**Program Tutorials** : Photoshop : *Program Basic

When you create a brush it is placed into the brush palette, but this is only a temporary saving of the brush. I know that it can appear permanent because you can open Photoshop numerous times and the brush is still there, but if you happen to reset the brush palette to the default set of brushes, your brush will be gone forever. The same is true for custom shapes, pattern, and styles.

So how do you make it permanent? The answer is the Preset Manager. The Preset Manager can be located under Edit>Preset Manager. It can also be located on the little flyout menus on each palette.

When the Preset Manager opens, there is a dropdown at the top so you can choose which palette you want to work with; the default is brushes, which is showing in the screenshot.

Once you have the Preset Manager on the palette you want to work with, it is just a matter of selecting which individual brushes (or shapes, etc.) that you want to include in your file. You can do just one item, or several. In the sample below I made a series of brushes to put the month & year on layouts, so I made 12 brushes. I selected them by clicking on the first brush, holding down the shift key and then clicking on the last one I wanted to include. (#1- highlighted in red dots so it is easier for you to see) After they were selected I clicked on the Save Set button on the right. You will then be able to give the file a name and choose the location where it is saved. (#2)

The first two date brushes showing in the sample were attempts that I didn't like and are not included in my selection. You can easily right click on any brushes you don't want and choose delete. If the brushes are part of a set you have saved previously, they will still be available when you load that .abr file. Otherwise, then will be permanently gone.

Brushes use the .abr extension; custom shapes use .csh; patterns use .pat; styles use .asl. Each type of preset has a different extension and if you save them in the Adobe Presets folders, (usually c:/programs/adobe/photoshop/presets/folder) they will load into the list when Photoshop opens. Please note that this will make the loading/opening of Photoshop take longer. An option is to make your own series of folders and load your files only as needed. If you choose to save them in a separate folder, you can just use the "load" button in the Preset Manager, or the flyout menu and browse to where you saved them to load them as needed.

If you have patterns or shapes or styles you want to save as a group, the same steps would be used, except when you open the Preset Manager, you would change the dropdown to Custom Shapes, Patterns, etc.

So don't forget to use the Preset Manager after you've created a new brush (or shape, pattern, etc.) so that you'll have it available to use in the future. Also use a file naming procedure that will give an indication of what it is. For example I named this set of brushes as nes-date-brushes.abr (my initials, plus what it is.) By using my initials, I know it is something I created myself.