Loading and Saving Brushes — Krita Manual 5.0.0 documentation https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/loading_saving_brushes.html#the-...

Docs » User Manual » Loading and Saving Brushes

Loading and Saving Brushes

In the real world, when pain�ng or drawing, you don’t just use one tool. You use
pencils, erasers, paintbrushes, different types of paint, inks, crayons, etc. All these
have different ways of making marks.

In a digital program like Krita you have something similar. We call this a brush engine.
And much like how cars have different engines that give different feels when driving,
or how pencils make dis�nctly different marks than roller ball pens, different brush
engines have totally different feels.

The brush engines have a lot of different se�ngs as well. So, you can save those
se�ngs into presets.

Unlike Photoshop, Krita makes a difference between brush-�ps and brush-presets.

Tips are only a stamp of sorts, while the preset uses a �p and many other se�ngs to
create the full brush.

The Brush se�ngs drop-down

To start, the Brush Se�ngs Editor panel can be accessed in the toolbar, between the
Choose brush preset bu�on on the right and the Fill Pa�erns bu�on on the le�.
Alternately, you can use the F5 key to open it.

When you open Brush Se�ngs Editor panel you will see something like this:

Tour of the brush se�ngs drop-down

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B C
E

The brush se�ngs drop-down is divided into six areas,

Sec�on A – General Informa�on

This contains the Preset Icon, Live Brush Preview, the Preset Name, the Engine name,
and several bu�ons for saving, renaming, and reloading.

Krita’s brush se�ngs are stored into the metadata of a 200×200 PNG (the KPP file),
where the image in the PNG file becomes the preset icon. This icon is used
everywhere in Krita, and is useful for differen�a�ng brushes in ways that the live
preview cannot.

The live preview shows a stroke of the current brush as a li�le s-curve wiggle, with the
pressure being non-existent on the le�, and increasing to full pressure as it goes to the
right. It can thus show the effect of the Pressure, Drawing Angle, Distance, Fade and
Fuzzy Dab sensors, but none of the others. For some brush engines it cannot show
anything. For the color smudge, filter brush and clone tool, it shows an alterna�ng line

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pa�ern because these brush engines use the pixels already on canvas to change their
effect.

A�er the preset name, there’s a bu�on for renaming the brush. This will save the brush
as a new brush and deac�vate the previous brush.

Engine

The engine of a brush is the underlying programming that generates the stroke from a
brush. What that means is that different brush engines have different op�ons and
different results. You can see this as the difference between using crayons, pencils and
inks, but because computers are math devices, most of our brush engines produce
different things in a more mathema�cal way.

For most ar�sts the mathema�cal nature doesn’t ma�er as much as the different
textures and marks each brush engine, and each brush engine has its own dis�nct
flavor and use, and can be further customized by modifying the op�ons.

Reloading

If you change a preset, an icon will appear behind the engine name. This is the
Reload the brush preset bu�on. You can use it to revert to the original brush
se�ngs.

Saving a preset

On the right, there’s Save New Brush Preset… and Overwrite Brush bu�ons.

Save New Brush Preset…

Will take the current preset and all its changes and save it as a new preset. If no
change was made, you will be making a copy of the current preset.

Overwrite Brush

This will only enable if there are any changes. Pressing this will override the current
preset with the new se�ngs, keeping the name and the icon intact. It will always
make a �mestamped back up in the resources folder.

Save new preset will call up the following window, with a mini scratch pad, and all

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sorts of op�ons to change the preset icon:

The image on the le� is a mini scratch pad, you can draw on it with the current brush,
allowing small modifica�ons on the fly.

Brush Name:

The Name of your brush. This is also used for the KPP file. If there’s already a
brush with that name, it will effec�vely overwrite it.

Load Exis�ng Thumbnail

This will load the exis�ng thumbnail inside the preset.

Load Scratch Pad Thumbnail

This will load the dashed area from the big scratch pad (Sec�on C) into the
thumbnail area.

Load Image

With this you can choose an image from disk to load as a thumbnail.

Load from Icon Library

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This opens up the icon library.

Clear Thumbnail

This will make the mini scratch pad white.

