Is it Possible to Convert PhotoShop CC brushes (.abr) for PhotoShop 7 compatibility?

[matthewn43692242]

Hello, thank you for you time. I'm a developer & I have some sets of brushes that I've made. The brushes were initially made in CS4 and finished off in CC2020-21. Unsurprisingly, the exported, final brushes from CC2021 are not compatible with very old versions of photoshop such as PS7 which is about 20 years old at this point. Feels like yesterday.

I've been doing some research and it looks like there are about 7 versions of the .abr format. Looks like older PS versions ppear to use only the first two (ver.1 & ver. 2). The newer brushes may have some features not supported in the older format but I can live with that. If I had PS7 I could probably just remake them faster than I could figure this out but the oldest version I have running is CS4.

Is there any way I can convert my .abr files to one of those first two formats so they can work with these older versions of Photoshop? Is there a way for someone with an active CC subscription & legit, purchased serial numbers to several CS & pre-CS versions to get a copy of PS7 without being a scurvey pirate and probably getting a virus?

[Chris 486]

Those won't be directly compatible. You'd be better off just creating the old brushes from scratch. I am also  not aware of where you can download a copy officially.

[Jeff Arola]

You can load the Brush presets from photoshop 20/21/22 into photoshop cs4, then save them out as Tool Presets which will open in photoshop 7, then convert the tool presets to brush presets if desired.

It would be very advantageous to have an actual copy of photoshop 7 for testing. Unfortunately, i don't know where to get a no risk permanent legal copy of photoshop 7.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Bristle Brush Tips were introduced in 2010 according to this article.  That would surely have needed an updated .abr format 

https://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1664592

Then there was the change to the brush engine in 2017, but that was aall about brush management if I am remembering it right, so maybe no need to update the .abr format for that.  We get occasional questions  about CS2 through to CS6, but Photoshop 7 references are very rare.  You'd need and old system and OS to be able install Photoshop 7 as well.  So if it was a mater of maximising the market for your brush sets, would Photoshop 7 compatability make difference?

[PECourtejoie]

Hi, I am also wondering if offering compatibility with an old, unsupported version if worth the hassle.

But maybe some other third party programs that are compatible do not support the latest version, hence your question?
It looks like they do support most of the options that came circa with the Ps7 brush engine... So in that case it would make sense.

I'd try the tools presets path, as Jeff suggested. but not sure if those would work with third party programs. 

There is also a third party program, ABRviewer that you might want to try.

[RA32569885t6a6]

Check out ABRMate - you might need to do some googling, but there's a wayback machine link from Texturemate that worked great for my CS5. New ABR goes in, PS 7 version comes out.

[Trevor.Dennis]

That looks like an interesting wee app, and it's worth taking a look as it is free.

https://abrmate.software.informer.com/1.1/