The evolving dynamic of the internet is a hot topic. All the developments we’ve seen over the past few years(IE: MySpace, Facebook, WordPress), have made it easier than ever for ANYONE to publish content on the internet!

Yes, this includes you, Digital Art friends.

I’ve discovered an excellent video, created by Michael Wesch over at Mediated Cultures, that gives an outstanding overview of everything you could be missing out on. Take a moment to watch the video and let the message really sink in.

You have the tools to voice your opinion like never before. No matter what your interests, your background, your social circle, everyone has something to offer. And.. the vastness of the internet assures us, in no uncertain terms.. there are other people out there in net land who want to know what you know.

The flip side of this “internet silver lining”, is that a good majority of you feel as though it’s all being used to get your money. And I’ll be the first to state, yes.. this is true.. but you don’t have to fall for it!

You can learn virtually (no pun intended) anything for free over the web.

Conversely, you can also teach others for free over the web.

So, don’t be part of the problem by sitting idly by… get out there, get to posting, provide quality content. Take back your internet by contributing to it’s perceived usefulness by individuals just like yourself.

Why should I worry about defining my site?

Dreamweaver CS3 was designed to help you mange your work flow. I’ve always been a big fan of taking full advantage of any automated processes built into by my designing software. Of course there are cases when this might not be the best approach, but in this case, it is.

Beginning your new web design project by defining your site within Dreamweaver will save you time. You won’t waste valuable moments updating links to multiple pages by hand or tracking down missing files. The software will help you manage the content of your site as you develop it if you take the time to learn how to use it to it’s full potential.

So how do I define a site in Dreamweaver CS3?

As I’ve stated before, I always go straight to the source when it comes to tutorials. Adobe has created an entire video workshop, online, of many high quality tutorials for most of it’s design products.. including this particular topic. You can find that here, tittled “Defining A Site”. Just click the Dreamweaver icon in the products menu, and a list of available tutorials will appear in the tittle section below it.

If you’d rather get the html version, they’ve also provided that here.

One last note…

If you define a site using this method, I can not stress enough how important it is NOT to go moving files and folders around outside of the software. The tutorial author even makes note of this, and for good reason! Dreamw

What is a “Photoshop brush” anyway?

Simply put, it’s a tool tip you can customize to save you time. You are probably already familiar with the preset brushes the software comes with out of the box. The basic brush sets aren’t terrible, but they are fairly plain and require excellent free hand skills. ( I don’t think I could “draw” with one to save my life!)

What you may not know, is they can be a lot more useful to you if you know how to customize them.

There are two ways you can get more Photoshop brushes. You can make them, or download them from other artists.

Making your own isn’t hard. Adobe has it’s own tutorial on this topic, click here if you’d like to learn how to create and save your own customized brushes. (A quick side note – if you can’t seem to find any tutorials or instruction on a specific design process you want to learn, check the software company’s website. A lot of them have provided a vast amount of instruction for you already!)

Making your own brushes for elements you often use, or elements you will use throughout a specific project, can save you a lot of work. If you create and save entire sets as you progress, eventually you’ll have quite a collection! (Which you can also upload to share sites, or even sell, for other Photoshop artists.. but I’ll get more into that in the next post.)

However, downloading brushes other people have made is nothing to be ashamed of! In fact, I’ve even perused the free brush sites just to get ideas for my next project.

Be aware of the Photoshop version the artist has used to create the brushes. From my experience, the higher versions are backwards compatible (or more clearly, you can use Photoshop 7 brushes if you have Photoshop CS) but you can not use higher version brushes in lower version programs and expect everything to go smoothly.

How do I download the free Photoshop brushes?

Well that, is also rather simple. (Aren’t you glad?) Once you have found and downloaded a brush set you are interested in, (I suggest you create a temp folder on your desktop for this purpose) double check the file extension. If it’s a .zip file, you’ll have to unzip it before you can install it into Photoshop.

Now, you should have a file named something like: name_of_brush.abr once you’ve unzipped. All you have to do, is move this file to the correct folder within the program files for Photoshop. Since I don’t know your version or where you’ve chosen to install your software, this may not be the exact path, but you should get the idea.

