As a digital artist who uses Adobe Photoshop to paint, one of the program’s biggest assets is the ability to create and install custom brushes. I have a few available for (free) download, which you can find here. While I find it fairly easy to install, some of you might not. So here’s a guide to installing brushes in Adobe Photoshop. I use Adobe Photoshop CS5, but I expect that later versions will work in similar ways.

Step one

Save your brushes that you’ve bought or gotten for free (.abr files) to an easy to find location on your computer. (preferably save all files to the same folder)

Step two

In Photoshop, go to Edit –> Preset Manager.

Step three

Choose Brushes from the drop-down menu.

Step four

Click Load and select the brush file you want to use and click load on the dialogue box. Click Done.

Step five

Open your Brush Panel (by default, the shortcut for that is the F5 key). Select the brush you wish to use, and you’re done!

That’s it. Easy, right? Hope that was useful!