Procreate Brush Organization
Note: All original photos, images, and text on this page are my own, copyrighted by me. If you want to add them to a social website such as Pinterest, please only do so if you credit the photographer (Randi Kuhne) and if you link to this page, I appreciate it! If you want to use my photos in your blog, please ask permission first.
Yes, about that....
I have a massive collection of Procreate brush sets. Literally hundreds. Frustratingly, Procreate does not have subfolders for brush sets, nor any tag and search feature that might help you find a set via a keyword such as watercolor, texture, style, or an artist's name.
I have tediously organized my brushes in the very long list, a time-consuming, frustrating (when a dragged item suddenly drops before reaching desired destination and either drops somewhere, or back at its original place) but necessary exercise. But every time I want to find and switch brush sets I have to scroll and find. Ugh. Until now!
I recently saw a tip in a comment on this subject that suggested using the QuickMenu feature to get to brushes (or other actions) quickly. Basically you start by setting QuickMenu to activate how you want. I use the top option in that list (touch the square to activate. Easy peasy. The rest of the setup is a little time-consuming in the short run but very time saving in the long run.
I made a series of images to show my process, but here is a brief description.
- Go to QuickMenu via the wrench button > Gesture Controls > QuickMenu to set up how you activate QuickMenu.
- Activate QuickMenu according to the method you set up. Tap & hold in the center of the popup to rename the group. Click done.
- Tap & hold one of the 6 rectangles around the group name. Scroll down to Select Brush. (Tip: Before doing any of this, go to the brush set you want to make a QuickMenu set for and use up to 6 of your favorite brushes. Now they will be in the Select Brush > Recent set. Also note, you don't need to add (nor can you) all the brushes you like, because once you Quick Select a brush the brushes button in Procreate's top menu bar now takes you to that brush set, and you can see all the brushes in it. Bonus: if you have organized your brushes you are now in their general location in the menu! So, for example, I only QuickMenu one brush set by an artist, and it is a quick way to get to all of their sets with much less scrolling.)
- Select a brush and it will now be set in that rectangle in that QuickMenu. (I don't know if there is a limit to how many QuickMenus you can make; so far I have 16 sets, all brush groups except one for my favorite Drawing Assist settings.)
- Tap/hold a new rectangle and repeat the process. (If you did not pre-use the brushes to get them into recents, just scroll down the brushes menu until you find the set you want, click to open, click a brush. It's easy to replace a brush selection, so don't fuss about it too much. You can even just select one brush to get you to that set location quickly via Procreate's brushes button. And even with just one pre-used brush in recents you can click that, then switch to another brush faster than scrolling through all your brushes again.
By the way, a QuickMenu group can contain brushes from different sets and/or include actions other than Select Brush.
Here are my images, in case they help. Click any image to see it larger.
Hope you found this helpful! (Commenting is turned off due to spam, but I think if you comment anyway I may see it, though nobody else can.)
Note: All original photos, images, and text on this page are my own, copyrighted by me. If you want to add them to a social website such as Pinterest, please only do so if you credit the photographer (Randi Kuhne) and if you link to this page, I appreciate it! If you want to use my photos in your blog, please ask permission first.