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How to export Photoshop brushes for use in PSP, Painter etc tutorial Beginner's Guide

By Andrew Buckle, Video Tutorial Creator / Designer

Updated : 2021

export brushes from Photoshop to other applications

 

How to export brushes from Photoshop for use in other applications tutorial such as Photo-Paint, Painter, PSP etc. There are millions of Photoshop brushes available (many on this site) and not all applications support ABR format (though more and more are supporting the latest format of ABR Photoshop brushes).

  1. Open a new document for the document to be exported (set the size as required and depending on the brush to export)

  2. Go to the brush tool in Photoshop toolbar

  3. Set color to black

  4. Select a brush from the brush picker along top bar

  5. Apply brush stroke

  6. File menu

  7. Export

  8. Export as PNG etc

You can simply open a document and apply a brush dab (set to black) and then export that via the file menu and export commands to other applications such as PSP or CorelDRAW etc. You can also create brushes using the brush once or multiple times and then export that as a new brush stroke.

 

You can add Photoshop effects to brushes and then export the brush stroke as a new tool for another application. You can also use layers as a great way to manipulate the brushes and position them in many different ways and export the brush stroke from Photoshop via the save for web or export command.

 

This tutorial shows you a few ways to generate new brush strokes for export from the Photoshop brushes

 

Export ABR format to Affinity Photo etc

If you are using a more recent version of Photoshop then you can also export the ABR format file and that is supported in many different applications such as PSP, Affinity etc Go to the brushes panel and select a number of brushes or brush groups and then go to the right side menu and use the export command. The ABR format is now supported in many different applications and Photoshop makes it super easy to export your designs for use in other apps. Please see the tutorial at the top of the page

 

Export brushes from Photoshop to other applications

different sizes of exported item

Use them to create a dab for use in other applications

  1. Select brush tool in the Photoshop toolbar

  2. Go to panel panel

  3. Select required item

  4. Make note of the brush size in the panel

  5. Create a new document to that size (or greater if you wish to add additional dabs)

  6. Set color to black via Photoshop toolbox

  7. Apply dab

  8. Save via the file menu via save / export or even save to web

 

Another option is now available via CC where the items can be extracted via the file menu extract assets command. With the CC, you can also now save any generated work to the CC library and use that in other apps of the creative cloud such as Illustrator (and hopefully some of the other apps at some point)

Export Photoshop brushes with effects added to the exported brush

exported effects brushesYou don't have to just export the basic stroke. Effects can be applied to the PS dab as well as layer effects and then export. Multiple strokes can be applied beforing saving the artwork for export to PSP, GIMP etc. You can also add to the artwork before any saving as well as removing parts from that item (perhaps using a shape set to the color of the background of the image). You can also just crop the image to select only part of that image to export.

  1. Select brush tool in Photoshop toolbar

  2. Select brush from brush presets picker / panel

  3. Apply brush stroke

  4. Go to the filter menu

  5. Apply effect such as Analog Efex Pro etc

  6. File menu

  7. Export

  8. Export as ...

Re-size brush stroke and generate multiple brush designs

photoshop brushes export and multiple brushes layers

You can use layers to export all kinds of brush stroke generated designs for use as PSP Brushes, Clip Studio Paint brushes, Affinity Photo brushes etc.

  1. Select brush tool

  2. Select a brush from the brush preset picker / dropdown

  3. Set the brush size / diameter

  4. Layer menu

  5. New layer

  6. Apply brush to that (once or twice etc)

  7. Apply effects etc

  8. Duplicate layer / hold down alt / option key

  9. Re-size the brush layer (or keep the same)

  10. Rotate the brush layers (or not)

  11. Spread layers throughout the document but avoid the edges

  12. Layers menu in Photoshop

  13. Flatten image

The JPG or PNG file etc can be then used in other applications such as Clip Studio Paint as a brush