How to Use Photoshop Brush Preset Manager to Manage Brushes

The Photoshop Preset Manager is a user utility that can be used to organize, load and save all custom items and presets for brushes, patterns, swatches, tools and such. The Preset Manager can load presets located anywhere on your hard disk, so the files can be saved in any specific folders or directory. The utility also lets you combine different sets or individual items from different sets together.

If you've created or collected a lot of custom items, the Photoshop Preset Manager is very useful in helping you to manage them. In this tutorial, we will explore exclusively the "Brush". However, you can use this tutorial as a guide for other presets such as pattern, tools...etc, when using the Preset Manager for managing those.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Adobe Photoshop 7.0 ~ CS4
• PC platform machine with Windows XP or Vista, any edition
• Mouse

1. 
   Preset Manager under the Edit option

   The Preset Manager is on the main menu under the Edit option; Edit > Preset Manager.

2. You will find at the top of the Preset Manager options for choosing the specific type of preset you want to edit. After choosing a preset, there will be a preview of the preset type you've chosen in the window below.

3. 
   Options for sets and work buttons

   You can work with your preset by using buttons for saving, loading, renaming, and deleting presets to the right.

4. 
   Submenu

   Right to the preset type menu, is a small fly-out arrow that will bring you to another menu. From this menu, you can select different ways for how the items are shown, for example thumbnails, large thumbnails, text only, small list...and so on.
   
   Click your choice on how you want your items be presented in the Brushes window.

5. DELETING PRESETS
   
   Choose and click a brush on the Brushes window that you want to delete, it will be highlighted. On the fly-out menu, select Delete Brush on the list.
   
   Clicking the "Delete" item will result in the following, depending on the state of that particular brush:
   
   (1) If the clicked brush is saved on your hard disk, it will only disappear on the Brushes window. You can then load and save that brush again to your Brushes window should you later wish to use again from the file on your computer.
   
   (2) If you just created a new brush and did not save it, the brush will be permanently removed from the Brushes window and it will not be found on your computer.

6. RENAMING PRESETS
   
   Click a brush on the Brushes window to highlight it. Press the Rename Brush on the fly-out menu, a text box will come up. Enter the name for that brush in the text area, then choose OK.

7. 
   Explore the possibilities

   There are other options you can choose from the drop-down menu in the Photoshop Brush Preset Manager to manage your brushes, click those to explore the possibilities that suit your needs. The above instructions, particularly Steps 5 and 6 are basics.

[sonni57]

on 6/15/2009 Thanks for the detailed information on photoshop brush preset manager.