Quote from Photoshop help

“Tool presets let you save and reuse tool settings. You can load, edit, and create libraries of tool presets using the Tool Preset picker in the options bar, the Tool Presets palette, and the Preset Manager.“

HOW TO LOAD BRUSH PRESETS

First, we need to determine what constitutes a brush file and what constitutes a preset file.  A preset file has an extension of .tpl.  You can have any name you want but the extension is .tpl.  A brush file has an extension of .abr.  These files are loaded differently.

A tool preset contains settings that define the characteristics of that tool, such as size, shape and hardness of the brush.  It does not have to be a brush tool; it can be any tool, for example, smudge tool or art history brush.  They all have the ability to save their settings.

Let’s say you have been working on an image using the art history brush.  Using the brush palette, you have created a brush that has all the settings or characteristics that you feel are perfect for that brush.  You have set the dynamics of the brush, the textures of the brush and how Photoshop handles the color – all have been set in this perfect brush.  If you close Photoshop, you will lose all these settings unless you save it as a preset.

To save the settings for this brush, you need to make sure you have this brush selected in your tool palette.  Then go up to your menu and select your tool preset picker.  A dropdown window will appear and you will see all the presets that Photoshop has available for this particular tool.  In your top left corner, you will see a little button with an arrow pointing to the left.  If you click on this button, a dropdown menu will appear.  At the top of the menu, select “New Tool Preset”.  Give this new tool a distinctive name and click okay.  This will now appear in your list of available presets.

Now, let’s say you want to share this with a friend – this perfect preset (brush) that you have created.  Go back to your menu and select your tool preset picker and again click on the little button with the arrow.  A dropdown menu will appear.  In the dropdown menu that appears, go down to your “Preset Manager”.  By doing this, you will open your preset manager window that has a listing of all your presets for all your tools.

Find the tool preset that you wish to share/save, highlight it and then click “Save Set”.  Give it a name, make sure you know where you are saving it and then click “Ok”.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve saved a file and didn’t remember where I saved it, so make sure you know the folder.  Now you can e-mail this or burn a CD of this perfect brush preset.

Here’s a tip for backing up all your brush presets.  Click on the first listing at the top, scroll down to the bottom, now hold down your shift key and click on the last file.  This will highlight all of your presets.  Now, go over to the button that says “Save Set”, click on that, give it a name (I usually name it all tool presets) and click okay.  Again, make sure you remember where you saved it.  This file contains all of your presets for every tool.  You can now back this file up by burning it on a CD so if anything terrible happens, you can always load your tool presets back into Photoshop.  You can also move your presets to different computers this way.

Let’s say you have a preset that you have downloaded from the internet or maybe from one of my tutorials, or maybe one of your friends is sharing a brush preset with you.  To load this preset, you just go up to your menu and select your tool preset picker.  Again click on the little button with the arrow that’s on the left of this dropdown window.  The dropdown menu will appear.   Select “Load Preset”.  Navigate to the folder where you have placed the desired file.  Select and load.  That’s all there is to it.  This new preset will now be available for you in your tool preset picker.

This new preset is ready for use.  Remember, while using this preset any changes to the settings are not permanent.  To make them permanent, you have to resave the preset, either under the same name (which will overwrite the existing file) or give it a new name and save it as an additional preset file (maybe the same name with a different version number, such as version 2).  This will make the original file available plus a second file with the alterations will be available.

There is so much more about brushes and presets that I’d like to share with you, but this is all for now.  I hope you will find this information of use.

Steve