Brushes for Photoshop, GIMP and More
Photoshop, along with other image editing software like GIMP and Paint Shop Pro, comes with a basic set of brushes but you’re not limited to the presets. To exercise your creative muscles, you can find free brush sets online to enhance your Photoshop work. Brush sets are available in every theme, pattern, and object imaginable.
Brushes for Photoshop and Gimp
Check out this list of 18 websites that offer free, downloadable brush sets.
myPhotoshopBrushes.com offers a wide variety of colorful, funky brush sets. This site also offers patterns, custom shapes, and tutorials.
myPhotoshopBrushes.com
Fbrushes.com has a collection of 6,827 brushes and counting from which you can choose. You’ll find brushes that are sleek and sophisticated, in a variety of themes, ranging from abstract to floral.
Fbrushes.com
Brushlovers.comoffers both free and premium brushes. There is a large collection of brushes from which to choose, and the sets are rated by users to help you make your decision.
Brushlovers.com
Free Photoshop Brushes is home to collections of abstract brushes in shapes such as rising smoke, bokeh circles and flares. You will also find unique brushsets such as a Cosmetics set.
Free Photoshop Brushes
DesignM.ag has a collection of 2000 brushes, available for free download. Here, you can find ink brushes, skin brushes, smoke brushes and more. You will also find a collection of retro and vintage brushes, as well as unusual sets such as anatomy brushes, sci-fi movie brushes and mythology brushes.
Designm.ag
Ants Magazine has complied a list of free brush collections. The list is eclectic, ranging from fur brushes to a pin-up girls set. The list points to over 1100 free brushes for Photoshop.
Ants Magazine
Brushdirectory.com is another site that offers user ratings and reviews of the brush sets available for free download. Here, you can find brushes for 2012 calendars, half-tone brushes and abstract light brushes.
Brush Directory
Easyelements.com offers a nicely organized collection of themed brush sets, for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. Here, you can find seasonal brushes for winter, Easter, and Valentine’s Day along with ribbons, leaves, and stars.
Easy Elements
DeviantART is a community of artists that have contributed their brush sets for free download. If you are looking for something unusual or specialized, chances are that you’ll be able to find it on deviantART.
Deviant Art
Brusheezy.com is one of the most popular sources for free Photoshop downloads. The site has a searchable collection of brush sets. Users can search with theme keywords, in addition to filtering the search by Photoshop version and sorting search results by popularity, rating or date.
Brusheezy
Hongkiat.com has put together a list of “50 Free Photoshop Brushes That You Should Bookmark.” The list includes brushes that look like metal, pieces of tape, and graffiti tags.
Hongkiat
Nela Dunato offers Photoshop brushes for free. These brushes were designed by Dunato, from her own original artwork, in Photoshop 7 and will work in newer versions of Photoshop as well.
Nela Dunato
Celestial Star has brushes for Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, as well as stamps that can be used with other programs. Here, you can find Kanji brush sets, stylized Pooh brush sets and romantic-themed brush sets. The brush sets can be sorted by software version or you can search the collection by keyword.
Celestial Star
Techzilo.com has a long list of brushes that can be used with GIMP, an open source photo editing program. Brush sets found here include elements of nature, filmstrips, splatters and many more.
Techzilo
Obsidian Dawn has brushes for Photoshop, PS Elements and GIMP, organized into detailed categories such as markings/blemishes, handwriting and sic-fi.
Obsidian Dawn
Blendfu.com, in addition to the usual brushes, also offers holiday brushes for free download. There are brushes for Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Halloween. This is a well-organized website that allows you to preview and test the brushes before downloading.
Blend Fu
Ubuntuka is a resource for Ubuntu users, and has compiled a list of brushes that can be used with GIMP, such as circular, grass, and snowflake brushes.
Ubuntuka
Web Resources Depot has a large collection of human-related brush sets, with images of the human form in various poses and positions. The collection is organized by body part for easy searching.
Web Resources Depot
Brush sets of every shape and size imaginable can be found in this list of twenty websites, but if you still can’t find what you are looking for, you can design your own brush sets. There are many free tutorials online that will show you how to create brush sets from your own images. If you can see an image in your mind’s eye, there’s a brush for it!
Ken Hattori’s website:
Written by Ken Hattori
Ken Hattori is a technology writer with onlinegraphicdesigndegree.com who has a passion for design, photography, letterpress, and just about anything that is appealing to the eye. Having spent some time living in Japan, he has developed a fascination with minimalistic and clean designs.
