What carries over to Photoshop
A Procreate brush is two images plus a long list of settings for Procreate’s brush engine. Only the images are something another app can use.
| In the Procreate brush | In Photoshop |
|---|---|
| Shape (the tip image) | Becomes the brush tip with Edit > Define Brush Preset |
| Grain (the texture image) | Becomes a pattern for the brush’s Texture setting |
| Brush name | You type it when you define the preset; the ZIP names folders after each brush |
| Spacing, scatter, rotation, taper | Set again by hand in Brush Settings; the numbers don’t map one to one |
| Pressure and tilt curves, wet mix, color dynamics | Don’t transfer to Photoshop or any other app |
| Shapes or grains built into Procreate | Not stored in the brush file, so no tool can extract them |
The last row matters for some sets. A brush can point to one of Procreate’s built-in shapes or grains instead of carrying its own image, and then the image simply isn’t in the file. The viewer marks those tiles “Built into Procreate, not in the file”.
What’s inside a .brushset file
A .brushset is a ZIP archive, like a .procreate file. Opening real brush sets shows this layout:
brushset.plist: the set’s name and the order of its brushes.- One folder per brush, named with a long ID. Inside it:
Brush.archive: every setting, including the brush’s name, in Apple’s binary property list format.Shape.png: the tip, an 8-bit grayscale square image (1024 or 2048 pixels in the sets we opened). White paints.Grain.png: the texture, also grayscale. Missing when the brush uses a built-in grain.QuickLook/Thumbnail.png: the stroke preview from the Brush Library.Sub01: the second brush of a dual brush, with its own shape and grain.Reset: a copy of the brush as it was first imported, used by Reset in Brush Studio.
A .brush file is one brush with the same contents and no brushset.plist. The viewer reads the name from Brush.archive, shows the current version of each brush, and skips the Reset copies.
Make a Photoshop brush from the shape
- Download Photoshop tip for the brush. It is the shape in grayscale with black where the brush paints and white where it doesn’t, because Photoshop builds a brush from the dark parts of an image: pure black paints at full strength, grays paint partly and white not at all. Adobe’s help page doesn’t spell this out; an Adobe Community Expert’s answer does.
- Open it in Photoshop. Adobe’s guide to creating a brush tip from an image says the selection can be up to 2500 x 2500 pixels and that color images are converted to grayscale. The viewer scales larger shapes down to 2500 pixels for this download; the brushes we tested had 1024 or 2048 pixel shapes.
- Choose Edit > Define Brush Preset, name the brush and select OK.
- Pick the new brush at the bottom of the Brushes panel. In Window > Brush Settings, set Spacing under Brush Tip Shape. Procreate brushes often use tight spacing, so start low and raise it until the stroke matches the preview.
The Shape download is the untouched image from the brush file, white on black, for apps that use Procreate’s convention.
Add the grain as a texture
Photoshop gives a brush its texture from a pattern, as Adobe’s page on textured brushes describes.
- Open the brush’s Grain PNG and choose Edit > Define Pattern (Adobe’s steps).
- Select the brush, open Brush Settings, turn on Texture and pick the new pattern.
- Set Scale and Depth until the grain looks right. Adobe notes that, with Invert off, the lightest parts of the pattern get the most paint. If the texture looks reversed compared with the Procreate stroke, tick Invert.
Brush tools compared
Checked on each tool’s own page on 14 October 2026.
| Tool | Where it runs | What you get | Grain | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| This viewer | In your browser, no upload | Every brush’s shape, grain and preview as PNG, plus a Photoshop-ready tip; one ZIP for a whole set | Yes, as PNG | Free, no account |
| brusher.art | In your browser, no upload | A ready .abr (version 6) with each brush’s tip and name; Clip Studio Paint can import it | No; its page lists grain and dynamics as lost | Free, no account |
| Brush Factory | Uploads the file to its server | .abr, and other brush formats | Says it keeps grain and some pressure and tilt settings | Free account with a monthly limit; paid plan for more |
| Artypacks | Uploads the file to its server | Transparent PNGs, for stamp brushes only | No | Paid credits, one per .brushset |
| Rebuild by hand | Photoshop | A brush tuned to your taste | If you make the pattern | Your time |
If you need a single .abr file to share or sell, brusher.art makes one directly. If you want the grain too, the full-size images, or to look inside a set before you buy into it, use this viewer. None of these tools can bring over how a Procreate brush responds to the pencil.
Brushes in other apps
- Back in Procreate: Procreate imports Photoshop
.abrbrushes. The Procreate Handbook lists them next to.brushand.brushsetfiles in its import options. - Krita: Krita accepts PNG brush tips and reads only the tip texture from
.abrfiles, according to its brush tip documentation. Use the Shape PNG as a predefined brush tip. - Clip Studio Paint: it imports .abr brushes from version 1.10.5, or registers any image as a brush tip with Edit > Register Material > Image (Clip Studio’s guide).
Got a color palette with the brushes? Procreate palettes are .swatches files, and the free swatches converter saves them for Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Krita and GIMP.
How this page was tested
On 14 October 2026 we opened three sets of openly licensed brushes in the viewer: Catherine’s Basic Procreate Brushes (CC0, a 6-brush .brushset saved by a recent Procreate, with a dual brush and a brush imported from Photoshop), six of Jay Versluis’s 2015 stitch and sequin brushes (CC0, single .brush files from an older Procreate, one with an inverted shape), and an MIT-licensed blank brush from a GitHub project. In Chrome on Linux, we checked that the names and order matched the ones stored in the files, that the Shape and Grain downloads were byte-for-byte the images inside, that each Photoshop tip was an 8-bit grayscale PNG with every pixel inverted (and the inverted-shape brush left as it was), and that every entry in the ZIP passed its checksum. We also looked at each brush’s shape next to Procreate’s own stroke preview to confirm that white is the painted part. We have not yet defined the tips as brushes in Adobe Photoshop itself.