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Why should you use a Photoshop brush? Which Photoshop brush pack should you add to your arsenal?
While it is true that brushes do not make the artist, it cannot be denied that they help a lot. With the advent of digitalization, artists have started spending most of their creative time on digital art software like Photoshop.
If you had to draw and design each of the individual elements of your artwork from scratch every time, you would end up spending a lot of time on each project. That’s where Photoshop brushes come into the picture! They save a lot of your precious time by allowing you to create artwork quickly and accurately.
Selecting the best Photoshop brush can be extremely challenging, especially if you are a newcomer to the digital art world. There is a plethora of brushes available, some free and others paid. Each brush can render a different effect, which can vary across multiple textures and styles.
Are you looking for the best Photoshop brushes to take your design projects to the next level? Look no further! Here is the list of the best Photoshop brushes to help you create amazing visuals:
You can find hundreds of Photoshop brushes online. Based on your requirements and budget constraints, you can select one out of the 54 best options we have shortlisted and compiled in this list.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at some of the best Photoshop brushes you can find online.
The numero uno recommendation in this list is one of the most diverse brush packs you can find. The Sakimichan Pack consists of 56 brushes – you can experiment as much as you want with this brush set.
Although it is not a new brush pack, it is still relevant and compatible with nearly all versions of Photoshop. This brush pack was created thoughtfully to enable users to complete a wide array of drawing and painting projects conveniently. Each of these 56 brushes is very easy to use.
Whether you want to use a scatter brush, a general brush, or a splatter brush – this set has it all! These brushes come with default settings of 70% to 100% opacity and activated pressure. You can always change these and other settings to fine-tune these brushes according to your needs.
Aaron Griffin released his set of Photoshop paintbrushes in 2016. You can download it for free and use it for personal as well as commercial projects. Aaron is a self-taught concept artist and illustrator and is most renowned for his figure paintings.
We recommend going through some of his art before downloading this brush pack. If you are trying to create something similar, these brushes will be your best ally.
If you are looking for a brush set that is free for non-commercial use and can be used for creating modern paint effects, this is a perfect choice. Darrian Lynx has shared his abstract paintbrush set, which is an excellent option for beginners as well as professionals.
You can use this brush pack to create bright and colorful art. It includes a diverse range of brushes to provide an unparalleled painting experience to you.
Soenanda came out with a custom pencil brush set for Photoshop in 2013. It is a small set consisting of the following six brushes:
It is a simple starter pack for beginners who want to start using pencil marks of different softness levels. The highlight of these pencil brushes is that they can render realistic marks to make your digital art similar to traditional paper art.
Andantonius shared the Photoshop Pencil Brush set over a decade ago. These brushes are ideal for adding realistic textures to your sketches. We recommend this brush set to artists who have some experience in the digital art field.
If you are a beginner who has not worked with custom brushes before, you can find detailed, easy-to-follow instructions on how to install and edit these brushes.
If you are looking for a more recently released brush pack, artist Ahmed Aldoori has one for you. His Photoshop brush set has been published on Gumroad as an add-on to his widely followed YouTube channel. If you download it, you will get the latest 2022 update.
If you are a fan of Ahmed Aldoori’s art, you can check out his various painting videos and amazing tutorials online. We recommend this to beginners and professionals who are looking for a basic brush pack for Photoshop. And it is 100% free.
One of the most common and frequent uses of Photoshop is the creation of original character art. This brush pack from Francisco Beltran consists of 315 brushes and 2-pixel background erasers. It is the most comprehensive collection of Photoshop brushes in our recommendations list.
It is a compilation of various brush sets like cartoon, gouache, oil, pencil, sketch, screen tones, inkers, pastels, and watercolors. You can download it for free and use it for both commercial and non-commercial projects.
Roman Melentyev created the RM Natural Oil Pro pack for Photoshop in 2022. It contains various types of brushes like Plain, Textured, Wet, Dry, Soft, and Bristle. It consists of both TPL and ABR files.
You will appreciate the fact that these brushes support various Stylus dynamics, like tilt and pressure for comfort and natural brush-like intuitive painting. This brush pack gets update every year to provide the best features and tools to you for your digital art endeavors.
Christine Garner’s Natural Drawing and Painting Media Brushes are available on Gumroad for a little over one dollar. It consists of some essential custom brushes she created in Photoshop like oil pastels, markers, pens, pencils, splatter, and gouache.
