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Importing Photoshop brushes

Time: 20 minutes. Difficulty: Intermediate.

Bring a .abr brush pack into the Designer's Brush Library, audition each preset, and tweak the imported brushes for the Designer's engines.

Prerequisites

  • A .abr file (Kyle T. Webster, Adobe Creative Cloud, or any pack you bought).
  • Designer installed.

Import

File > Import > Brush File… and pick the .abr. A progress strip shows each brush being imported:

[1/24] Diluted Watercolor
[2/24] Diluted Wash
…
[24/24] Wet Sponge

Each brush becomes one .elybrush preset under Imported (.abr) in the Brush Library.

Audition

B to activate Brush. Open the Library; filter by Source > Imported (.abr). Click each thumbnail to apply.

Make a quick stroke on a scratch placement. The imported brush should produce strokes close to the Photoshop original.

Inspect the mapping

Photoshop's brush format is older and richer than the Designer's; the importer makes pragmatic choices. To see what mapped:

  1. Right-click a preset > Open in Studio.
  2. Note the engine the importer picked (Round Stamp, Wet Mix, Bristle, etc.).
  3. See Importing .abr for the full mapping table.

Tweak

For Photoshop brushes that don't quite work after import, common fixes:

  • Stamps too sparse: lower spacing.
  • Wet edges missing: switch engine to Wet Mix.
  • No dynamics: rebind pressure → size and pressure → opacity in the dynamics grid.

Save back via the Studio's Save button. The original .abr file is untouched; only your .elybrush copy changes.

Bulk import

For a folder of .abr files, drag the folder onto the canvas. The Designer imports each in turn. A Library tag matching the folder name is auto-added so the set stays grouped.

Sharing

After importing, the resulting .elybrush files in your user library are standalone. Share by zipping the relevant files; recipients drop them into their user library and the brushes appear in their Designer.

What you exercised

  • File > Import > Brush File….
  • Library filtering by Source.
  • Brush Studio for post-import tweaks.
  • The .abr → engine mapping table.

See also