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Gotta love the freebies. Tools, resources... whatevers... generously donated by the few for the many to voraciously consume, whether they need to or not. As the economists (maybe) say, "Adam Smith bless non-scarce resources." I'm guilty of such recklessly accumulative behavior, I admit. I'll download free brushes for Photoshop even if I'm not sure I'll ever use them. It's tantamount to a gardener carrying around wrenches and hammers because, just maybe, he might need them to do something to some plant... someday... somehow. So they sit the toolbox, just in case.

Font is 4 Letter Word - Don't Overuse It

Though I'm now into more Photoshop-related resources, years ago my addiction was to fonts. Now, as I alluded to a couple of posts ago, fonts may not be as "free" as you think they are, but that doesn't mean you can't download them for free. On an old machine I once downloaded so many fonts that Photoshop 5 refused to start up. After a great deal of soul-searching, I managed to cull the herd once more and get back in action. Most likely I never really used much of any of them (professionally or otherwise), but man, were they fun to look at when scrolling down the font list. I had them and I was ready for anything... until I found more that looked equally as cool.

A steady diet of comic books and science fiction in my youth did more than just retard my social abilities; it gave me a strong preference for "techy/futuristic" fonts. So, just for the sake of you being informed in case anyone ever asks, this is the single greatest font ever made:

Actually most of Daniel Zadorozny's fonts are awesome, so definitely give them a try. Iconian also has a bunch of links to all those other font repositories where you too can try to download enough fonts to choke Photoshop. Granted, that might be a bit more difficult with hardware being slightly more meaty than it was in the late 90's when I managed to do it.

Brushes

Getting back to those free brushes I mentioned earlier, they are my current Achilles heel as far as pointless downloading goes. Those very new to Photoshop might be surprised to learn that brushes can be more than hard or fuzzy circles. If you scroll down a little further in your brush palette you'll find some examples that provide a sample of what is possible. Virtually anything is possible, in fact, as Photoshop can "define" a custom brush based on whatever you have selected in an image, even the entire image.

To give it a try, open an image, any image you have laying around.

1. Press "CTRL-A" (you are using a PC, right?), and you'll have selected the image.
2. Click "Edit" from the menu bar and select "Define Brush Preset". A dialog will appear asking you to name your new brush.
3. Pick one, click "OK," and you're done.

The brush will be appended to the end of the brush palette in Photoshop. It will also be your current brush, so pick a color and click. You'll see a version of the image in the selected color. Simple as that.

I'll quickly point that if the object you define is on a separate layer or a white background, the brush will show up a bit more like other brushes in the palette. The why's and wherefor's involve scary things like alpha channels, so just take my word for it at the moment.

If you're not really into making your own, there are a lot of resources out there that will supply you with pre-made brushes. Brushes, like fonts in the design world, is a bit of a cottage industry within the Photoshop community. Designers create brush sets for free or for sale, much like font designers. Similarities to fonts also include the "free for personal/pay for commercial" kind of usage licence that may accompany a brush set. Again, not all are like this, but be sure to check the site from which you downloaded the brushes or any additional files in the download itself to find out how the designer prefers to be credited. Sometimes the answer to that is "with money."

The Ado Stops Here

So, without further ado, and there has been quite a bit of it, here's a couple decent places to find some brushes for Photoshop:

Brusheezy - Stupid Name, Cool Brushes... They said it, not me. A good place to start, primarily because it won't overwhelm with thousands of choices and it has a useful category system and a search. The giant banners on the left can be a bit distracting, but focus on the tabs at the top and the search/filter section once you've gone to the brushes area and you'll be fine.

Photoshop Support - This is a good place to stop, mostly because Photoshop Support has compiled a list of darn near everywhere in the known universe* that has a free brush available. The list is big, long and very intimidating, especially if you're not accustomed to bouncing around different websites looking for download links. All I can say is, after this, you will be very good at it.

Photoshop Support's brush resource list is a good place to kill a day, surfing around and downloading brushes you'll probably never use, but darn if you won't have... just in case. Then you can spend even more time in their Actions and Plug-ins section.

So there are 2 free brush resources. Technically the second one included the first, so it's more like one and some change. Should get you both started and stopped, as your brush menu flyout hits four columns wide and you can't remember what half of them do.

Handy tip: you can rename the brushes in Windows (you're using Windows, right) Explorer to provide you a better idea of what they are. They're in the "Presets -> Brushes" folder in your Photoshop installation. Some designers give pretty self-explanatory names, others can be a bit cryptic. This is a good way to give your over-taxed memory a rest.

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*Some links may actually go to free brush resources in alternate universes. Those are the ones with the tiny little goatees. Use with caution, though, as they're probably evil.