As a professional photographer who started teaching myself how to do graphic design years ago to have another level of service I could offer clients and another bit of art that I could perform.I didn’t go to school for it, sometimes I wish I did and then other times I look at the internet and realize that I can reach myself if I do not know how to do something thanks in large part to the creators out there sharing their knowledge and skills with the world.
When I was first starting out I really thought I had to know how to make everything myself, that using actions, brushes, and other design elements created by other professionals was cheating… I was wrong.
True professionals use what gets the job done and what enables them to do that job in the most time efficient manner. So if that means investing in actions or graphics than that is what they do.
Sure there is a great benefit in knowing how to do it from scratch but there is a time and a place for everything and as a professional creator you have to weigh which option is best for you, your art, and your clients.
So on to the freebies. I can not say if by the time this post goes live if these will still be free however I was fortunate enough to get a few of these for free.
The site I found is called Flurbos. They offer different brushes, presets, and plugins for Photoshop to create some awesome effects. I haven’t spent much time playing with the plugins or the presets but the brushes I always find useful. I live and die by the brushes I have imported into my Photoshop program. So much of any design work is done from painting with brushes in Photoshop, it is my primary method of creation.