The Icon Library

To make making presets icons faster, Krita got an icon library.

It allows you to select tool icons, and an op�onal small emblem. When you press
OK it will load the resul�ng combina�on into the mini scratch pad, and you can
draw in the stroke.

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If you go to your resources folder, there’s a folder there called preset\_icons , and in
this folder there are tool\_icons and emblem\_icons . You can add semi-
transparent PNGs here and Krita will load those into the icon library as well, so you
can customize your icons even more!

At the top right of the icon library, there are three sliders. They allow you to adjust the
tool icon. The top two are the same Hue and Satura�on as in HSL adjustment, and the
lowest slider is a super simple levels filter. This is done this way because the levels
filter allows maintaining the darkest shadows and brightest highlights on a tool icon,
making it much be�er for quick adjustments.

If you’re done with everything, you can press Save in the Save New Brush
Preset dialog and Krita will save the new brush.

Sec�on B – The Preset Chooser

The preset chooser is much the same as the preset docker and the preset drop-down
on the F6 key. It’s unique in that it allows you to filter by engine and this is also where
you can create brushes for an engine from scratch.

It is by default collapsed, so you will need to press the arrow at the top le� of the
brush engine to show it.

The top drop-down is set to “all” by default, which means it shows all engines. It then
shows a tag sec�on where you can select the tags, the preset list and the search bar.

Underneath that there’s a plus icon, which when pressed gives you the full list of
Krita’s engines. Selec�ng an engine from the list will show the brushes for that engine.

The trashcan icon does the same as it does in the preset docker: delete, or rather,
deac�vate a preset, so it won’t show up in the list.

Sec�on C – The Scratch pad

When you tweak your brushes, you want to be able to check what each se�ng does.
That’s why, to the right of the se�ngs drop-down, there is a scratch pad.

It is by default collapsed, so you will have to press the arrow at the top right of the
brush se�ngs to show it.

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When saving a new preset, you can choose to get the icon from the scratch pad, this
will load the dash area into the mini scratch pad of the Save New Brush Preset
dialog.

The scratch pad has five bu�ons underneath it. These are in order for:

1. Fill area with brush preset icon

2. Fill area with current image

3. Fill area with gradient (useful for smudge brushes)

4. Fill area with background color

5. Reset area to white

Sec�on D – The Op�ons List

The op�ons, as stated above, are different per brush engine. These represent the
different parameters, toggles and knobs that you can turn to make a brush preset
unique. For a couple of op�ons, the main things to change are sliders and checkboxes,
but for a lot of them, they use curves instead.

Some op�ons can be toggled, as noted by the li�le checkboxes next to them, but
others, like flow and opacity are so fundamental to how the brush works, that they are
always on.

The li�le padlock icon next to the op�ons is for locking the brush. This has its own
page.

Sec�on E – Op�on Configura�on Widget

Where sec�on D is the list of op�ons, sec�on E is the widget where you can change
things.

Using sensor curves

One of the big important things that make art unique to the ar�st who created it is the
style of the strokes. Strokes are different because they differ in speed, rota�on,
direc�on, and the amount of pressure put onto the stylus. Because these are so
important, we would want to customize how these values are understood in detail.

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The best way to do this is to use curves.

Curves show up with the size widget for example. With an inking brush, we want to
have size mapped to pressure. Just toggling the size op�on in the op�on list will do
that.

However, different people have different wrists and thus will press differently on their
stylus. Someone who presses so�ly tends to find it easy to make thin strokes, but very
difficult to make thick strokes. Conversely, someone who presses hard on their stylus
naturally will have a hard �me making thin strokes, but easily makes thick ones.

Such a situa�on can be improved by using the curves to map pressure to output
thinner lines or thicker ones.

The brush se�ngs curves even have quick curve bu�ons for these at the top.
Someone who has a hard �me making small strokes should try the second to last
concave bu�on, while someone who has a hard �me making thick strokes should try
the third bu�on, the S shape.

Underneath the curve widget there are two more op�ons:

Share curve across all se�ngs

This is for the list of sensors. Toggling this will make all the sensors use the same
curve. Unchecked, all checked sensors will have separate curves.

