I have just discovered brushes. They are the coolest thing! But I'm having trouble loading new sets. I have downloaded a few and I want them to show up in the drop down list, but when I try to load them through the Preset Manager they load into the active set. Eg. I have a Disney set that I have tried to load, but if "Default" is showing in the window when I click on Load, they load into "Default" instead of showing me "Disney" in the list. What am I doing wrong?

Hi! I recently discovered brushes (and styles, etc.) too and was having the same problem you are having. I found it was much easier and simpler to simply move the brush file (from wherever I downloaded it) to c:/Program Files/Adobe/Photoshop Elements 2/Presets/Brushes. It will then show up in the drop down list under its own name. I don't use the preset manager at all. Hope this helps.

It worked! And how easy was that? I spent probably a couple of hours struggling with the Help menu and the manual. Your instructions - 10 sec. to get it going. You should write the help stuff...lol Thanks so much!

Hey, snowgirl, as a real newbie to digital scrapbooking I'm just so tickled that I could actually offer help to someone else. I sure wondered why they designed a preset manager that makes a simple job so darn confusing and complicated.

Since you are a newbie (me too!) I thought you might be interested in this tip I just found from http://www.rebel-heart.net/brushes/indexx.html re. brushes -

"You must not store all the download brush files (brush.abr) in the Photoshop brush folder. Why? Because when Photoshop opens it loads everything from it's folder (eg. plugins, filters and brushes!) so you have hundreds and thousands of brushes stored in that folder it'll load all of them whether you intend on using them or not. So by storing all you brushes in another folder-that is not inside the Photoshop program's folder-you can just load the brushes you want when you need to use them."

I'm glad I saw this before I got too carried away! I guess if you get many loading, it crashes your system. P.S. There are lots of cool free downloaded brushes there too!

Thanks so much for letting me know! I haven't downloaded many brushes yet but I did go kind of wild with layer styles (like a kid in a candy store!!!!). Shall move some of the less appealing ones into a standby folder. Haven't had any problems yet but don't want any either. Thanks again.

Have you checked out all the goodies at the Adobe Studio Exchange:
http://share.studio.adobe.com/axBrowseProduct.asp?p=2

Wow! Awesome! No, I hadn't seen this site. It seems there is no end to freebies out there. I appreciate your help and tips. Now I have a ton of tools - all I need is some imagination to go with them! I love all the layouts here....great for inspiration but somewhat intimidating too.....the talent is unbelievable...sigh...

If you find a website where we can download imagination, please please let me know!! I am amazed at how generous the digital scrapbooking designers are with their time, knowledge and talents. And I would not have found the Adobe Studio Exchange if it hadn't been mentioned in the SBB E-Zine which is a fantastic resource for info. I'm off to check out your link for brushes. Ta