5 Free Great Photoshop Watercolor Brushes

Adobe’s Photoshop is the industry standard software for photo manipulation. In fact, it’s become so popular that Photoshop has become a universal term for photo manipulation, despite which software is actually used to do so.

Photoshop is a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, a monthly subscription that provides access to a ton of different creative applications. Anyone from photographers to graphic designers to video editors can take advantage of the Creative Cloud’s offerings.

Because of how popular they are, each application in the Adobe Creative Cloud has all sorts of free plug-ins and add-ons created by the community to enhance the creative process. Some of these add-ons are brand new features, while others streamline the process by mixing different tools into one.

That said, if you’re mainly a Photoshop user, you may know that you can add different brushers and styles to increase your available tools. In this case, we’re going to talk about the watercolor effect and introduce some extra brushes for you to achieve this.

Achieving The Watercolor Effect In Adobe Photoshop

With how popular the watercolor effect has become, you can be sure that you and others are going to want to add it into their works as time goes on. While you can manually replicate the watercolor effect within Photoshop, this is a time-consuming process and one that you can efficiently streamline with these brushes.

In this list, we’re going to show you some of the best watercolor brushes available to you online. Each of them will be free, and all of them will alter your designs in different ways – all focusing on a watercolor effect, of course.

Watercolor Splatters

This pack contains up to 32 different “splatter” brushes that look entirely professional. Upon downloading the package, you’ll have access to all sorts of distinct blotches and shapes that will incorporate a unique watercolor style to your creative pieces.

These brushes also come with 675 pixels and can be used for commercial work without any additional credit. Those looking to pay can spend $4 for 5000px sized brushes and some watercolor paper textures as well.

Link: https://www.deviantart.com/pstutorialsws/art/Watercolor-Splatters-160738581

Soft Watercolor Brushes

These “soft and furry” watercolor brushes plug directly into Photoshop and are ideal for creating depth and style. This pack comes with smooth brushes, ragged brushes, splatters, and more. You can be as rough or precise as you’d like with these soft watercolor brushes.

Link: https://www.brusheezy.com/brushes/4910-soft-watercolor-brushes

24 Free Watercolor Brushes (ABR)

Offered up by PSDFreebies.org, this set of 24 free watercolor brushes are ideal for anyone looking to add a watercolor touch to their designs. If you’re lacking a bit of creative inspiration, but know you want some sort of watercolor effect to your plans, be sure to bring in these free 24 brushes into the pack and you can be sure to get out of a creative funk.

Link: https://www.graphicsfuel.com/2015/07/24-free-watercolor-brushes/

Watercolor PS Stamp Brushes

These brushes are a little different. Instead of being just splatters, this pack offers up different items such as grass, ribbons, banners, swirls, patterns, and more. It’s much easier to use these packs instead of creating your own pieces. You can save time by applying these.

This pack contains 20 brushes for free. If you’d like to purchase some more, the buyable package includes a ton of extra ones that will enhance your watercolor effects and creations.

Link: https://www.behance.net/gallery/34551563/Watercolor-PS-Stamp-Brushes-with-a-free-sample

Free Photoshop Watercolor Brushes (ABR)

This pack comes from hongkiat and is an entirely free set of 15 different watercolor brushes to enhance your creations. They come in a .abr file type and can be used for commercial or personal use. That said, they ask that you do not repost or redistribute these brushes to others. All they want is that you link back to this article if you do talk about them online.

Link: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/free-photoshop-watercolor-brushes/

Installing Watercolor Photoshop Brushes

Now that you have a list of free watercolor Photoshop brushes available to you let’s talk about how to install them. This is an extremely simple process that will only take a few minutes of your time.

To start, access the downloaded file (usually a .zip file full of the brushes.) From here, copy them with your operating system’s “Copy” command. Then, go to your Adobe Photoshop folder and paste them into the “Presets -> Brushes” subfolders. Then, open Photoshop.

From within the software, you can go to the Photoshop tab and select “Edit” and then go to “Preset Manager” from the resulting dropdown box. Another box will appear, and from there you can choose “Brushes.” Click on “Load” and select which .abr files you’d like to add into Photoshop. Select done and voila! The watercolor brushes are now included in your Photoshop library. Enjoy!