TUTORIAL: How to use Photoshop Brushes in GIMP

This is a tutorial on how to use the Photoshop brushes from this site in the GIMP program. A visitor to the site was recently inquiring about this, and so I thought I would post a tutorial for anyone else that might be trying to do this as well.

It looks like a pretty easy, straightforward process… though I’ve never tried it myself. That being said, I’m not totally sure that all of the brushes will work in GIMP, especially older ones that I made in old versions of Photoshop. If you try it, please do let me know how they work.

Here’s how you do it:

  • Check the Gimp version you are using. Before you can use Photoshop brushes in Gimp, you will need to make sure you have a version of Gimp that supports the Photoshop brush format. This means making sure you using version 2.4 or higher. To check this, open Gimp and choose “Help” from the top tool bar. Now click the About option.

  • Find the brush directory. You will be putting the new Photoshop brushes in the same place as your native Gimp brushes. To find out where that is click the “File” menu and choose the “Preferences” option. Near the bottom of the list you will find the option labeled “Folders.” Click the plus sign next to the folders. This will reveal a whole list options. One of the first (if not the very first) will be “Brushes.” Click on the “Brushes” icon and make note of what directory Gimp is storing your brushes in.

  • Install the Photoshop brush file. Now that you know where to put them, you can load your Photoshop brushes into Gimp. This is simply a matter of copying the ABR brush file into the folder you identified in Step 2.

  • Refresh the brush list. In order to make your new brushes usable, you will need to refresh the brush list. Go to the brushes within Gimp. Click on the small paintbrush to bring up the “brush selection” dialog. From here, you will see a button marked with two arrows. Click this button and your Photoshop brushes are now ready to use in Gimp.

Happy Gimping!
(and Happy Holidays for those of you that are into that sort of thing ;P)

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 25th, 2010 at 3:02 am and is filed under Photoshop, Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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