Well I finally have a post that's related to digital scrapbooking! I've been working on new brush sets recently and realized its gotten so much easier to convert all the individual files into a single brush set ( the .abr photoshop file). I guess I've finally learned all the cool shortcuts to make it lightening fast. So maybe this can help someone else save some time.
First, you need a keyboard shortcut for the "define brush preset" command (under the edit menu). Go into Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts and create one. I use Ctrl+P, but pick whatever you can remember and a short cut you don't already use. Then follow these steps when you want to create your abr file.
1. Create your png files - (make sure they are 2500x2500 pixels or smaller)
2. Put all your files in a directory and name them as you want them in the final package. I use the batch renaming process in Adobe Bridge for this.
3. Open them all in Photoshop in one operation. When you are selecting the file to open, highlight all the files at once. This is the first trick.
4. Go to Window>Arrange>Tile
5. Second trick - you can create the brush without selecting anything. Just click to select the file you want and then Crtl+P (or your version) and enter. Your nice file names get pulled in as the brush names.
6. Use Crtl+W to close the file.
7. Click, Crtl+P, Enter, Crtl+W and repeat until done.
8. Go to Edit>Preset Manager. Shift click to select all the brushes you just created and save the set.
Thats it!
My only complaint is that when you have all the files open in Photoshop, and you close one it automatically selects the last one in the list by default. This is why you have to click on each one you want at the begining. If anyone knows how to change the default to the first file please let me know!