I’ve recently figured out a workaround to a problem that was bugging After Effects users since the beginning of time - how do one import Photoshop brushes into After Effects? Is it even possible? The answer is simple. No. It didn’t bother me that much until I wanted to use one of my brushes in After Effects.

Good news is that I found a solution to this problem. Not very elegant so you don’t want to overuse it, but it works. As always it involves cheating, faking, tricking After Effects into doing something that it’s not designed to do, and of course some nasty expressions, but finally you end up with what you’ve always wanted - your own Photoshop brush in After Effects. If you’re even going to use it once I think it’s still worth the effort.

The solution has so many aspects that I could probably do a 2 hour video and still not cover everything in it. But don’t worry. I’ll do my best to keep it as short and simple as possible, and while following my rule that “if something is worth doing once than it is also worth building a tool to do it for you”, maybe I’ll even create some CustomEffect to simulate Photoshop brush engine. Wouldn’t that be cool?

I still need to work on this solution, figure out what to cover in the tutorial and what I can skip, what to include in the CE BrushEngine and what not to include. It is impossible and very unpractical to cover all the possibilities this technique gives, mostly because it would create a lot of confusion and simply because of the way After Effects works.

Anyway I hope I’ll figure this out soon so I could provide you with a brand new tutorial and a brand new CustomEffect as well that you will hopefully find useful.