If you're like most people out there and have a slow computer, you know just how agonizingly long it takes to load a large list of brushes and to search through them all to find the one you want. Or maybe you're just tired of searching and are desperate for a way to organize your brushes. If either of these are true then this post is for you!
Assuming you've downloaded some brushes already (and have them stored in a place you can find them:
Time needed to complete this process: 5-10 minutes
Step 1 - You want to organize your brushes into sets. First go and load a brush set with relatively few brushes in it like "Square Brushes." Delete all of the brushes in this set (right click on each brush and click delete, then click ok).
Step 2 - Go into the Brush Pallette Menu (select the brush tool, drop down the select brushes menu, and then click the little >> icon at the top right hand corner of the drop down menu). Click "load brushes." Load all of the brushes that you wish to place in a set. For instance, if you have a lot of grunge style brushes, load all of the grunge brushes. Delete any unwanted brushes (see step 1 about how to delete brushes).
Step 3 - Now go into the Brush Pallette Menu and click "Save Brushes." Type in the name of your new Brush Set (for this example "Grunge") and choose a place to save the new Brush Set. In this case you want to save in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop CS\Presets\Brushes. (Go to your C drive, go to Program Files, go to Adobe, go to Photoshop CS, go to Presets, go to Brushes). Now you have a new Brush Set. (Note: If this is a set of brushes you will be using often, you may want to put an _ before the name (_Grunge) this way it will show up at the top of your preset list and you will be able to find it more easily). Make sure you type in the new name of your new brush set before you click save, or else you will lose whatever set you opened and deleted brushes from!!
Step 4 - Repeat steps 1-3 as many times as needed to load all of your newly downloaded brushes into presets. Once you are done, close Photoshop and open it again. Now when you go to load a brush set the sets you just saved will appear in the Brush Pallette Menu.
Note: If later on you decide to add a few brushes to one of your brush sets, simply open up the brush set, load the new brushes, and click "Save Brushes." You will need to save it in the same place as above, using the same name of your brush set. Go ahead and click ok when it asks you if it is ok to save over the file named the same thing.