I had a look at what was being requested and noticed there were some asking about where one can find fonts, where to get brushes and how to use them. Well, personally, I've relied on brushes ever since i started making signatures/banners in photoshop, so i'm going to try and explain the most I can. Now, enough with my pointless ramblings, I shall begin.
Note: The majority of this tutorial is meant for Adobe Photoshop on a Windows computer. So apologies if any of this doesn't work for a Mac ect.
Brushes: What are they? Where can I find them? How do I install them?How can I define what the brushes are.... Well, I like to put it this way - They are kind of like 'the shape' of the tip of a paint brush. Different tips of paint brush will produce different shapes on the paper, right? Well that's kind of how it works with Photoshop. You have your default, round, hard or soft brush tips to use, but you can download more obscure ones that produce a variety of different shapes on your photoshop 'canvas'. At the end of this tutorial you should understand what the brushes are and what different one look like when used.
I believe there are many sites where brushes can be aquired, these probably being found by simply searching 'photoshop brushes (or PSP or whatever program you are using)' on a search engine such as google. But personally, there is only one site I use as it has a wide variety of user-made brush packs for various versions of photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and GIMP. This site is
Deviant Art.
Once you have reached the main page of Deviant Art, you will first want to head to the category of your choice. To do this, locate the neat little 'Categories' button and click it. You should be presented with a drop-down menu like so:
You may need to scroll down a little in the menu before you come across a section named 'Resources'. After clicking that, another menu should appear instead of the oirginal, listing even more sub-catergories. In this list, locate the one that says 'Application Resources' and again, click it, resulting in yet another list to appear. This list contains various resources for various programs - nott only brushes but fonts, patterns ect. Now, what you select in this next list depends on what program you are using, and what kind of resource you are looking for. For the sake of this tutorial, I selected 'Photoshop Brushes'.
After selecting this catergory you are taken to the main page for that specific topic (in this case, you will only be shown 'Photoshop Brushes'... makes sense, right?). Now what you do here is entirely up to what kind of brush you are looking for. There are many different 'types' of brushes - 'Fractals', 'Abstract', 'Grunge' to name a few. Now I can't really push you onto a certain type of brush as it is up to your own tastes to pick some to use. To start with, though, I just recommend having a browse around at the 'popular' brushes, as these are generally the ones people think are 'the best' and so...hey? Why not give them a go?
At the top of this section (above the pictures of brushes) should be a few links that allow to to 'filter' what you are browsing through:
Here, I selected 'Popular' and 'All Time'. This means it will show me the all-time favourites. Of course, this is just what I wanted to do, feel free to browse throught he different 'filtered results'. But after you have chosen these, you can then just continue to look through the various pages until you find a brush pack you are interested in. Keep in mind, the pictures shown for each brush are genreally previews of what you can produce with the brushes. For example, this picture shows what things look like after the brushes have been brushed and also coloured - so sometimes it is difficult to tell what the brushes look like by themselves:
But anyway, I will leave it up to you to find a brush you like. Once you have found this, click on it's picture and you should be taken to the page where you are able to download it. You should be shown a larger version of the image you have just clicked and to the left of that, some buttons - you will want to select the 'download' button. I'm sure you all know how to download something, so I won't patronize you with that. Once you've downloaded it to a location of your choice (somewhere easy enough to locate is best...) it is time to install it!
Note: Some brushes may not work with some versions of your program. For example if a brush is made in Photoshop CS 2, I believe it will not work in Photoshop 7.0. But if it was made in 7.0 it should work in CS2 and up. Maybe a little confusing, but always check (usually in the description of the brush) what version of program it is for.
Installing Your BrushesAssuming you have photoshop open, if not load it up, it is simple enough to install the brush you have downloaded. Firstly, make sure you have the brush tool selected. (locate it on the toolbar - 'Window--->tools' if toolbar isn't there - or press 'B' on your keyboard). Then, locate the little toolbar that should be located beneath where it says 'File' and 'Edit ect: (If that isn't there, go to 'Window--->options' and it should appear'
Click the little arrow next to a picture of the brush you are currently on (circled above) and a menu should drop down which also displays all the other brushes installed. Then, click the other arrow shown on the top-right corner of the menu. This should make yet another menu appear, on which you should select 'Load Brushes...'. These things are circled below:
From there, it is relatively simple. A new window should appear and it it you must browse to the location of your newly downloaded brush. (that's why I said put it in a place thats easy to find, saves time ^^ ). If you downloaded your brush in a zip file, you may need to extract it first. Once you have found your brush, select it and click load:
And that is it! Presuming that the brushes are compatible with your program, you should now be able to use them for whatever you like. You can find your new brushes by having the brush tool selected and returning to that little menu by pressing the arrow on the toolbar at the top that says 'Brush: (and then the picture of the brush you are using)'. This toolbar was shown earlier on when you where going to load your brush.
Once you get to that menu, you should see it has pictures of the different brushes you have. By scrolling down in that box, you should find your newly loaded ones, like so:
Then, just select one of the many new brushes you have got (they usually come with a few brushes in one pack) and head to a new, blank canvas in photoshop and brush away to test them out. With these brushes, here's what I produced as a tester:
And that is it, my little guide to finding, installing and using brushes in Photoshop!
EDIT: I thought I'd bundle in another little trick as it might not be known by some people. Hope It's O.K that I'm kind of rolling a few tutorials into one
'Cloudy' ColouringAfter making that tester, I didn't want to leave it untouched and in boring black and white, and so I thought I'd throw in a tip on how to colour it. First of all, click the black and white circle at the bottom of the 'layers' window ('Window--->Layers), which should bring up a little menu. On that menu select 'Colour Balance...' which should bring up another window. Pictures of these stages below:
When the Colour Balance window appears, you will see there are three sections 'midtone', 'shadows' and 'highlights' aswell as sliders for different colours. This part is up to you. Mess around with the sliders aswell as the three different tones until you come up with a colour you want. (make sure to have the 'preserve luminosity' box checked as it makes it look alot better). I chose a nice blue colour for my brushes. Once you've found the colour you want, press ok.
Now you should see that you have a new layer in your layers window. This is for the colour balance. THe next step requires you to hav this layer selected, so make sure to locate and click it. With your colour balance layer selected, go to the menus at the top of the screen and click 'Filter---> Render ---> clouds'. This will produce a black and white cloudy-sky effect on your colour balance layer. The different shades of black, white and grey will determine the strength the colour balance layer has on your brushes below. This results in different tones and shades of colour, creating a cool affect like this:
Looks better than leaving it black and white, right? Anyway, just thought I'd share that tip with you. It's simple and can create some cool effects on brushes and of course any pictures, it applies to both.
Keep an eye out for part 2 - Finding and installing Fonts
Finding and installing Brushes, {All levels}
yeah it makes more sense to split them into two 
