viewing brushes

[txminx]

Does anyone know of a program that you can view the brushes and other plugins outside of loading them into PSE?

I was thinking of something like the font thing for viewing fonts.

[Amanda]

Unfortunately, there isn't anything like that right now. :(

[Emma]

Oh, what a good idea!!!! That would be soooo cool

I was hopeful when I saw a reply that there would be one...shucks. Email Adobe!!!! What an awesome suggestion!

[scrapqltr]

What a great idea! I'd love to have that.

[lvich]

One way I organize my scrapping things, including brushes, SuperBladePro presets, etc. is to use Photoshop Album.

For brushes, I use a program called Ultrasnap to get a screen capture of the thumbnail view of each brush set I have. In Ultrasnap, I add the name of the brush set and then I save this image. I import it into Photoshop Album and assign tags to organize such as grunge, lace, textures, fibers, etc. Then, when I need to do a layout, I can easily call up all the brush images or search for particular ones.

I organize all my scrapbooking papers, elements, page kits, etc. in Photoshop Album as well.

For SuperBladePro presets, I apply the style to a template file I created and then save that, with the name of the preset added, and again, organize in Photoshop Album. I can easily search for presets of different colors when I am working on a project.

Hope this helps!

Linda

[Emma]

SCREEN SHOTS!!!!!!!!!!!

You're a total genius! I can't believe I didn't think of that, I LIVE on screen shots like they actually come out of a needle!

I'm doing this, loading my brushes and taking a shot of the thumbnails in Preset Manager. Will work for styles, everything in there! Then I can save the jpg image right IN the same folder as the brushes, etc and SEE them before I load them.
Will work in Paint Shop Pro too! Especially v9 that has the new Resource Manager, which is just like the Preset Manager in PS/PSE
It'll be easy too, as I have to load them to look at them anyway, so I'll just shoot it whenever I load it, doesn't even have to be a big project.

AWESOME idea, thank you soooooooo much!!! Do you sell genius on a site somewhere that we can buy?

[Emma]

OK, here's one set. I gave the jpg image the same name as the coordinating brush set so they're sorted together, just added Sample to the end of the file name. This is two sets loaded into the Preset Manager together, since so many of my brushes come in multiple files, I wanna see them all together
http://24.27.2.150:81/Temp/outlawdirty0203sample.jpg

Now it's easy, easy, to see the brush right in the file folder when I go to load them! Here's my thumbnail view when Loading my brushes
http://24.27.2.150:81/Temp/outlawdirty0203load.jpg

thank you so much! works like a charm! and I can tag these jpg images in my album software too, like you do if I want to see the sample full size for the ones with a lot of presets in them like this one

[lvich]

Glad this method will work for you, Emma! I really like your idea of putting the snaps right in the folder with the brush set or style.

Linda

SCREEN SHOTS!!!!!!!!!!!

You're a total genius! I can't believe I didn't think of that, I LIVE on screen shots like they actually come out of a needle!

I'm doing this, loading my brushes and taking a shot of the thumbnails in Preset Manager. Will work for styles, everything in there! Then I can save the jpg image right IN the same folder as the brushes, etc and SEE them before I load them.
Will work in Paint Shop Pro too! Especially v9 that has the new Resource Manager, which is just like the Preset Manager in PS/PSE
It'll be easy too, as I have to load them to look at them anyway, so I'll just shoot it whenever I load it, doesn't even have to be a big project.

AWESOME idea, thank you soooooooo much!!! Do you sell genius on a site somewhere that we can buy?

[andyapc]

OK, here's one set. I gave the jpg image the same name as the coordinating brush set so they're sorted together, just added Sample to the end of the file name. This is two sets loaded into the Preset Manager together, since so many of my brushes come in multiple files, I wanna see them all together
http://24.27.2.150:81/Temp/outlawdirty0203sample.jpg

Now it's easy, easy, to see the brush right in the file folder when I go to load them! Here's my thumbnail view when Loading my brushes
http://24.27.2.150:81/Temp/outlawdirty0203load.jpg

thank you so much! works like a charm! and I can tag these jpg images in my album software too, like you do if I want to see the sample full size for the ones with a lot of presets in them like this one


Emma - I'm trying to do this but not having any luck.

