Brushfactory › Formats › .brush

What is a .brush file?

A .brush file is a single Procreate brush, and a .brushset is a collection of them. Both are ordinary zip archives. Rename one to .zip, open it, and everything below is visible.

Convert a .brush All 25 conversions

What's inside one

The container

A .brush holds one brush at the root of the zip. A .brushset holds one folder per brush plus a brushset.plist that records their order.

Brush.archive

The settings are stored in an NSKeyedArchiver property list (Apple's object-graph format). The root object is a SilicaBrush with 51 fields. Almost every value is normalised to the 0–1 range rather than stored in pixels or percent.

The images

Shape.png is the tip, Grain.png is the texture, and QuickLook/Thumbnail.png is the preview you see in the brush library. Inked parts are white in both Shape and Grain.

Negative numbers are meaningful here. A dynamics value in a SilicaBrush can be negative, and it is not an error. It means the response is inverted. The stock template ships dynamicsSpeedSize = -0.004. A converter that clamps to zero throws that behaviour away.

How to open it

On an iPad, send the file to the device and tap it. Procreate imports it straight into the brush library. There is no desktop Procreate for Windows, so a .brush cannot be opened on a PC without converting it first.

Converting .brush / .brushset

Out of Procreate: Procreate → Photoshop, Procreate → Clip Studio Paint, Procreate → Krita, Procreate → GIMP, Procreate → MediBang.

Into Procreate: Photoshop → Procreate, Clip Studio Paint → Procreate, Krita → Procreate, GIMP → Procreate.

What survives each trip, and what does not, is set out on the fidelity report.

Common questions

How do I open a .brush file? On an iPad, send the file to the device and tap it. Procreate imports it straight into the brush library. There is no desktop Procreate for Windows, so a .brush cannot be opened on a PC without converting it first.

Can a .brush brush be used in another app? Not directly, because brush formats are not interchangeable. Brushfactory reads the .brush file into a universal schema and writes a native brush for Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Krita or GIMP. For MediBang, it provides the brush tip and a settings sheet. The brush tips, grain, spacing, and pressure curves transfer as native settings.

The information on this page is derived directly from Brushfactory's own format parser (brushfactory/formats/procreate.py), which was built against the applications' own source and against real files, not from a specification document.

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