How I Organize Brushes and Textures

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

This started life in the "How I Use Textures and Brushes" post I'm working on for elfcat255 but that sucker is getting WAY too long and so this is now its own post.

Organization
This is a major headache for me because I'm a resource addict. Don't believe me? Check out my resources some time. It became clear early on that I needed to organize to be able to find anything.

I discovered brushes first and so those were the first to be downloaded and organized. I spent hours and hours carefully sorting brushes into files based on type of brush so I now have "consolidated_border.abr" and "consolidated_hearts.abr" and so on.

I was SUCH a newbie because there is no indication of WHO made the brushes; each file contains brushes from probably 5 or 6 makers. I didn't care at the time because I'd commented on the maker's entry and credited her in my resources post. I never dreamed I'd ever be telling someone else how I made something. This would have been recoverable except that my external graphics hard drive crashed and ate all of my source files. :|

With very few exceptions, I can't tell you who made any particular brush I use. The only clue as to their identity is in my ultra-long resource post.

==

However, I do learn from my errors. When it came time to organize my textures, I am happy to report that I (mostly) avoided that fate.

- Useful, frequently used, icon-sized texture sets get turned into pattern files. -- The single most important and time-saving thing that I learned was to turn sets of icon-sized textures into PATTERN FILES. This can be laborious to do by hand; the useful tutorial by grrliz shows an easy way to create a Photoshop action that automates creation of the patterns for you!

I grouped the patterns first by maker's name and then by type. Typically, I download lots of texture packs from the same maker and I often mix and match for my own purposes. I have pattern files with names like, "aesc_BluesCyans.pat" and "cdg_DirtyPaper.pat" and "so_spiffed_GraysBlacks" and so on. I've made another file, "_PersonalFaves.pat" that has the textures I reach for time and again and it is a compilation of many makers. Unlike the brushes, though, the same textures are also in the files with a file with the original maker's name so that I'll always be able to figure out who made it.

I have no idea if this will work for GIMP or PSP. I hope so because it was a great tool for making texture work fun. These are the textures I use over and over and over. The disadvantage of this system is that I can't resize a pattern or turn it. Yes, I can work around it but 99 times out of 100, I'll just find a different texture to use.

- Infrequently used, icon-sized textures sets are sorted by type -- This was my first attempt at organization and it mirrors my brushes in that I didn't include any maker's credits. Fortunately, many texture makers include their names in the file names so they defeated my newbie self. :) I have them sorted into rough categories:

- Black & White
- Cool
- Dark
- Grungey
- Lights (these are my light textures)
- Neon
- Neutral
- Pastel
- Retro
- Warm

- Larger textures are in their own file and include maker's name. -- I've downloaded far fewer of these, maybe 150 or so, and so I just keep them in a single folder. If I had collected more, I'd have sorted them in the same rough categories I did with the icon-sized textures above.

Hope that helps. If anyone has agood idea or a different way of organization, I'd love to hear it!

Comments

[elfcat255.livejournal.com]

sounds about like what I do...since I had to start over collecting stuff again in December when my hard drive crashed I try to keep stuff in either the maker's folders(cause I find one person, fall in love with their stuff and go crazy with it) or group like stuff together. No clue if GIMP has the ability to do that Pattern File thing but I could try and see, it would be nice.

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

I really hope the pattern file thing works for you because that liberated me from the hassle of textures. I can pull up a texture, any texture really, erase the parts I want to, and then very quickly cycle through any number as I try out colors, patterns, etc.

The need to find a texture, open it, copy it, paste it, add mask to it, erase the parts I didn't want, decide it wasn't really what I wanted, delete it, find another texture, open it... Well, the return for the effort wasn't enough to make it worth my while. I'm WAAAAAAY too lazy and impatient. :)

[elfcat255.livejournal.com]

*sigh*..now I wish I was at home so I could play around with GIMP..grr..damn work

[hsapiens.livejournal.com]

oops! Sorry for that. And it's mighty thoughtless of jobs to require doing something other than what we want to do, isn't it?