I loaded my brush set, did a screen shot, cropped around it and wanted to save it as a .jpeg in the same folder as the brush set. But I can't get it to work.

I have my brushes saved in a Brush folder under My Documents/Scrapbook/Presets/Brushes. Inside the Brush folder, I have a separate folder for each brush site (like 8nero, Truly Sarah, etc.). Then inside that folder, I have all of the brushes for that site - all of the brush set icons are named with the specific brush # and they all end in .abr. But I can't save my .jpeg screen shot into that .abr file. It just gets saved into the general "8nero" folder. I have 10 sets of brushes downloaded from that site so when I open my 8nero folder, it shows 10 jpegs of the brushes followed by 10 icons for the brush sets.

Where did your thumbnail view of loading your brushes come from? How do you get that blue brush icon?? And how do you get the jpeg to be included with them? If I go into either Preset Manager or just up to my options bar and load the brushes, I don't have that kind of blue brush icon and since I can't save my jpeg into the .abr file, I have no idea how to get the jpeg image included within the brushes.

Does this make any sense, or am I waaaaaaaaayyyyyyy off base here?? :confused:

[Emma]

Load brushes only views ABR files. This is only so I can use File>Open and browse them, or use Organizer to browse them. Takes less time than loading a bunch and seeing which I want, then removing them all. Not as fast as a 'real' preview, but better than existing

[andyapc]

Aahhhh!! OK - so I'm actually doing the right thing then, right?

[Emma]

right?

;)

I made this up, so it's certainly not "right," but it works for me :D Hopefully you can tweak to work for you too. I teach this in my PSE brushes class too

[g1ga]

Oh, what a good idea!!!! That would be soooo cool

I was hopeful when I saw a reply that there would be one...shucks. Email Adobe!!!! What an awesome suggestion!

I'd like to submit to your attention this open source software that
i've just released:
http://abrviewer.sourceforge.net/
It is an utility for previewing one or multiple set of brushes
generated with Adobe Photoshop (.abr files).
If you think it can be useful, please send me a line to
luigi.bellanca@gmail.com, with your comments and/or your requests for
new features.
Thank you.

Luigi Bellanca,
freelance software developer
Palermo (Italy)

[Starling]

I downloaded the program. Don't have a clue as to what to do with it next.

It is in Italian. I don't speak or read Italian. Since I don't know what the two menu options under File say, I don't know what to do next. I'm going to write to the software developer, as he has suggested and ask.

[g1ga]

I downloaded the program. Don't have a clue as to what to do with it next.

It is in Italian. I don't speak or read Italian. Since I don't know what the two menu options under File say, I don't know what to do next. I'm going to write to the software developer, as he has suggested and ask.

The english version will be released very soon. At the
moment, i will translate the menu in order:

File -
--> "Apri set di pennelli" = Open brush set (you can make
multiple selection)
--> "Seleziona cartella" = Select folder (scans all abr found in
the selected folder)


"Esporta" = Export -
--> "Genera immagini" -> export images
(every brush in the set will be exported as a .png)
--> "Salva il pannello delle anteprime"
--> Save the thumbnail's panel (it will generate a big png from the
current previewed panel)

Bye!

Luigi Bellanca

[Starling]

I'm looking forward to seeing the English version. Meanwhile the Italian version does work. You can have either one png file for each brush or you can have a set of brushes on a single png file.

You can control how big each brush tip looks. They work better if you make them bigger than the default size of 80 (pixels?) I used 150 and got nice looking pngs.

I ended up using one of the Babel Fish free translation programs to get everything translated and with my translations in front of me I was able to get the program to work.

This is exactly what all of us who work with brushes have been asking for.

Thank you.

[g1ga]

I'm very happy to announce that the english version of abrViewer.NET
is now available. You could download it at:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=143912
You will see that there is a setup file signed with "_en".

[Amanda]

This is incredible! I just played a bit and it looks awesome. Can't wait to play some more!

[kim]

Absolutely Awesome!!! Do you know how much time this will save me??!!!