This brush pack is compatible with Photoshop CS3 and up and includes an ABR file. If you are looking for a brush set that ties in with traditional media, this is the perfect option for you. It is well worth its low price, and we recommend it to beginners as well as professionals.
WojtekFus made this brush pack available for download in 2014. It is free for personal and commercial use. If you are looking for a charcoal effect in your digital drawing, similar to that on paper, this realistic charcoal brush pack is perfect for you.
It can be a bit challenging for beginners to get the same output digitally, but with some practice, you will get there. These brushes make for an excellent addition to your Photoshop brush editor.
You will most likely not be able to find a better ink brush set than the one by Shiyoon Kim. It is available on Gumroad for ten dollars and consists of eight brushes that have been fine-tuned to create impressive, fine ink lines.
Shiyoon Kim is an experienced Disney character designer who has personally created this brush set for Photoshop. It serves as the perfect starter kit for artists who want to get into animation using traditional ink designs.
It is compatible with Photoshop CS5 or higher and includes a tutorial video to guide beginners.
Bastien L. Deharme has released the Essential Brushes pack on CubeBrush for six dollars. It is compatible with Photoshop CC, CS6, and CS5. We especially liked this set because of its comprehensive coverage of over a hundred brushes.
These brushes are organized into several categories, like Sketch, Paint, Charcoal, Ink, Smudge, and so on. We recommend this brush pack to all digital artists, beginners, and experts alike.
DeviantArt user Pearlpencil released the Winter Brush set in 2012. It is a comprehensive Photoshop brush set that is compatible with PS CS3 and later versions. It is free for personal and commercial use.
We especially liked the versatility of this brush pack – it provides tools for dual pencil markings as well as chalky lines. Each brush in this set has been generically designed, allowing you to format and edit the final output as you desire.
Cale Atkinson offers the Tool Preset Brushes set on Gumroad for free. You can download it and use it for personal and commercial projects. These brushes are slightly different from most of the other brushes in this list, as they come in the Tool Preset format. We advise you to learn more about tool preset before you try these brushes.
If you are a fan of Atkinson’s unique style of illustrations, these brushes will provide the perfect tools to follow in his footsteps. You can use these brushes for all kinds of digital art.
CubeBrush has the Premium Marker Brush set by David Schmelling. It is affordably priced at two dollars only. It is time to include a Photoshop brush set in this list that can emulate markers. It is the perfect brush pack for illustrators and concept artists.
We recommend using these brushes on Photoshop CS5 or higher, but these are compatible with older versions as well. If you are looking for marker brushes that can deliver an almost realistic finish in digital art, this brush set is a perfect choice.
If you want to get a traditional charcoal finish in your digital drawings, you need to switch from graphite pencils to charcoal pencils. This set from Pixelstains contains seven different charcoal brushes:
This brush pack is free to use for personal and commercial purposes.
Artist Marc Brunet has released the Advanced Painter’s Brushes pack, which includes 28 different brushes for Photoshop. The pack consists of square brushes, skin brushes, folds brushes, dust brushes, dry oils brushes, and organic brushes.
Do not be fooled by its name – the Advanced Brushes set is not meant only for professionals and experts. Beginners, students, and hobbyists can also benefit from using these brushes as the learning curve are not too steep.
You can download this brush pack for free and use it for all kinds of digital art projects.
Roman Melentyev created the RM Watercolor Pro pack for Photoshop in 2022, just like the Natural Oil Pro pack. It contains various types of brushes like Plain, Textured, Wet, Sharp, Soft, and Contour. It consists of both TPL and ABR files.
You will appreciate the fact that these brushes support various Stylus dynamics, like tilt and pressure for comfort and natural brush-like intuitive painting. This brush pack gets update every year to provide the best features and tools to you for your digital art endeavors.
Its price of $16 is justified, given its versatility and utility.
A list of Photoshop brushes would be incomplete if we did not have ink brushes. Since 2011, Mateu7 has shared this brush set on DeviantArt. You can download it for free and use it for personal and commercial projects.
This brush pack consists of ten custom ink brushes having various designs. We recommend this brush set to all artists who like to work with ink in their digital art. You can make multiple marks using these brushes – loose, scattered, or straight.
