How do I make downloaded brushes accessible?

[beve]

I have the download of brushes from the Premier Sept. issue. How to I load them to make them accessible?

[beve]

I have the download of brushes from the Premier Sept. issue. How to I load them to make them accessible?

I have PSE5 and XP.

Beve

[Priss]

Hi Bev,
One easy way to manage this is to first unzip that download so you have a folder with brushes in it. You CAN work with brushes this way, (or you can fully install them into the brushes presets folder in Photoshop). So try this out and see if you can make it work.

Open Photoshop, and bring in or start the layout where you want to use the brushes. Go to (B) brush tool, and then click on the tiny down arrow beside the brush you are on. There's a fly-out widget there near the top right of that menu,--click that.
In the list choose LOAD brushes, and then navigate to that folder that you unzipped, and pick out the brush file you want to work with (they are .abr files).

Set your foreground color to the color you want for your layout, and then brush (or click) away!

Let us know if this works for you, and be sure to share your work in the Scrappers Guide Galleries.

Priss Tip: Every time you pick up a brush--or change its color---do it on a NEW BLANK layer, never work directly on your photo or paper layer.

[beve]

Thanks, Priss. I got it by trial and error just before I got your message. I had made a brush and Wendy had told me to be sure to save it in the preset manager Edit>Preset Manager. I gave it a try. I found the Preset folder under Program Files>Adobe>Presets and moved my brush files into that. Then I went to PSE5 to Edit>Preset Manager>Load and loaded each set. I could not find them in the brushes then, so I closed PSE5 and when I reopened There They Were.

I am not doing anything productive right now, just kind of "scratch-padding". Trying to do a lot of learning. I'm trying to learn what each tool does. HMMMM Linda, a video for each tool?

Thanks again for your prompt help, Priss.
Beve