If you are a designer, then, you most probably use Photoshop for your design projects – and that means you also have a collection of Photoshop brushes in your arsenal. Every designer needs them – after all, they can save you a whole lot of time when it comes to consistency across your design projects.
But the main problem starts when you don’t have the perfect Photoshop brush to meet your demands and even when you do find them – they are just not what you are expecting or worse, you don’t have the budget to purchase them.
Fret not – to ensure that you will always have a ready-made collection of Photoshop brushes, a list has been compiled just for you.
In this article
NATURAL BRUSHES
If you are looking for Photoshop brushes that can add depth and realism to your artwork, then going for the ‘Natural Brushes’ is your best bet.
Skin Photoshop brushes
If you specialize in portraits, then you can’t go wrong with this set of Photoshop brushes. This set is an amazing boost to a digital artist’s arsenal. This set of Photoshop brushes is free for both commercial and personal use.
Photoshop brushes for human skin
Designed by ‘env1ro’ and made available on ‘BrushKing’, this set of brushes is perfect for painting the human skin. Made to be compatible with Photoshop PS7, they are best for retouching your artwork and adding make-up.
Photoshop brushes for environmental landscapes
Designed by ‘Sylar113’ and made available on the user’s DeviantArt account, this set of brushes is free to use for commercial and personal work.
In this brush set, you will find brushes for nearly everything – leaves, trees, grass and such – to paint environmental landscapes.
COMIC AND FANTASY BRUSHES
Longing to add a comic-book or even fantasy or sci-fi inspired look to your artwork? The following list will have you covered.
Brushes for magic spells
If you are a lover of all things ‘mythology’, then, you are going to love this set of Photoshop brushes. Designed by ‘TreehouseCharms’, this set of brushes is available for download on the user’s DeviantArt account.
Free for both personal and commercial use, each of the brushes in this set relates to a moon. If you have ever wanted to add some whimsical designs to your artwork or accent your artwork, then, this brush set is the one you should turn to.
Photoshop brushes for sketched cartography
Ever wanted to add a ‘Hobbit-styled’ look to your artwork? Then, look no further – designed by ‘StarRaven’, you can download this set of Photoshop brushes from the user’s DeviantArt account.
This set of brushes will allow you to create anything from buildings, trees, mountains, and grasses. Perhaps, the best among them is that this pack of brushes when downloaded, will also offer you transparent PNG files of all the images that you can create with the brushes.
Though this set of brushes is free to use personally, however, for commercial use, you have to ask permission from the user.
Photoshop brushes for light effects
This set of brushes is perfect if you are thinking of creating special light effects to your artwork. You can use this set of brushes by combining them with layer blending modes with either vivid light or screen light.
This set of brushes is designed by ‘WeGraphics’ and can be downloaded for free on their website. It can be used for both personal as well as commercial work.
PAINTING BRUSHES
If you have always wanted to add a traditional art look to your artwork, then, the following list of brushes is a must in your collection.
Paint brushes for photoshop
Free for both personal and commercial use, this set of brushes is perfect to add to your collection if you are looking to add a painted brush look to your artwork.
This set of brushes is free to download at ‘Brusheezy’.
Photoshop brushes for paint
If you are a concept artist, then, you must have heard of Aaron Griffin.
Aaron is a self-taught concept artist plus an illustrator, made famous by his figure paintings. Having his work graced by many magazines, wouldn’t you like to know what brushes he use?
Luckily for us (and also a big thanks to him!), Aaron has offered his preferred set of Photoshop brushes for download on his DeviantArt account. It’s free of charge too, and you can use these brushes for both personal and commercial work.
Photoshop brushes by Sakimichan
If use DeviantArt, then, you must have come upon the user ‘Sakimichan’ at some point.
Go through her account once, and you will become a fan of her paintings in no time – more so because she has made a whopping list of her favorite custom brushes to let us download for free.
Since she paints with an opacity level set at 80 – 100%, according to her, this same function has been added to the brushes too. And the best part is that this set of brushes works in almost all version of Photoshop, even the CC too.
This set of brushes is free to use for both personal and commercial work.
GRUNGE BRUSHES
Adding a look of age, depth and distressed to an artwork is a favorite of many artists. So, why not try to implement the same look to your artwork too?
We assure you that this look will become a favorite of yours in no time at all.
Photoshop brushes for rough-paint strokes
Ever wanted to get that rough-paint stroke look in your artwork? Then, you are in the right place.
Designed by ‘Creative Nerds’, this set of brushes is tailor-made for you if want to achieve that rough and grungy painted stroke look.
Made to download for free, this set of brushes are both of high quality and resolution and can be used for both personal and commercial work.
MixerGraph Photoshop brushes
Thinking of adding that ‘photocopier’ look to your artwork, then look no further.
Having handcrafted and digitized personally by the renowned designer Marc Pallàs, this set of brushes will transform your artwork with the ‘rough and ready’ look that a photocopier gives.
This set of brushes consists of five grunge brushes and is free to use for both personal and commercial work.
If you do portraits and have been wanting to introduce a somewhat different look – say, scars – why not go for this set of brushes? Created by designer Natalie Hijazi, this set of brushes contains twelve textured brushes that are free to download on the ‘BrushKing’ site.
Apart from adding textured background elements to your artwork, this set of brushes is also perfect to add an aged and distressed look. This set of Photoshop brushes is free for both commercial and personal work.
If you are a digital artist and you don’t use any Photoshop brushes, then, you are losing out on many things. The Photoshop brushes save up time for the digital artists and as such, they offer you various options to create beautiful artwork quickly without you having to draw the individual design items one at a time.
And the best part is that – there are thousands to choose from!
So, what are you waiting for?