AND!! You can try the brush... This so rocks!! :)

Thank you! :)

[andyapc]

this will be sooooooooooo cool - can't wait to try it!

[andyapc]

OK - feeling dumb. I went to that page - which link to I click to download? Do I click on all 3 and download them all?

[Amanda]

Nope - just the english one

setup_en.exe I think it is

[dlhoffer]

So am I reading this right that we ONLY have to download the file that ends in "setup_en.exe" and not the other two files? Also, does anyone know if this will work Windows versions prior to XP?

[dlhoffer]

LOL Andy - we must have been posting at the same time with the same question....glad I wasn't the only one wondering about that!! Still wondering about the previous versions of Windows tho....

[dkapp12]

Wow - can't wait to try this. I don't think I was motivated enough to do the screen shot method. This sounds very promising. Thank You!!! :D

[andyapc]

Ummmm - at the risk of sounding incredibly stupid ... can someone confirm that I'm doing this right?

File>Open Brush sets
Change pixel size to 150
Export>Preview Panel
Name and save it (as a .png)

I saved the png image into the same folder as that particular brush set. When I go into My Documents and browse to that particular brush set, the png image is included, but a thumbnail image of the brush set is not showing - instead, it's the same icon as the all the brushes in that set. I have my view set on "thumbnails" so it should show the actual png image of the brush set, right? When I click on it, it asks me which program I want to open it in. I chose Windows/Fax viewer (because it's simply easier to open that than PSCS2 all the time) and it does open. But shouldn't a thumbnail version of the brush images be showing?

When I go to load my brushes in PSCS2, I can't even see that .png file, because it will only recognize .abr files - so I can't load it to see the preview of the brushes.

I'm obviously doing something wrong, right? Or is this the way it's supposed to be? Am I having one of my all-too-common dumb spells, yet again?

[Starling]

The English version works beautifully. There is one bug, but there is a work around.

When you tell it to Export the preview panel it exports it OK, but adds the extension ".png image" instead of just ".png" If you remove the word "image" from the extension, everything works fine and you even get a preview thumbnail instead of an icon. Either way Photoshop will open the file and show you the brush tips.

If you don't have Explorer set up to show you extensions, you can't see what the problem is.

Andy, the file the program makes is a png file. Use the Bridge to see the file just like you would with a jpeg file or something in a kit.

[karenmc6]

what an awesome program! i am wondering if anyone else is having the same problem i am tho. say i have eight brushes in a brush set. if my thumbnail screens shows a row of six and a second row of two, then my preview png file only shows the first row of six. if my thumbnail is sized at the max (seems to be 270) then i have two brushes on each row, so all four rows show up in the preview.

basically, it looks like the only brushes that show up in the preview png are those that complete a row in the preview pane. know what i mean? :confused:

[serena812]

I never realized how many brushes I had (downloads and my creations). Great program.

Serena

[Starling]

what an awesome program! i am wondering if anyone else is having the same problem i am tho. say i have eight brushes in a brush set. if my thumbnail screens shows a row of six and a second row of two, then my preview png file only shows the first row of six. if my thumbnail is sized at the max (seems to be 270) then i have two brushes on each row, so all four rows show up in the preview.

basically, it looks like the only brushes that show up in the preview png are those that complete a row in the preview pane. know what i mean? :confused:

I had a similar problem at first, but I'm not having it in the English version. Which version are you using?

[g1ga]

Fixed minor bugs you've noticed. The version 1.0.1 is avalaible:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=143912

Thank you.

Luigi Bellanca
freelance software developer
Palermo (Italy)

[andyapc]

So, do we uninstall & delete the program we previously downloaded and download this new version?

I am such an ignoramous when it comes to downloading programs. :o

[g1ga]

So, do we uninstall & delete the program we previously downloaded and download this new version?

I am such an ignoramous when it comes to downloading programs. :o

It should be working properly even if you install over the existing one but to avoid confusion in the files folder uninstall previous version first.
Bye

Luigi Bellanca
freelance software developer
Palermo (Italy)

[andyapc]

OK - downloaded the updated program with no problem - thanks! So far, I love the idea of this program.

