the brush file and then click load / ok.

 

Now your new brushes will appear at the bottom of your brush menu!

You can select it by clicking on it and then set your required size and colour and stamp the shape right onto your image! As easy as that!

 

 I added a vine frame to my rose photo:

brush1

 

 

And here instead of using a photo - I have used a blank canvas and created an invite using various brushes in Photoshop.
invitezombie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and for this one I used a brush to add texture to the skin to create a Zombie!