[teabaglady]

I am a newbie, using PSE 5, and trying to learn how to use brushes. I have the two brushes that came with the Refresh set, but I can't open them. I can use the png files and have followed those instructions, but there is another folder with the brushes and instructions in both pdf and Word format. Neither of the instruction files will open (I have both Adobe and Word, so both should open). I can't open the brush files either, or save them to the brushes file. The whole folder seems to be locked. (And yes, it's unzipped - I won't make that mistake again!)

I did open the PSP folder by mistake and of course those didn't work, but I've deleted that folder to avoid doing that again, so I know these are PSE brushes I'm dealing with. What am I missing?

Heather

[PBarnes]

You need to copy the brush file into the Brushes folder in PSE. I've got Windows Vista but if you have XP the path should be similar.
c:Program Files>Adobe>Photoshop Elements 5>Presets>Brushes. HTH

[teabaglady]

Thanks, Pat. I can't find the folder, but I think the problem is that I have PSE 6 on this computer as well. I have it as a trial download. What I actually bought is PSE 5. I think that's messing up the files because all I can find are PSE 6 folders, although I can't find any preset or brushes folders in the PSE 6 folder either. I think I'll have to get my husband to sort this one out for me. :-)

[Ro]

Hi Heather,

Make sure you have Adobe Reader on your computer. You need that in order to read the PDF instructions. (It's required for any PDF file.) Having the other software or Word won't help.

It is free. You can get it here:

http://www.adobe.com.../readstep2.html

When you have the Adobe reader on your machine, as soon as you double-click on the file, the Adobe Reader will automatically open the PDF for you to read.

That's what you need because there are step-by-step instructions with screen shots and everything. Once you see them, you'll know what to do.

If you happen to have just a particular file, though, that won't unzip or everything in it is acting weird, then it is likely that the download of that particular file was interrupted. The way to fix that is this:

1. Delete the file off of your computer
2. Download the file to a DIFFERENT location on your computer. This is critical because Internet Service Providers cache downloads. They do it to save themselves money. If you don't change the download path, they will send you the same file they interrupted (not our file... their interrupted version of it.)

If you are simply trying to open the .abr file, it has to be installed in that folder - the Brush folder in the Presets. The PDF instructions show you exactly how to do that.

Let us know if you need any more help. We're glad to help you out!

[teabaglady]

Thank you so much for your help! After having little luck myself I finally tied my husband down to have a look at it for me. He's a computer geek, so there is little he can't figure out. :-) However, having your help to show him made more sense than the questions I was asking him, and helped him to figure out my problems quickly. So I now have fully functioning brushes and am uploading properly sized images to my gallery.

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday!

(I am cross-posting this to both of my SOS theads.)