Tagged: brushes

Free vector browser window and Web site elements

Every once in a while, a truly useful piece of free vector art pops-up on the Web. VectorTuts has made available one of those must-have downloads in the form of Firefox and Safari Web browser windows, complete with buttons, location bar, scroll bars and other browser assets. The browser windows and elements are perfect for using as mock-ups for presentations, as well as dropping screenshots into for showing off your Web designs in your portfolio. You can also grab a set of really nice watercolor brushes for Adobe Illustrator while you’re there. Both the browser windows and the watercolor brushes are free of charge, and can be used in personal or commercial projects. You can download them exclusively from VectorTuts.

How to rotate your Photoshop brushes

When you’re working with Photoshop brushes such as corner shaped or otherwise directionally oriented, you can easily rotate the brush to fit your needs without manually rotating them with the Transform command. In the sample image above, I want to use a brush that was meant to be used in the lower right corner. But I want to use it in the upper right corner, so I need to rotate the brush. First, open the Brushes panel by going to Window>Brushes. When the panel pops up, select the brush you wish to use. Next, select Brush Tip Shape from the Brush Presets list on the left side. Finally, click the arrow on the crosshair icon in the lower right and drag it so the arrow points in the direction you wish to have the brush point. You can preview the brush direction change simply by moving your cursor over the canvas area – the brush outline will give you the visual feedback you need.

200+ free grunge Photoshop brushes

The Grunge look is all the rage right now, so don’t miss out on this huge collection of free grunge brushes for Adobe Photoshop at YouTheDesigner. Many of these brushes are of very high resolution, making them perfect for Web and print design work.

Add sparks to your Photoshop image

Adding a little spark to your image is simple with Grinder Sparks, a free high-resolution Photoshop brush set from Nathan Brown at Room122. I love Photoshop brushes because they’re so versatile, and I can see that this brush collection offers many possibilities. The 8 brushes in the set are all of high quality, and large enough for most print resolution uses.

Easily adjust transparency of layers and brushes in Photoshop

Adobe PhotoshopWhile most people know you can adjust the transparency of layers and brushes in Adobe Photoshop manually by using the sliders in the appropriate tool panels, many don’t know you can do it easily with just the keyboard. To adjust the transparency of a layer using the keyboard, simply click the layer you wish to adjust and type the percentage of transparency you wish to use. If you want the layer to be 54% transparent, just type 54. The same tip works for adjusting the flow (transparency) of brushes. Just select the brush tool (hit the “b” key) and type a number. If you want the brush to have a flow of 35%, just type 35. I love this tip for making small adjustments, rather than using the picky sliders which always seem to be a pain to make accurate adjustments easily.

Another Photoshop brush paradise

I’ve listed a ton of places to get Photoshop Brushes in the past. Today I have yet another to add to your bookmarks. PSBrushes has categorized thousands of Photoshop brushes along with convenient preview images for your download enjoyment. Categories like Grunge, Space, Plants, Oriental, and Fractals make it extremely easy to find exactly what you’re looking for. Some of the sets are quite large, containing over 80 brushes each. Others are smaller and very specific, with only 8 to 10 per set. All are quality sets.

Free Photoshop grunge brushes by Aramisdream

If you’ve read this site for any amount of time, you know I love Photoshop brushes, especially grunge-style brushes. Today I came across two sets of grunge brushes by Aramisdream, and they’re spectacular. Download set one here. Download set two here. Uncompress the downloaded files and move the .abr files to your Photoshop/Presets/Brushes folder. Then load them into your brushes panel in Photoshop to use. They’re all large, high-quality brushes and make perfect background textures for various projects.

1000+ Free Photoshop brushes

Abduzeedo has put together a list of 1000+ Free Photoshop Brushes complete with download links in a variety of styles, including grunge, abstract, modern and vector. You can take a look at the preview images and download them here.