Looking for Brushes in All the Right Places
You can go to two places in Photoshop to find brushes: the Brush Preset picker and the Brushes palette.The Brush Preset picker, located on the Options bar and shown in Figure 23-1, lets you select from brush presets and also lets you change brush size and hardness.

Figure 23-1: The Brush Preset picker is used to select brush presets and change brush size and hardness.
The Brushes palette is where to go to select brushes, change any kind of brush settings, and create custom brushes. By default, the Brushes palette is docked in the Palette Well. If you want, you can drag it by the palette tab out into the Photoshop workspace, as shown in Figure 23-2. If you don’t see the Brushes palette, choose Window>Brushes or press F5.

Figure 23-2: The Brushes palette is the central station for brush selection and creation.
As shown in Figure 23-2, the Brushes palette is divided into three areas. On the left in the rectangular box are the brush settings. A check mark next to a brush setting indicates that that setting is applied to the currently selected brush. Options that you can select for each brush setting are located at the right side of the palette. These options change depending on which brush setting is selected. At the bottom of the palette is a brush preview area. When you select a brush or create a new brush, a preview of the stroke appears in this area.