.abr

The latest version of abrMate now allows you to convert any newer Photoshop CS brush set that can be opened by the software to a Photoshop 7.x compatible brush set in a new .abr file. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Photoshop users that are not using the latest version of Photoshop and want to use brushes available online that were created using newer versions.

You can export as many brushes as you want to .png files in one step with abrMate. First, open all Adobe Photoshop .abr files you would like to convert to .png images by opening them one at a time or whole directories at once. Now click the button on the left titled 'Export All Open Brushes to .png's'.

abrMate is a freeware Windows application I wrote that has the ability to open Adobe Photoshop .abr brush preset files for previewing, organizing, or exporting brushes to .png's. I began writing abrMate because there didn't seem to be a full-featured free Windows application out there for opening and organizing brush files.

I've had a few people ask how I create the preview images for my brush packs; the little image underneath that shows each brush in a tiled view. I figure being able to see every single brush in the brush pack helps you determine if you want to download the abr file or not! Anyways, here's an example preview from my Wood Brushes 1 Brush Pack:

Lately, creating brush sets in .abr format has been my favorite means to manage my brush collection. A single .abr file can contain multiple brushes, which makes it a lot easier to manage large amounts of them. Gimp 2.4 and higher can also read brushes from .abr files, so there are no longer any compatibility issues in maintaining brushes between Photoshop and Gimp. I feel that the .gbr brush format used by Gimp is dead, so I no longer bother with it.