Brushes question- may need to re-install...

[Simone]

Hi, I'm embarrassed to say that I think I messed up some of my standard brushes. 3 sets of brushes, 'assorted brushes', 'basic brushes', and 'dropshadow brushes', now all contain exactly the same brushes (and I dont' think they should.. (?)..) When I look in the brushes folder, sure enough, those abr files show modification dates (3 separate dates) in Jan. 07, rather than 9/14/06 which is the mod date for all the other std. brush sets.

The cause may be that I made a couple of brushes using 'define brush from selection' (signatures I was playing with) and saved them on various days in Jan. I thought I saved them to 'assorted brushes' each time (and deleted the prior unwanted version). Sure enough, the proper sig. shows up at the bottom of the 'assorted' list and works fine, but (I discovered) it's also at the bottom of the 'basic' list. In the creating/saving a brush process, when elements asks 'you are changing the brushes, sure you want to? ", I think when you switch tools, I said yes .. but I must have done something wrong that caused all the assorteds to match the basic... (and drop shadow too).

My question is, are these 3 (assorted, basic, drop shad.) supposed to exactly match? (I wouldn't think so..). If not, is there any way I can reset them to standard without a full re-install of pse5? Thanks much in advance! :) I feel like a dummy, but maybe y'all can be patient...oops :)

[Ritage]

Simone,

if I read your post correctly, you have not tried to "Reset Brushes" from the flyout menu. I think that ought to do what you want, but may lose your self-made brushes in the process.

The three sets you mention should be different.

Rita

[Simone]

Hi Rita, thanks for the suggestion. Sorry, I forgot to mention that I had tried that and it appeared to have no effect.... After I did Reset Brushes, nothing at all changed. The 3 I mentioned are all still alike, and my custom brushes (that I made, and those I downloaded/installed) are still there fine! I re-launched elements several times, tried again, re-launched, etc. with same result-- no change.

I had found this info also saying to Reset to restore all the defaults (written for 2.0 but I thought it should apply).
http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/tutorials/aw1004.php

So I'm puzzled.... If anyone has ideas would love the help....

[Ritage]

Sorry, Simone, that was the only thing that came to mind.

If you had a backup of your hard drive, you would probably have thought of that already?

Rita

[Wendy]

Hi Simone ...

Sounds like you have saved over your brushes :(

Send me a pm with your email address in it and details of the missing brush sets and I will send them to you :)

Wendy

[Simone]

Oh Wendy, you are MOST excellent (as usual)! I will do that and go from there. Yes, I have a big "L" on my forehead today. Thanks sooo much! :)

Rita, in response to your last post, I do have an EHD where I backup all my data, but unfortunately I had not backed up the entire h/d or the standard pse5 program files (dumb move). Now, I think I will do that, at a minimum with the standard presents, for "safe keeping"! thanks for your help.

[BrianZero]

Simone
Next time you 'Lose' something by overwriting / deleting
Look in you Recycle bin
They would probably be there
Do a restore on the 'missing' file and all should be well

That would also apply to any other accidentally overwtitten / erased files

[Simone]

Hi BrianZero, Interesting that when you overwrite files (keeping the filename exactly the same), a copy is put into the recycle bin. I had not seen that before, I had been aware that it sends a copy when deleting. I checked and my overwritten brush files are not in my r/bin (I have not deleted the r/b since the date they were overwritten) and just did a couple of tests with various apps and overwriting didn't send a copy to the r/bin. Just fyi, I have xp pro on a sony vaio. But it's surely something I'll keep an eye on, maybe there is something you have set that controls it that I'm unaware of.....thx again... :)

[BrianZero]

Simone
Sorry my error
Thought you were creating an additional file
Straight deletes are restorable [For a time, depending how RC bin set up]
Also Norton has a protected file restore option

[BrianZero]

Simone
Its me again
Another time, before you try to 'Change' things make a copy of the folder you are playing with. I think brushes are in 'Presets' , make a copy.
Maybe call it 'WASPresets' where you can take out what you want and put it back into the correct folder if you need to.
Or copy an individual file [Brush set] to a 'Safe Folder'
Hope this helps a bit