Now, of course, I have some questions :rolleyes: :

1) Once I have created a png file for a certain set of brushes, how can I clear my screen in the program so I can open up a new set of brushes? When I open up a new brush set, it just adds the new brush set to the existing set that is already on my screen. I can't find a way to highlight just the brushes I need (tried clicking the specific brush set under "previewed sets" thinking it would highlight just that set so I could create a png image of just those brushes, but it didn't work). So, I have been closing/opening the program so as to get a clear screen.

2) I exported the preview panel at 80 pixels and 150 pixels - I am not seeing any difference in the size of the images in my png file. I'm viewing them in Windows Picture & Fax Viewer. Would I see the difference if I open them up in Adobe Bridge? (I've never used the Bridge before - that's on my list of things to learn). Does the pixel size only matter if I'm exporting thumbnails?

3) A couple of posts up, Kim mentions that you can try the brush?? How?? Again, is this through Adobe Bridge?

4) What is the "select folder" option for?

I'm wondering if I should email g1ga and ask if a help file will be included with any updates, for people like me who really need step-by-step instructions. Think I should?

[karenmc6]

starling - i was using the english version 1.0, but i'm no longer having that problem with the update, thanks.

luigi - thank you so much for an awesome program!! i really can't believe no one had made one before now!!

[karenmc6]

1) Once I have created a png file for a certain set of brushes, how can I clear my screen in the program so I can open up a new set of brushes?

if you right click on one of the set names in the lower left "previewed sets" window, you'll see that you can close a set or close all of the sets.


2) I exported the preview panel at 80 pixels and 150 pixels - I am not seeing any difference in the size of the images in my png file. I'm viewing them in Windows Picture & Fax Viewer. Would I see the difference if I open them up in Adobe Bridge? (I've never used the Bridge before - that's on my list of things to learn). Does the pixel size only matter if I'm exporting thumbnails?


not sure how to answer this one - i use thumbsplus and when i open the png file i don't see a difference until i tell it to show the image at original size - then my 270 brushes really blow up and i can only see about four at a time on my monitor


3) A couple of posts up, Kim mentions that you can try the brush?? How?? Again, is this through Adobe Bridge?


this is actually in the abrbrush program - if you double-click on a brush it will open it in a new window at full size. if you click once on the full size brush, you'll get a new window titled "test brush". here you can either click to stamp the brush or click and drag to paint with the brush.


4) What is the "select folder" option for?


if you have several brush files in one folder, you can load that folder by clicking on "select folder". then you can just click on each set separately to load them in the preview window - just a little shortcut.


I'm wondering if I should email g1ga and ask if a help file will be included with any updates, for people like me who really need step-by-step instructions. Think I should?

i'm sure luigi wouldn't mind a little help with an info file to bundle with the software. looks like he is keeping an eye on this forum and has been very responsive (yay!!) besides, it's got to be tough to write a help file in a language other than your own!!

[andyapc]

holy cow Karen! Thank you so much!! I'm off to go play and try everything you just suggested. Thanks again!

(BTW - how in the world did you know all of this? just by playing around with it? If so, then I need to get more aggressive when I'm playing around with new programs - I'm such a chicken and always thinking I'm going to screw something up :eek: )

[Starling]

I'm still playing with the first English version. I got one of those only the first line got saved when I tried to save the png of the whole panel. Since it only happens from time to time it is a hard one to explain, but I think that if you only have 2 rows the program has some problems. I enlarged the previews until I had more rows and the program had no problems saving the entire preview panel.

It is so great to be able to actually see which brushes I've downloaded. I've already dumped several that I know I will never use.

[suner377]

Off to download this one! Get my brushes out of the dark... LOL...
Thanks for sharing this !
Diann

[suner377]

When I clicked on the download it toook me to a page that prompted me to

"choose a mirror" ???????

Thats a first for me LOL what is that asking me to do?
TIA
Diann

[Amanda]

A mirror is just a closer location to download I believe. Multiple sites reflecting the same info :)

[JustScraps]

ok I download the program and install it but when I go to run the prog it give me an initilization error... now what?