Curves calcula�on mode:

This indicates how the mul�ple values of the sensor curves are used. The curves
always go from 0 to 1.0, so if one curve outputs 0.5 and the other 0.7, then…

Mul�ply

Will mul�ply the two values, 0.5*0.7 = 0.35.

Addi�on

Will add the two to a maximum of 1.0, so 0.5+0.7 = 1.2, which is then capped at
1.0.

Maximum

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Will compare the two and pick the largest. So in the case of 0.5 and 0.7, the
result is 0.7.

Minimum

Will compare the two and pick the smallest. So in the case of 0.5 and 0.7, the
result is 0.5.

Difference

Will subtract the smallest value from the largest, so 0.7-0.5 = 0.2.

It’s maybe be�er to see with the following example:

The first two are regular, the rest with different mul�plica�on types.

1. Is a brush with size set to the distance sensor.

2. Is a brush with the size set to the fade sensor.

3. The size is calculated from the fade and distance sensors mul�plied.

4. The size is calculated from the fade and distance sensors added to each other.
No�ce how thick it is.

5. The size takes the maximum value from the values of the fade and distance
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sensors.

6. The size takes the minimum value from the values of the fade and distance sensors.

7. The size is calculated by having the largest of the values subtracted with the
smallest of the values.

Sec�on F – Miscellaneous op�ons

Eraser switch size

This switches the brush to a separately stored size when using the E key.

Eraser switch opacity

Same as above, but then with Eraser opacity.

Temporarily save tweaks to preset

This enables dirty presets. Dirty presets store the tweaks you make as long as this
session of Krita is ac�ve. A�er that, they revert to default. Dir�ed presets can be
recognized by the icon in the top-le� of the preset.

The icon encircled in red in the top le� of the third, fourth and
fi�h presets in first row indicate it is “Dirty”, meaning there
are tweaks made to the preset.

Instant preview

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This allows you to toggle instant preview on the brush. The Instant Preview has a
super-secret feature: when you press the instant preview label, and then right click
it, it will show a threshold slider. This slider determines at what brush size instant
preview is ac�vated for the brush. This is useful because small brushes can be
slower with instant preview, so the threshold ensures it only ac�vates when
necessary.

The On-canvas brush se�ngs

There is a On-Canvas Brush Editor. If you open up the pop-up pale�e, there should be
an icon on the bo�om-right. Press that to show the on-canvas brush se�ngs. You will
see several sliders here, to quickly make small changes.

At the top it shows the currently ac�ve preset. Next to that is a se�ngs bu�on, click
that to get a list of se�ngs that can be shown and organized for the given brush
engine. You can use the up and down arrows to order their posi�on, and then le� and
right arrows to add or remove from the list. You can also drag and drop.

Making a Brush Preset

Now, let’s make a simple brush to test the waters with:

Ge�ng a default for the brush engine.

First, open the se�ngs with the F5 key.

Then, press the arrow on the upper le� to open the preset chooser. There, press the
“+” icon to get a list of engines. For this brush we’re going to make a pixel brush.

Example: Making an inking brush

1. Draw on the scratch pad to see what the current brush looks like. If done correctly,
you should have a 5px wide brush that has pressure set to opacity.

2. Let us turn off the opacity first. Click on the opacity op�on in the right-hand list.
The se�ngs should now be changed to a big curve. This is the sensor curve.

3. Uncheck the Enable Pen Se�ngs checkbox.

4. Test on the scratch pad… there s�ll seems to be something affec�ng opacity. This is
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due to the flow op�on.

5. Select the Flow op�on from the list on the right hand. Flow is like Opacity, except
that Flow is per dab, and opacity is per stroke.

6. Uncheck the Enable Pen Se�ngs checkbox here as well. Test again.

7. Now you should be ge�ng somewhere towards an inking brush. It is s�ll too small
however, and kinda grainy looking. Click Brush Tip in the brush engine op�ons.

8. Here, the diameter is the size of the brush-�p. You can touch the slider change the
size, or right-click it and type in a value. Set it to 25 and test again. It should be
much be�er.

9. Now to make the brush feel a bit so�er, turn down the fade parameter to about
0.9. This’ll give the brush mask a so�er edge.