Drew Green has made his Cartooning Brushes set available on Gumroad for an affordable price of six dollars. It consists of 27 professional-grade brushes that can be used for a diverse range of cartooning, storyboarding, and webcomic projects.
The set includes:
Art knows no boundaries – so why should Photoshop brushes be limited to the traditional medium? If you have ever wanted to create digital art that has the same finish as that of a paper drawing made using ballpoint pens, this is the perfect brush pack for you.
David Schmelling has released the Ballpoint Brush Set on CubeBrush at an attractive price of two dollars. These brushes are optimal for sketching, rough inking, and line art. We recommend using these brushes with Photoshop CS5 and up, though they will work with older versions.
DeviantArt user SoldatNordsken shared the Concept Art Brush Pack in 2016. It consists of custom brushes and free brushes from other sets that the artists have used for matte paintings, album cover artworks, film, and game concept art, and so on.
We recommend this brush pack to professionals who are looking for a comprehensive collection of Photoshop brushes for various effects like snow, foliage, atmospheric, and the like. Unlike others, you have to submit an email to download this brush pack, but it is free.
The Manga Brush Megapack is the most comprehensive Photoshop brush pack you can find. It consists of over 1500 Photoshop brushes and patterns. You name it, and this set has it! If you are an artist who wants to get into Manga or comic creation, this set will cover all your needs.
Each brush in this set is original and was developed using references from hundreds of Manga and thousands of comic illustrations. It costs $45 and is compatible with CC, CS6, CS5.5, and up. It is a broad brush set and will require considerable free space on your computer.
Roman Melentyev’s Perfectionist Brushes pack is available on CubeBrush for $39. It is one of the most expensive brush sets on this list but is worth it with over a hundred brushes. Here’s what you get when you buy this set:
When it comes to variety, the New Brushes pack by Sylar113 is one of the best. You will be able to create all kinds of digital artwork using the brushes included in this set. With over 70 different brushes that come in various styles and presets, this pack is a must-have.
It is one of the most comprehensive compilations of Photoshop brushes you can find. And the icing on the cake is that it is free for personal and commercial use. We recommend this brush set to beginners as well as professionals.
Terrana Cliff offers a small brush pack that she used to create Nwain: The Knight Who Wandered Dream webcomic. It is famous mostly for its compositions and animation effects. You can download this brush pack for free and use it for personal as well as commercial endeavors.
We recommend this brush pack to any artist who wants to create a webcomic. It is a complete set that was used by the creator to design Nwain comics, which just shows how efficient it is.
Artist Marc Brunet, founder, and creator of CubeBrush released the Starter Brush Pack for Photoshop.
Unlike the majority of the recommendations in our list, this pack is not free and costs around three bucks. It is worth that price as it is specially designed for beginners who want to learn digital painting or artists who have just switched to Photoshop from other software.
This set consists of 14 different brushes. We recommend buying these brushes and getting used to the various techniques and applications used in Photoshop before going for advanced brushes.
If you are an artist, who works on projects that require a watercolor finish, having a dedicated watercolor brush set for Photoshop can pay huge dividends in the long run. Favete Art offers a comprehensive Watercolor Brush set, consisting of over 180 brushes. It comes at a reasonable price of ten dollars.
Each of these brushes is hand-designed to perfectly mimic the effect of traditional watercolors on a digital medium. It does not get better than this for artists who work with watercolor textures.
Creative Nerds released the second volume of their free Photoshop brush set for thick acrylic paint strokes in 2017. This brush pack can be downloaded for free and used for personal as well as commercial projects. However, you may not modify or redistribute it for resale.
It is the second installment of a popular free brush set. We especially liked how easy and quick it was to add authentic paint effects to the illustrations.
Frank Morke’s Photoshop Pencils pack is available for ten dollars on CubeBrush. It is a comprehensive set consisting of 82 realistic pencil brushes in TPL format. It works optimally with Photoshop CS6. We recommend using a tablet that has 2048 pressure levels for the best results.
This is an ideal Photoshop brush pack for artists looking to create storyboards, comics, sketches, animations, layouts, technical drawings, and more. It is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.
Chris Spooner has designed this set of 12 incredible Photoshop brushes that can be used to create bristly and dry brush strokes in your digital art piece. These brushes can be installed for free and used for personal and commercial projects. Each of these high-resolution brushes is rich in texture.
We recommend this brush pack to artists who are looking for tools to distress the edges or rough up the overall artwork.