[Safini]

I'd like to submit to your attention this open source software that
i've just released:
http://abrviewer.sourceforge.net/
It is an utility for previewing one or multiple set of brushes
generated with Adobe Photoshop (.abr files).
If you think it can be useful, please send me a line to
luigi.bellanca@gmail.com, with your comments and/or your requests for
new features.
Thank you.

Luigi Bellanca,
freelance software developer
Palermo (Italy)
Thousand thanks... it is fabulous!!! ... you saved me tons of work, time and frustration ... I was looking in the network for this type of software and not found anything similar... but I found many who were asking for a software of these characteristics. Really, thousand congratulations and thanks, your program is a treasure. Works perfect.

[suner377]

Can you please tell me what mirror host you used for your DL? I tried 2 but got awarning that the file was either corrupt of contained a virus?
Thanks for any help you can give !
Diann

[Emma]

This is the most confusing download process I have ever seen, LOL! What on earth am I supposed to download? There is the .rar file and the .exe file and then I have to go back and get the other one...I'm so confused. Any help here?

[LadynRed]

All you need is the EXE file, you don't need the RAR. http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/abrviewer/abrViewer.NET_1.0.1_Setup_en.exe?download

Just getting the viewer is only half the battle. You MUST get and install the .Net Framework in order for the viewer to run at all. Install .Net first, then install ABRViewer.

Info on the .Net Framework is here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/downloads/framework1_1/#section3
Check your system first as described. If it's not on your system, DL and install it.

[Emma]

okay, I dl both the .rar file and the .exe file (I have WinRar, so I un-rarred it fine, LOL!) The .exe just installed the viewer, so i've started peeking around at it.

I think we need a new thread for USING the program. There's no help file that I can find, and some things aren't working quite right.

So hopefully I got it installed correctly, dunno about that .net thing, I must already have it then.

Any suggestions for getting started using this? Like Open Folder or Open Brushes, resources, etc?

How can you get a PNG file of a brush for another program? I click to see the full size, but isn't that just screen resolution? Can you save that image somehow?

Thanks! About time I jumped on this bandwagon

[Pam]

The author posted here last year, there is a post here (http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/forum/showpost.php?p=50887&postcount=36) by karenmc6 on the first page that may be helpful. I love the program! There was another thread here (http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6489). The program is at http://abrviewer.sourceforge.net/

TO USE abrViewer:

Open the program and select a directory (there is a button that says select folder) that contains some abr brushes -- it brings up a list of the brushes in that directory.


Click on one of the brushes, then right click and you'll get a little menu to "show" or "show all" and it shows thumbnails of the brushes. Double-clicking on one of those will bring up an original sized brush - click on that for a chance to try the brush out. (There are viewing options for size of the thumbnail & background color.)


Click on Export > thumbnails and it will create a PNG file for each brush tip you have open - and ask you which folder you'd like to save it in. You can also do this by right-clicking on the name of the brush under previewed sets. (I did notice that it opened the folder as well - I'm not certain why. I just closed the folder.)


If you click on Export > Preview panel, it will create a PNG file showing the panel of all the brush tips in that file. To clear the previewed sets, right click for a menu inside the "previewed sets" pane.

[Safini]

Previous messages explain better than I should can ... but if something helps... I downloaded the .rar file from...... Atlanta, GA - North America - Download mirrow...without any problems.

[grambie]

I just downloaded the file without any problems, on the east coast in US. If you have XP, you automatically have the other file on your harddrive along with an update. I have seen this program & each time I say I will install it, I haven't because I have used PSP for years, from 5 with Lori up to X. So since I am learning PSE with Emma, this would be a good idea. I have noticed that when I belonged to the club here, I received both brushes & png files, so it was great. I also now note that quite a few other sites have followed suite. On to install along with the hints from these posts.

[Pam]

What is great about this for PSP users is the PNG file it creates -- you can resize this file (PSP only allows 500 pixels) and create a PSP brush with the PNG file. I use PSP also and that's why I like this program.

[debbers]

Wow, I just discovered this old thread and ... downloaded the program and used it and and and...

WOW!

:)

deb