I've been drawing portraits in Photoshop for about six months now, but the standard brushes don't really work for me. They just feel kinda unnatural, you know? Should I download some brushes from somewhere else or maybe switch to different software?
I thought it was the brushes at first too, but then I realized - you just need to set up the parameters properly in Photoshop.
I downloaded a ton of brush sets from other sources, half of them turned out useless until I started making my own brushes tailored to my style using Shape Dynamics and Texture. Honestly, the software isn't the problem here - I tried Clip Studio Paint and Procreate, and yeah, their brushes are more natural right out of the box, but in Photoshop you can get the same result if you figure out the pen pressure and opacity settings.
Maybe you'll just spend time tweaking instead of hunting for the perfect software.
The main thing is don't get hung up on finding the perfect brush, that's a dead end. After half a year you should've already noticed that the problem isn't the tool itself, but how you set it up. A standard round brush with the right settings paints just as well as expensive downloaded packs. Try experimenting with the Shape Dynamics tab - that's where you adjust how the brush size changes depending on pen pressure and tablet tilt angle. Add Color Dynamics if you want the tones to shift slightly while you're painting. That'll immediately make your strokes look more alive.
As for downloaded brushes - yeah, some packs are actually decent, but often they're just pre-made versions of the same settings you can make yourself in a few minutes. The thing is, every artist has their own way of painting: some people need soft blending for sculpting a face, others want hard transitions for textures. There's no universal brush, but there is a universal method - make a brush that works for you.
Photoshop handles this perfectly fine, no need to switch to different software because of it. If you ever try Procreate or Clip Studio Paint - the brushes there really are prettier and more convenient interface-wise, but that's a matter of comfort, not a fundamental difference. Spend a week learning the settings, and your portraits will look way more natural.
After half a year of using standard brushes, it's definitely worth trying downloading ready-made brush sets - there are some great free packs for portrait painting, for example from Kyle T. Webster or other well-known artists.
But here's the thing: even the most expensive and hyped brush will look weird if you don't set up your pen pressure in the tablet correctly or mess with Flow/Opacity in Photoshop - a lot of beginners don't notice this and think the brush itself is to blame.
Maybe it's not about the choice of brushes, but that you haven't explored Photoshop's settings thoroughly enough yet? Dynamics, texture, rotation angle - that's what makes a brush feel alive, not the default brush itself. I'd suggest experimenting with the parameters of a regular round or soft brush before downloading hundreds of brush sets: change the opacity, add size jitter, play around with the angle. Once you figure that out, you'll see whether you really need other people's brushes or if you just needed to tweak the settings.
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