Robert A. Marzullo offers the 50-Pack Paint set on Gumroad for an affordable price of eight dollars. The set includes an ABR file with 50 custom brushes for the CC 2015 version of Photoshop. You can use these brushes for a wide range of effects like blending, smudging, line work, and soft and hard edges.
The set includes:
The Dripping Paint Brush set by LilithDemoness has been made available on MyPhotoshopBrushes. It is an excellent set of 14 dripping liquid brushes for Photoshop. You can conveniently add realistic paint dribbles to your digital art using these brushes.
You can download this brush set for free and use it for personal as well as commercial projects.
Francisco Beltran’s Photoshop Ink & Tones Brush set is available on Gumroad for just four dollars. At this price, it is one of the most comprehensive brush packs you can find. It consists of:
For optimal results, you should use these brushes with Photoshop CS6 and a tablet with at least 2048 pressure levels. It is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. We recommend this brush pack to artists who want to create Manga, comics, and posters.
Creative Nerds provides an excellent Spray Paintbrush set for Photoshop. It is free for commercial and personal use. It serves as an effective way of adding grungy or distressed style effects to your digital artwork.
The set includes four high-resolution brushes, each having 2500px resolution. Although it is free for use, you may not modify or redistribute this set for resale. You can also find an easy-to-follow video tutorial about loading these brushes into Photoshop.
Gumroad offers Francisco Beltran’s Photoshop Essentials Tool Preset Brushes for an affordable price of four dollars. It is a comprehensive set consisting of 22 brushes and two watercolor textures with bright variations.
The set includes:
These brushes work optimally with Photoshop CS6 and CC.
If you are willing to spend 30 dollars on Photoshop brushes, this is the ideal product for you. It comes with four different brush packs:
Each pack contains PSD files of completed works and images (JPEG files) of final designs.
It takes time to paint custom textures, but the results are significantly better, especially when it comes to details like grass, hair, and fur. The majority of artists still prefer custom texture brushes for creating these details.
Mehmet offers the Fur, Hair & Grass Brush pack for ten dollars. It consists of 52 high-resolution, realistic, 3D-rendered Photoshop brushes. It also comes with two ABR files, one each for CS2 to CS5 users and CS6 to CS2017 users.
DeviantArt user Brittney Murphy has shared the Ink Brush set for Photoshop. It consists of 192 brushes, including thin strokes, big slabs, ink splotches, and so on. It is available for download for free and can be used in personal and commercial projects.
As a general courtesy, we advise you not to redistribute this brush set. If you want others to use these brushes, have them download it. The artist does not require attribution for the use of these brushes.
Robert A. Marzullo offers this digital painting starter set for beginners and students who are still learning Photoshop and honing their digital artwork skills. It is available for free download on Gumroad. These brushes are compatible with Photoshop CS6 and come in an ABR file.
We recommend artists to use this set extensively before purchasing more advanced, custom brushes. This set can carry out almost all projects you may undertake, thanks to its diverse application ranging from comic brushes to chalking effects, hair and fur textures to blending brushes.
The Snow Photoshop Brushes pack consists of 15 high-quality brushes that can be used to create snow effects in your digital artwork. Each brush in this set has an impressive pixel size of over 2500. You can use these brushes to create snow effects in cards, prints, banners, flyers, and more.
It is strongly advised that you read the instructions on the download page for attribution, in case you use these brushes for commercial purposes.
Sparth’s Art Pack 1 for Photoshop is available on Gumroad for eight dollars. It is compatible with Photoshop version CS5 or higher. The comprehensive set consists of:
While this set may seem a bit expensive compared to the other recommendations on this list, we can assure you that it features optimal quality that justifies its price.
Creating illustrations of natural landscapes digitally can be challenging. There is just a lot of detail that artists have to render and replicate to get a life-like output. If you want to create textured and organic backgrounds consisting of leaves, go for this high-resolution leaf Photoshop brush set.
It consists of seven isolated leaf images and seven high-resolution leaf brushes that allow you to create intricate textures and details. You can download this brush set for free and use it for personal and commercial endeavors.
Brusheezy offers Jeremiah Shaw’s high-resolution Colored Pencil Brush set. This set consists of custom brushes in the form of colored pencils, and it is one of a kind.
