Using Photoshop Brushes in Paint Shop Pro

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Have you ever wanted to use some of the beautiful brushes that have been created for Photoshop but use Paint Shop Pro?  For one reason or another, you don't want to switch to yet another graphic program?  If so, I think you will find this article very informative.

I have seen graphics created in both programs and can normally tell the difference. I've often wondered why but keep in mind I'm not a graphic designer so this might be a funny comment for some of you.  Don't get me wrong as I like to 'doodle' around with these beautiful graphics on my site but the artwork I sell is by artists that are very talented in what they do.  Personally, I envy them for havinge such talent in making these beautiful high quality images..

Before you continue through the rest of this article, I would like to remind you that there are many Photoshop brushes you can find for free on the internet.  Keep in mind they were all created by a graphic designer and there is alot of work that goes into making them.  Please read the terms of use prior to downloading any of these files.  I found many that are free for commercial and personal use.  However, there are many that are only to be used for personal use.  Make sure you know what the terms are before using any of these brushes.

I discovered a really handy tool that will enable you to use the beautiful brushes that were created for Photoshop.  These are the .abr files or Photoshop brush files.  It is really quite simple after researching this on the internet, I tried it myself and it works perfectly. I thought I'd share this tip with you.

All that you need to do is convert the .abr files to .png files and then export them while in Paint Shop Pro to a custom brush.  You might be wondering how they are converted.  This too is very easy.  First you will need to download and install ABRviewer by Luigi Bellenca.  Luigi, thank you for this wonderful program!

This is a great little tool.  It is very easy to install and use.  Once you have gone to the link above and downloaded it and have it installed, open the program.  From the top menu, click on 'File', then 'Open Brush Sets'.  Navigate to the folder in which you have your .abr file, highlight it and click on open.  You will see a progress bar on the lower left hand corner showing you the progress of the conversion.

Once it is finished converting the files, you will have a preview of each brush contained within the .abr file. This is very handy.  Some of the brushes don't have clear visuals when you download them from a site on the internet.  With this little tool, you can be selective in the brushes you want converted to png files. 

If you like the brushes shown on the thumbnails, the next step is to export them into a folder on your local drive.  From the program menu, choose 'Export' then 'Thumbnails'.  Navigate to the folder where you want the converted .abr files saved and click on 'ok'. 

You have just converted the Photoshop Brush File (.abr) to a .png file (Portable Network Graphics) and saved it locally. Easy enough, isn't it???  :)

Lastly, all you need to do is open each .png file in Paint Shop Pro.  I used Paint Shop Pro X.  I haven't tested other versions.  I don't think there will be a problem converting them to custom brushes within other versions of PSP X and above. 

Once you have the file opened within PSP, make sure you remove any area around the png file by using the crop tool.  You want to get rid of as much white space as you can.  The last step is to select 'File' from the menu in PSP and then 'Export', 'Custom Brush File'.  All of the png files I converted could be no larger than 500x500.  If you receive a message regarding the file size before exporting it, you will need to resize it first. 

Now you can use the same beautiful brushes available for Photoshop using Paint Shop Pro via the brush tool. 

Tips:  If you receive an error when you open ABRviewer similiar to this:

(Failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.) 

It is probably because you do not have Microsoft .NET Framwork installed.  Most of you won't need to worry about this as you will probably already have this installed.  If you don't, you will have to have it in order to use the ABRviewer. 

Go to this site: 
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=19  and download the latest .NET Framework. 

Enjoy!  :)