10. If you test again, you’ll no�ce the fade doesn’t seem to have much effect. This has
to do with the spacing of the dabs: The closer they are together, the harder the line
is. By default, this is 0.1, which is a bit low. If you set it to 10 and test, you’ll see
what kind of effect spacing has. The Auto checkbox changes the way the spacing is
calculated, and Auto Spacing with a value of 0.8 is the best value for inking
brushes. Don’t forget that you can use right-click to type in a value.

11. Now, when you test, the fade seems to have a normal effect… except on the really
small sizes, which look jagged. To get rid of that, check the an�-aliasing check box.
If you test again, the lines should be much nicer now.

Saving the new Brush

When you’re sa�sfied, go to the upper le� and select Save New Brush Preset…
bu�on.

You will get the save preset dialog. Name the brush something like “My Preset”. Then,
select Load from Icon Library to get the icon library. Choose a nice tool icon and
press OK .

The icon will be loaded into the mini scratch pad on the le�. Now doodle a nice stroke
next to it. If you feel you messed up, just go back to the icon library to load a new icon.

Finally, press Save , and your brush should be done.

You can further modify your inking brush by…

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Changing the amount of pressure you need to put on a brush to make it full size.

To do this, select the size op�on, and press the pressure sensor from the list next
to the curve. The curve should look like a straight line. Now if you want a brush
that gets big with li�le pressure, �ck on the curve to make a point, and drag the
point to the upper-le�. The more the point is to the upper-le�, the more extreme
the effect. If you want instead a brush that you have to press really hard on to get
to full size, drag the dot to the lower-right. Such a brush is useful for fine details.
Don’t forget to save the changes to your brush when done.

Making the fine lines look even so�er by using the flow op�on.

To do this, select the flow op�on, and turn back on the Enable Pen Se�ngs
check box. Now if you test this, it is indeed a bit so�er, but maybe a bit too much.
Click on the curve to make a dot, and drag that dot to the top-le�, half-way the
horizontal of the first square of the grid. Now, if you test, the thin lines are much
so�er, but the hard your press, the harder the brush becomes.

Sharing Brushes
Okay, so you’ve made a new brush and want to share it. There are several ways to
share a brush preset.

The recommended way to share brushes and presets is by using the Resource Bundle
system. We have detailed instruc�ons on how to use them on the resource
management page.

However, there are various old-fashioned ways of sharing brushes that can be useful
when impor�ng and loading very old packs:

Sharing a single preset

There are three types of resources a single preset can take:

1. A paintoppreset file: This is the preset proper, with the icon and the curves
stored inside.

2. A Brush file: This is the brush �p. When using masked brushes, there are two of
these.

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3. A Pa�ern file: this is when you are using textures.

So when you have a brush that uses unique predefined �ps for either brush �p or
masked brush, or unique textures you will need to share those resources as well with
the other person.

To find those resources, go to Se�ngs ‣ Manage Resources… ‣ Open Resource Folder.

There, the preset file will be inside paintoppresets , the brush �ps inside brushes
and the texture inside patterns .

Impor�ng a single KPP file.

Now, if you want to use the single preset, you should go to the preset chooser on the
F6 key and press the folder icon there. This will give a file dialog. Navigate to the
KPP file and open it to import it.

If there are brush �ps and pa�erns coming with the file, do the same with pa�ern via
the pa�ern docker, and for the brush-�p go to the se�ngs drop-down (F5) and then
go to the brush-�p op�on. There, select predefined brush, and then the import
bu�on to call up the file dialog.

You can also use the import bu�on in Se�ngs ‣ Manage Resources….

Sharing via ZIP (old-fashioned)

Sharing via ZIP should be replaced with resource bundles, but older brush packs are
stored in ZIP files.

Using a ZIP with the relevant files.

1. Go to Se�ngs ‣ Manage Resources… ‣ Open Resource Folder to open the resource

folder.

2. Then, open up the ZIP file.

3. Copy the brushes , paintoppresets and patterns folders from the ZIP file to
the resource folder. You should get a prompt to merge the folders, agree to this.

4. Restart Krita.

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5. Enjoy your brushes!

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