Reading, writing and previewing abr-files (brushes) - How?

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
September 15, 2016
3 replies
5317 views

I can't find any information in the manual about how to work with brush files - so how exactly does people approach this?

I have an idea for a tool I want to make but I'm blocked in regards to the technical approach on how to actually work with brush files.

I've seen examples of custom-made brush panels so I know it's entirely possible - but I can't seem to find any actual info about it. I've tried contacting these people but they are either busy or they simply do not want to share this info out of fear that I will develop some competing tool (which I will not - my idea goes beyond just a brush manager). What I need to be able to do is

1) Read an abr file

2) Display the brush (as a thumbnail)

3) Write an abr-file

Glenn 8675309

Legend

I didn't notice how old the orginal post was..

Any image can be defined as a brush- I mostly use photoshop elements to do that.
Any number of free apps can view abr files.

I also bought a little app for a few dollars that lets me see thumbnails of abr files, and a bunch of ther things as well.

This may help, in regards to tool development: I really think you need to be thinking about a plugin fro photoshop.

To become a Photoshop plugin developer, install the UXP Developer Tools from the Adobe Creative Cloud app to create, load, and manage plugins for Photoshop using UXP (Unified Extensibility Platform), which is a modern framework for extending Creative Cloud products. You can build custom panels, dialogs, and direct actions using JavaScript and web technologies like HTML and CSS, and then use the Developer Tool to debug, reload, and manage your plugins. For more complex needs, you can develop hybrid plugins that leverage the existing C++ Photoshop SDK.

1. Install the UXP Developer Tools

Open the Adobe Creative Cloud application and find "UXP Developer Tools" under the "All apps" section.
Install the tools to gain the necessary features for creating and managing plugins.

2. Get Started with UXP

UXP is the modern framework for creating Photoshop plugins.
It allows you to build user interfaces with HTML and CSS and manage plugin logic with JavaScript.
You can also develop hybrid plugins that combine UXP with the C++ Photoshop SDK for advanced functionality.

rob art | illustration

Known Participant

I know how to create a brush image, it straight forward in Photoshop. the issue is custom brushes are different to ABR brushes and trying to see the brushTip preview in UXP is almost near impossible. Camel/Eye of Needle comes to mind! That is the point of my interest. I know ABRViewer shows the tips, I need to have the code to use in my app to find the tips.

practice safe design | use a concept~ Petrula Vrontikis

A

Anonymous

Here is some information about the .abr file structure:

- A brush file starts with a header: version (2-byte big-endian integer) followed by sub-version (2-byte big-endian integer).

- Atfer the header lies a sequence of sections organized by key: 'samp', 'patt' and 'desc' (I'm not sure if their order is fixed though).

Each of them follows the same structure:

- Photoshop resource signature ('8BIM')

- 4-character key ('samp' or 'patt' or 'desc')

- length of data (4-byte big-endian integer)

- data (variable size)

- The 'samp' section data (if not empty) represents a series of sampled brushes with unique identifiers (UUID) referenced in the descriptor.

- The 'patt' section data (if not empty) represents a series of patterns (used for textures) with unique identifiers (UUID) referenced in the descriptor.

- The 'desc' section data is a flatten descriptor which can be decoded using the fromStream method.

I already wrote a very simple script which uses this information, but unfortunately it doesn't parse what you are interested in, i.e. the brush previews...

<http://www.tonton-pixel.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/test-parse-abr-file.zip >

An old version of the "Adobe Photoshop®6.0 File Formats Specification" document has a section about brushes:

<http://oldschoolprg.x10.mx/downloads/ps6ffspecsv2.pdf >

There is an open-source project called ABR Viewer:

<abrViewer.NET - Browse /abrViewer.NET_2.0/abrViewer.NET 2.0 at SourceForge.net >

which provides relevant information about the "8BIMsamp" section in the file "ScanningProcess.cs" inside the "abrViewerNET20_source.zip" archive.

Also, the "8BIMpatt" section data structure may be similar to the way patterns are stored at the beginning of a styles file.

See "Photoshop Styles File Format" in <http://www.tonton-pixel.com/blog/documentation/>

HTH...