P: Better Preset Organization (sub-folders, tag, search)

Sergey,

Care to share how to use and where to find this JS dialogue window?
And what do you mean by " before i experienced the power of using Javascript for presets"? Is this only available in the new photoshop versions ( im currently using photoshop cs4 extended)? Could you elaborate...

I'm very interested to know what you're referring too!

THANKS

What I did before I experienced the power of using JavaScript for presets was using several letters before the actual name of the tool because PS sorts them by name. So I had like
br Cubic brush
br Round brush
ddg Hard Dodge
ddg Soft Dodge
mx Amazing oils
mx Mixer Brush

But now I just use JS dialogue window to chose different tools


Too bad this only works with tool presets. So native solution would be better.

I tried to upload a screen grab of my open Tools panel for you CommonMovement but the Image Uploader here is buggy.
Here we commonly create a "fake" Brush, Tool, whatever to act as Header in List View, like so:

~~~~~~~~~ My Tools for Digital Painting ~~~~~~~~~~~
tool 1
tool 2
tool 3
~~~~~~~~~ My Tools for Photography ~~~~~~~~~~~~
tool 1
tool 2
etc

The fact that so many people do this just shows how needed better organisation facilities in Adobe CS are.

As to showing All Tools/Brushes- I think it's a memory issue. Too many in the lists slow down performance. Of course Adobe could always avoid the need for mass-loading of huge lists by better organisation facilities in the first place. Or provide more alerts for performance critical situations, eg:
"Are you sure you want to load all 500Mb of Brush Presets in to Photoshop, this may take some time? Ok / Cancel".
:)

Swatch sets are already files, and there is already a menu for changing them at the top right of the palette.

I would love to have a better way to manage fonts and presets (brushes, patterns, etc.)

for example, it would be nice to group fonts and presets according to style, favorite, recent or whatever in one panel. This would be great w/ fonts. I know you can setup you own presets for brushes, and patterns but this could be much better, especially when you want to append. Currently you don't know where one set starts/ends?

Amen dude. Both Swatches and Brushes. But if we're on CS5 now and Adobe still have yet to permit this simple advance- what hope is there really?

Please add folders / organization support for photoshop brushes. I hate how i cant organize my brushes in photoshop ( properly). I would LOVE it if I could create folders for brushes and organize them the way I want. I dont want to have to create brush sets and load and unload them. I want All my brushes available at all times in a Folder hierarchy. Allow the user to name and organize brushes into folders for easy and costumize access.

Exactly. It's pointless.

There is no "Define Brush Nib Preset" under the Edit menu item.
A brush nib is never really a separate entity to a brush, though it may lack any custom settings.

You create a brush by going Edit > Define Brush Preset.

The care with which we must choose our terms when discussing this issue is indicative of how muddled the process is.

I have a Tool that uses a Brush that in turn relies on a Brush Nib (which might even rely on a Pattern for it's texture!)- I think we could keep the flexibility of that hierarchy yet make the creation, saving and organisation of it's components far clearer and simpler. The list of "Nibs" should update when you make a new Brush, and show up at the end of the "Nibs" Brushes collection.

But what you see in the Brushes panel are tip shapes, not the brushes. The brushes are in Brush Presets menu, which is identical to brushes in the menu bar and menu on the right mouse click.

Thanks for the reply PECourtejole, but that point was not regarding the differences between tools and brushes.

That point concerned the differences between the Brushes shown in the panel accessed using the menu bar and those shown in the Brushes window when changing the settings for that brush.

If you've just made a new brush, it shows up at the end of your list of brushes, as accessed by the Menu Bar drop down. Now, before saving the set (which could do with being a more straight-forward affair) take a look in the brushes shown in the Brushes panel accessed via Window > Brushes.

It's not there, certainly not in the same place, if it's there at all.

I'm aware of the reasoning behind this but I just don't agree with it.
When you've just created a new brush it should show up in both panels immediately. Saving the created brush should be immediate too- so you don't lose what you've done in a crash (or if you just forget to do it as you're busy working on the image!) How about a simple prompt- "Save to Current Brush Set?" on brush creation?

The whole process of creating, organising and saving Brushes and Tools needs to be more useful and less complex for the benefit of newbies and old pros alike.