Managing Brushes – Preset Manager

Posted on 2011/12/01 at 18:16 by daarken 15 Comments

Have you ever wanted to rearrange your brushes or delete multiple brushes at one time? Daarken shows you how to manage your brushes with the preset manager.

15 Comments on "Managing Brushes – Preset Manager"

  1. Judy · 2011/12/02 at 00:57 · Reply

    Hi Everyone!
    Daarken, thanks a lot for another great tutorial!
    I have a question. Do you think i can save one brush from another pack of brush and save it in another folder of brushes so I can have all the brushes that I like togeter in one folder?

    • daarken
      daarken · 2011/12/02 at 09:25 · Reply

      Yes. All you have to do is load the brushes you want from one set and then go into the preset manager and delete the ones you don’t want. Then go back into your document and right click on the canvas to bring up your brush palette. Click the button that looks like a circle with a triangle in it. Then click “load brushes” and load the brushes from the other pack that you want. Again, go into the preset manager and delete the ones you don’t want. Keep doing this until you have all the brushes you want together. Then go back to the document, right click on the canvas, click the circle icon with the triangle, and click “save brushes.” You can now save these new brushes as a new file.

  2. Eludor · 2011/12/02 at 01:39 · Reply

    Hey Daarken,

    I saw that someone (I believe it was Feng Zhu) had his palett numbered.

    Every line started with a number as big as the other brush previews.

    Do you think this was an option or just sorted brushes?
    Is there an option to number your lines?

    • daarken
      daarken · 2011/12/02 at 09:27 · Reply

      Hmm, I haven’t seen that before. Maybe he made individual brushes with a number in each one and then went to the preset manager and arranged them so that it looks like a numbered list? I am not sure.

  3. razv · 2011/12/02 at 08:05 · Reply

    hi, Daarken! i would like to thank you for sharing tips and tricks with us!
    but, i think that such basic things as showing how to make a brush, how to manage them, is a bit to extreme. if someone is really interested in digital painting and drawing, i’m sure he’ll take the time to do some research on his own about this super basic stuff.
    i’m looking forward to see your upcoming videos. maybe you’ll touch on some color theory, how to solve design problems and such.
    thank you for your time.
    razv

    • daarken
      daarken · 2011/12/02 at 09:21 · Reply

      Yes, I plan on talking about color, design, etc. You would be surprised how many people don’t know this “basic” stuff. I’ve had people ask how to change the history state, which is just found under “preferences.” I’ve also had people that didn’t know how to save a brush, flip the canvas, etc. I am sorry you feel these early tutorials are too boring, but I feel it is a necessary part of learning a program. Should I just skip all the people that have never used Photoshop before because they can just go find it on their own? This site was created so that people can find that information. If not here, then where else will they find it? I appreciate your feedback, and I promise the more advanced tutorials are coming.

  4. Steffen · 2011/12/02 at 11:49 · Reply

    Daarken, I think you are completely on the right way. Some of the basics are not even known by pros, so I really think it’s ok to sum up everything here on this site. The most of all this is repitition to me, but if there is only one thing you can actually learn which increases your workflow significantly (or getting rid of some things which really suck to do…) it was worth the time.

    To sum up: I think it’s the right way. Keep it up! A great thanks here and I#m really excited about some advanced stuff!

  5. J.R. Barker · 2011/12/02 at 15:06 · Reply

    Hey Daarken, great site.
    So, I was wondering if you knew of a way to have multiple tool preset windows open. My brush preset list is getting too long and I wish I could have a couple different windows open like for “environment brushes” or “sketch brushes” etc. You can do that in Painter, but it doesn’t appear to be possible in PS unless I’m missing something.

    • daarken
      daarken · 2011/12/02 at 15:24 · Reply

      Good question. I know exactly what you mean, but I don’t think you can. I just tried on both CS3 and CS5, and I couldn’t figure out a way to open multiple tool preset windows that have different libraries loaded. Maybe they will add it in the future :). After a quick Google search, I couldn’t yield any results either. Sorry about that!

  6. solomon · 2011/12/05 at 23:17 · Reply

    hey daarken there’s something similar that can be done using adobe configurator, can create custom panels ,using them I succeeded in linking different actions to the new panel to load em into the tool presets or brush presets with just a click of a button :D

    • daarken
      daarken · 2011/12/06 at 00:53 · Reply

      Oh cool, I’ve never heard of that. I will definitely have to check it out. Thanks for the info!

  7. Mitsukai-inki · 2012/02/01 at 16:25 · Reply

    Hello daarken,

    Already, sorry for my English, I am French and I still do a lot of mistakes:)

    This is a great initative that make tutorials that begins with the basics:)
    I would like to know if you have information on palettes customized brushes, mentioned by Solomon, I am very interested.

    Thank you for the work and time spent in his tutorials, it must not be an easy one:)
    Good luck and great job

  8. Richard · 2016/01/12 at 16:25 · Reply

    I just wanted to say that your tutorials are EXTREMELY helpful. You’ve been the only one who has helped me understand many things, include layers and basic photoshop ergonomics. I really appreciate your work and your help! Hopefully I’ll go from beginner to pro before too long with your help.

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