GET THE GOING PRO MASTERCLASS FREE! 
WHEN YOU JOIN THE ACADEMY
NOW THRU SATURDAY MARCH 27

Best Premium Photoshop Brushes for Digital Painting

10 Best Premium Photoshop Brushes for Digital Painting

Beside every great artist, there is a great set of tools..

Good brushes won’t magically transform you into a truly skilled digital painter, but bad brushes will make it very difficult to get there. After all, bad tools typically take longer to work with, and often teach bad habits to get around their deficiencies.

Sure, it is possible to get by with nothing but a standard, round brush. But few things will improve a digital artists style, speed, and quality of work as dramatically as a reliable set of brushes.

When it comes to picking brushes, less is often more.

It’s better to pick just a few high quality sets, than to ‘hoard’ as many free brushes as you can get your hands on. This will save you time, and teach you to truly master your tools.

For your convenience, we took a look at 10 of the highest quality premium brushes available online…

01. Kyle T. Webster's Ultimate Megapack for Photoshop

Play Video

Used by over 100,000 artists, including professionals at Disney/Pixar, Dreamworks, Marvel, Laika, HBO, and Google, Kyle Webster’s brushes are probably the most popular brushes available for digital illustration.

These brushes are not only super high quality, they’re also incredibly versatile. Every medium is covered: oils, inks, watercolors, even pencils and ink.

If you had to pick just one set of brushes, go with this one.

Our Recommendation: The Ultimate Megapack

Price: $18

02. Roman Melentyev Professional Art Simulation Brushes for Photoshop

Roman Melentyev Watercolor, Oil, and other Photoshop Brushes for Digital Painting

Another popular set of professional brushes, Roman Melentyev’s brushes are another great option if you’re looking for just one brush set to cover all your bases.

His brush sets ​emulate a wide range of brush types, including a selection of specialty bristle mixer brushes. An excellent choice for concept artists and digital illustrators alike.

RM Gorgeous Oil Brush Set

Price: $17

03. Marc Brunet's Advanced Painter's PS Brushes

Play Video

This brush pack contain’s the 25 most trusted brushes of digital artist Marc Brunet. Lots of high quality textured brushes for general use, as well as more specific applications, such as skin, folds, organic, dust and dry oils

Advanced Painter’s PS Brushes

Price: $6

04. Deharme / Brushes 1.0

Deharme Digital Painting Brushes for Photoshop

A selection of brushes from Bastien Lecouffe Deharme, this set features a number of paint, abstract, charcoal and smudge brushes. All brushes are conveniently sorted into categories.

Deharme – Brushes 1.0 – Photoshop CC

Price: $6

05. Glassthroughskin Brush Sets

Digital artist glassthroughskin has released a huge library of custom brushes, each conveniently showcased with a painting to get a good feel for them. Very large selection, and very affordable brushes.

The only caveat is that these brushes are exclusively for sale on DeviantArt, using their Points system ($1 = 80 points).

glassthroughskin Custom Brushes

Price: Between 50-200 ‘Points’ ($0.60 – $2.50)

06. Istebrak's Dry-Oil Brushes for Photoshop

Play Video

These brushes by Istebrak are designed for different stages of the painting process, from blocking in large shadows and edges to blending for the softest surfaces. Also included is a no-texture blending and detailing brush that can be used for the early and late stages of the painting process.

Dry-Oil Brushes for Photoshop

Price: $12

Also available on Sellfy

07. Matt Dixon's Essential Brushes

Play Video

This brush set contains 21 brushes for texturing, effects and general painting with a focus on capturing the feel of natural media. Also included is a PAT file with 14 surface textures that can be used with the brushes to add extra variety to the set, as well as a video by Matt detailing each brush, and how he personally uses them.

Matt Dixon’s Essential Brushes for Photoshop

Price: $10

08. Isabella Morawetz's Traditional Brushes + Bonus 'Stroke' Styles

Isabella Morawetz's Photoshop Brushes for Digital Painting

Add some life to your digital art with these Photoshop brushes! Each brush is textured and adjusted accordingly to recreate the appearance of traditional media.

Also included is a bonus Style pack (.asl), with 4 different starter options that you can apply to your brushwork to give it that extra level of depth.​

Further reading: Click here to learn all about Isabella Morawetz’s ​beautiful artwork and painting process in our interview with her.

14 Traditional Photoshop Brushes + 4 Bonus ‘Stroke’ Styles

Price: $5

09. Gouache & Acrylic Photoshop Brushes

A popular set of 30 high quality brushes created by professional concept artist Igor Vitkovskiy to mimic traditional acrylic and gouache tools. A range of styles are covered, including dry, wet, thick, dense and quick stroke brushes.

Gouache & Acrylic Photoshop Brushes

Price: $4

10. Art Pack 1 by Sparth

Digital artist Sparth has worked as a concept artist in the Video Game industry for 20 years. He is the author of the Structura book series, and the Art Director for popular video game Halo 5.

In this ‘Art Pack’, Sparth shares 30 of his most used custom brushes (including basic, complex, and environment) as well as 25 environment custom shapes. As a bonus, he’s even included 3 original artworks, all highres and in the form of layered PSDs.​

Art Pack 1 by Sparth

Price: $6

Learn to Paint Your Own Masterpiece!

10 'MUST HAVE' BRUSHES FOR PAINTING

Free Download:

Designed to Paint Incredible Portrait Details!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more digital painting tips, tricks and tutorials:
Recent Posts on Paintable:
Leave Your Thoughts:

4 thoughts on “10 Best Premium Photoshop Brushes for Digital Painting”

  1. I would like to buy the megapack (Kyle T. Webster’s Ultimate Megapack for Photoshop) if it will work for Adobe Elements 18. Also, when I clicked to buy (before I realized I needed to know if it would work with Elements), it would not take me to a page where I could pay.

    Reply

Leave a Comment

Get the latest digital art tips, tutorials, and challenges

Join our free newsletter for weekly digital art topics, straight to your inbox!

Your privacy is our top priority, and we promise to keep your email safe! For more information, please see our privacy policy.

Where Can We Send Your Free Brushes?

Join our newsletter and get our Portrait Brushes as a free welcome gift 🎁

Your privacy is our top priority, and we promise to keep your email safe! For more information, please see our privacy policy. ..

Success!

Check your email for our weekly newsletter with special announcements, tips, inspiration and artistic musings from David!

Your privacy is our top priority, and we promise to keep your email safe! For more information, please see our privacy policy.