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Brushes

I suggest that you don’t begin tossing your downloaded brushes in this folder at random. If you start to get enough of them, they get hard to sort through when you are trying to load them in Photoshop. An easy way around this is to create subfolders within the “Brushes” folder.

You may find it helpful to pick broad category names, and file brushes accordingly. For example, if you dig the grunge effect, you may title one folder “grunge” and store all your grunge effect brushes there. Organization early on will pay off big time down the road when you’ve got more than a few in your collection, trust me.

I’d also suggest, that you save these brushes by names you’ll recognize later. Since the artist named the brush set when they uploaded them for you, it won’t all ways be helpful later when you are looking through your brushes for a particular set. I’ve also created a quick launch icon on my desktop that takes me straight to my brushes folder within Adobe. This can save you some time when you are installing them into Photoshop from your temp folder.

I’m sure by now you are rather anxious to start looking! Click here to go to the next post, and I’ll show you where you can get free Photoshop brushes.

You may have already spent some time searching the internet for free brushes. My guess, is that you will probably continue to do this once you get the hang of it. My aim here is to show you some sites where you can find quality sets, without having to do all the searching.

Please remember, there are legalities involved whenever you download other artist’s work for your own use. Don’t be one of those people who gets a nasty-gram from an understandably irate artist for using their work without permission!

I’ve picked five sites that I often visit. I’ll give a short explanation of what you can expect to find on each one.

#5 Photoshop Support – Not only do they offer a great collection of high resolution brushes of their own.. but in case you can’t find anything there you like, they also have a directory of many other artist’s sites you can download free brushes from.

If you need brushes for commercial work, you’ll have to contact the artist for permission.

#4 PS Brushes – 511 brushes total and they’ve categorized them well. I’ve found some rather obscure brush sets here in the past. Also, many of their brush artists have put a large number of different brushes in single sets. Great to have, but might take a little more time to download if you’re using a dial up internet connection.

This site also accepts submissions and you can do that through their contact page.

You will have to contact the artist directly if you want permission to use downloaded brushes for commercial work.

#3 Brusheezy – I like this site because you can sort by Photoshop version. This is kind of a nit pick thing, but it’s a real let down to find a brush you like, only to discover it isn’t compatible with your software.

They don’t have quite the collection as other sites, but they are fairly new. The few sets I’ve downloaded from here have worked out well. I also like that you can upload your own and vote on other artist’s brush work.

The usage guidelines are different for each artist. There is a README.txt that comes with each download, so check that before you use it on commercial designs.

#2 Photoshop Brushes – Dave Seipp designs his own brushes, he’s been around since 2004, and he’s got a nice collection. His style is mostly grunge and gritty, perfect for oh so many “dark” effects you may have seen in avatars or signatures.

He’s given us permission to use them for both commercial and non commercial use as long as we give him some credit: a link back to his site, or a relevant comment.

#1. deviant Art – I am consistently surprised at the massive collection of quality brushes I find on this site. I say “quality brushes”, because when you start downloading your own, you’ll notice some of them aren’t as good as others. Well, that’s just the nature of art.. and hey, beggars can’t be choosers!

You may notice they have some ads here and there, however, if you sign up for an account (since it’s free, and since you’re an artist) you won’t have to see the ads. You can search through the brushes by keywords, a really handy feature if you are looking for something in specific to work with. Also fun to type in a random idea and see what comes back.. mmmmm inspiration.

You’ll have to check the artist’s comments for what type of usage they allow. Some just want credit if you use their brushes, others love for you to leave them comments. Double check the copyrights before you use any to create commercial projects.

Okay! That wraps up my first listing. Please feel free to comment here with any brush sites you’ve discovered that other people might also find useful. And.. have fun!

I’ve posted an introduction page to let you know what you can expect from my site. I should have a few posts up before the end of the weekend.. and I’m still deciding on a theme. Send me an email if you have any favorites you’d like to suggest.