Whether you're working in web design or creating artistic projects in Photoshop, you’ll need brushes—no exceptions. Brushes of all shapes and sizes, bristle types, softness/hardness, and so on. And even though web design typically revolves around grids, rectangular blocks, and layout alignment, in reality, web designers very often need brushes. For example, for photo editing, applying effects, or creating creative visuals from scratch like cinemagraphs, polygonal art, or animations. Even something as simple as styling a homepage often requires artistic effort and ideas. And for all that—you’ll need brushes.
Another interesting point is that brushes are often the first tool Photoshop users encounter. Some might even think there’s nothing complex about using them. But at the same time, there are many users who rely on brushes yet don’t know about the settings or features available—many don’t even realize they exist.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at Photoshop brushes—examining their details and sharing curated brush sets that can be genuinely useful in web design.
What Makes a Brush Special?
Technically, a brush in Adobe Photoshop is a preset that controls the stroke and line shape. The "Brush" tool is used for painting and mimicking ink on the canvas.
Brushes are used for countless tasks—and it's hard to imagine a creative project without them (unless you’re simply resizing an image). They allow you to add elements or particular line styles to your work. Every version of Photoshop comes with a basic default set of brushes: dry, wet, effect-based, round, square. The 2018 Photoshop CC update even introduced auto-sorting of brushes into categories. But the default set is rarely enough, so users usually look online for more.
Brush Features
Using brushes is simple on the surface: select the tool, choose a brush type and color, and start "painting." But remember—each brush has many detailed settings that allow you to create incredible visual effects.
Most users only adjust the size (with the [ and ] keys) and hardness (for softer or sharper edges). Few explore the rest of the brush parameters and options. Let’s dive into those.
Hardness – only applies to round and square brushes. It adjusts the number of pixels used to soften or blur the edge. 100% means maximum sharpness.
Size – defines whether the brush is thick or thin—large or small.
Angle and Dynamics – rotates the brush along the X and Y axes. Look at the screenshots below: the brush doesn’t rotate as a whole but rather partially, creating a randomized "messy" look. That’s why people say, “Drawing grass in Photoshop is the easiest thing ever.”
Pay attention to two parameters: Angle Jitter and Roundness Jitter. Adjusting these values can transform a basic brush into something entirely new. A simple round brush can become snow, eyelashes, or crushed grass. See below—those scattered ovals and circles were made using a regular round brush with jitter and scattering settings.
Color Dynamics – automatically changes brush color and stroke color based on hue, saturation, and brightness. Creating colorful confetti becomes easy and fun.
Airbrush – lets you apply color repeatedly in a single point. Clicking different areas creates scattered blotches. But when Airbrush is enabled, you get a spray-paint effect—concentrated paint in one spot. Move the mouse and you'll get a denser stroke.
Brush Pose – adds stylus/pen-like effects. Often used for calligraphy or fancy curved elements in letters or nature motifs. The screenshots below show how different tilt angles affect the brush and strokes.
Transfer – controls the opacity of the stroke. While drawing, Photoshop will automatically vary the darkness and opacity—some marks will be strong and visible, others light and subtle, depending on your brush.
Also, don’t forget that Photoshop 2018 introduced three new brush drawing modes, making brushes even more flexible. These modes are: Brush Pose, Stroke Catch Up, Catch Up on Stroke End, and Symmetry Drawing.
That’s basically all you need to know about Photoshop brushes for web design and creative use. Of course, there are also Wet Edges, which simulate watercolor—but that’s more common in digital art than in web design.
Installing Brushes
Installing brushes takes just a few clicks. Click the brush icon in the toolbar, then the gear icon, and select “Load Brushes.” Then just choose the .ABR file from your drive. New brushes are added to the bottom of the list and can be sorted into folders by name or category (Photoshop’s latest version).
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Brush Applications
Brushes are used frequently in web design, and visitors often don’t even realize that what they’re looking at was painted with a brush across multiple layers. For example: meat.agency, getdashing, instituteforqualityleadership, mend-seltzer, carolhighsmithamerica, amandegelateria, a-lign, hotelicon. You might ask: “Where’s the brushwork here?” It’s in the contrast enhancements on images (subtle shading/highlighting), added fog or snow, graphic elements instead of pencil sketches, or even layered textures. Brushes were used to color-correct, add vibrance to berries, or paint depth.
Brushes are also used to replace or enhance skies, add nature, trees, flowers, animals, birds, objects, and even people. That brings us to the most exciting part—our curated selection of brushes that are consistently useful in web design (not just pretty, but actually practical).
Photoshop Brush Packs
A set of 10 artistic cloud brushes in various shapes and sizes. Includes single clouds, overcast sky views, and partially clear skies.
21 brushes with hi-tech elements like data blocks, grids, charts, etc. Great for digital-themed backgrounds, textures, or stylized headers. See A.E.R.I.S. for example usage.
11 brushes of mountains, forests, mist, and hills—perfect for artistic homepage backgrounds or headers without stock images. Excellent for use in stylized sections like those on Tajem.
A minimal set of 4 circular geometric brushes. Useful for abstract backgrounds or subtle design elements in layout corners.
20 brushes with floral swirls and curves—perfect for elegant, airy decorations in headers, photos, or section dividers. These are beautifully detailed and come alive when paired with gradient overlays.
A few vector-style line and curve brushes—swirls, droplets, leaves. Great for embellishing photos or crafting vector-style design elements.
Of course, you could collect hundreds of beautiful brushes and use them creatively in web design. But in practice, brushes are often more versatile than static images or objects. Most images already have fixed colors or gradients—harder to edit. But with brushes, you can paint what you need and apply your own gradients or textures later.
Conclusion
Photoshop brushes are an essential part of web design. They allow designers to craft artistic or graphic backgrounds, visuals, and layout elements. Brushes simplify your work—you can add trees to a forest or complete a background in seconds. Instead of hunting for the perfect photo with the right angle and lighting, just use a brush. That 3-layer example we opened with? Done with brushes—mountains, color, all of it.
Brushes are probably one of the most fun tools in Photoshop—you can play with them endlessly and momentarily forget about deadlines. With a single brush and a few color adjustments, you can create something entirely new. And that new piece may end up enhancing your next website project.