We recommend this brush set to any artist who wants to incorporate a colored pencil finish in their artwork. You may download these brushes and use them for free for personal and commercial work. You should attribute the artist, Jeremiah Shaw, for any commercial work down using these brushes.
Next in our list of recommendations is the Free Photoshop Environment Brushes set from DeviantArt user Syntetyc. It is a comprehensive set of high-resolution brushes that are ideal for the environment and landscapes. You can download this set for free, and there are no restrictions on either personal or commercial use.
These brushes are compatible with Photoshop CS5 and CS6. Creating realistic natural landscapes and environment backgrounds in Photoshop becomes a piece of cake with this excellent brush set.
One of the most compact and crisp brush sets our recommendations list, the TsaoShin Basic Brushes set focuses on specific results rather than excessive variety. This set consists of four brushes and is free for both personal and commercial use.
The set includes:
If you do not want to be overwhelmed with hundreds of brushes, and these four seem capable of doing your job, this is the perfect brush pack for you.
At a reasonable price of five dollars, the Basic Oil Brushes pack from artist Grzegorz Rutkowski will be an excellent option for many Photoshop artists. It is better than the free oil brush packs we have recommended, so its price is justified.
You can conveniently achieve a high level of accuracy and detail with these brushes, which will make your digital artwork as close to traditional oil art as possible. These Photoshop brushes are capable of perfectly imitating oil paint.
Marco Caradonna released the Photoshop Brushes set for Sketching. You can buy it for as little as five dollars. It is compatible with Photoshop CS6 or higher, so if you are using an older version, then it might not work.
Sketching requires a lot of attention to detail and precise work. We especially liked the fact that this brush pack comes with a TPL file, which allows you to modify the default pressure settings of each brush and get the exact output you are looking for.
If you are looking for a basic brush set that does not deviate much from the standard Photoshop brushes that are included by default in the program, go for the Loish Brush set.
The set consists of:
Loish is a very famous artist from the Netherlands. If you are familiar with her work, you will love this brush set. It is free to download and can be used for personal as well as commercial projects.
DeviantArt user Dean Oyebo has shared his Environment Brushes set for Photoshop. This set includes some custom brushes and some modifications of free brushes. It is perfectly compatible with Photoshop CS3 and higher versions.
These brushes are freely downloadable and can be used for personal or commercial projects. We advise you to refrain from redistributing, reselling, or modifying this set. This set can be used for various projects but is best suited for concept art, layout design, and background painting.
If you want to create a map, somewhat like the ones in the Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, then you should go for the Sketchy Cartography Brushes set from DeviantArt user StarRaven. It is available for free personal and commercial use.
The set consists of various symbols and marks to help you create your map, including grass, mountains, trees, roads, buildings, and so on. It also comes with a transparent PNG file that contains all the images.
DeviantArt user Austin Pickrell has shared his Star Brushes set. It is available for free and can be used for personal as well as commercial projects. It consists of six high-resolution brushes that can be used to create starry night sky images in Photoshop.
Natalie Hijazi has designed the Scar Face brush set for Photoshop. It consists of 12 textured brushes, which allow you to incorporate scarring in your digital portraits. You can also use these brushes to create beautifully textured background elements or even to add some depth and age to your work.
This brush set can be downloaded for free and used for personal as well as commercial projects.
UCreative offers the Shattered Glass brush set for Photoshop. It consists of 12 high-resolution brushes that can be used to create a shattered glass effect. Each brush in this set has a 2500px by 2500px resolution, which shows how efficient it is.
We especially liked the fact that these brushes can be customized easily. You can modify the blending modes and opacity level, or mask out various parts of a brush to get textured effects. This set is free to download and can be used for personal and commercial projects.
This is a very comprehensive list of some of the best Photoshop brushes you may choose from. Do not be confused by seeing so many recommendations. We suggest that you first ascertain your requirements and accordingly screen these options.
Also, if you do not want to spend your hard-earned money on Photoshop brushes, you can simply eliminate all the non-free brush sets we have included in this list.
If you are a beginner or a student who wants to try a free set of Photoshop, do not download many different brushes at once. You will be overwhelmed and confused if you have many brushes to work with. Select the best option for your projects and switch to other, more advanced brushes only when needed.
We have tried to cover all kinds of Photoshop brushes in this list to ensure that every digital artist finds at least one option that works perfectly for them.
Till next time, keep creating art!
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