Old Brushes paintings?
Did you paint in the original Brushes app on an iPhone or iPad? If you still have the files, we'd like to hear from you.
Open paintings from the original Brushes app
A replacement for Brushes Viewer, for paintings from Steve Sprang's iPhone and iPad app
For: paintings made in Brushes 1 or 2, on iPhone or iPad
Where it's up to: we can already open and play back some iPhone paintings. Others, including early iPad paintings, still need work, and real files to test with.
Also: files from Brushes 3 or later
For now: please just get in touch. Don't send any files yet.
In short
Lots of artists painted in Brushes, and many can no longer open, play back or export their paintings. Brushes Viewer used to do that on a Mac, until it stopped working in 2019. We've worked with the Brushes file format for years and are building something to take its place. It may be years too late for most people, but if you still have your files, we'd like to help you get them back.
What happened
Brushes saved each painting as the strokes you made, not as a flat picture. That's how it could play a painting back stroke by stroke. It also meant you needed Brushes, or Brushes Viewer on a Mac, to open them.
2008 Brushes comes out for the iPhone.
2010 Brushes comes out for the iPad.
2012 Brushes 3 replaces the original app.
2013 The code is made open source.
2014 After the iOS 8 update, many people can't open their paintings.
By 2015 Brushes is no longer on the App Store.
2019 New versions of macOS stop running Brushes Viewer.
Today The paintings are still around, on old devices, in backups and on old Macs. As far as we know, nothing you can download today will open paintings from the original app. That's what we're working on.
Where to look
An old iPhonewith Brushes still on it
An old iPadwith Brushes still on it
A backupof your iPhone or iPad, in iTunes or Finder
A Macthat had Brushes Viewer, which kept copies of paintings sent to it
Or .brushes files you emailed, exported or copied somewhere.
If you have an old iPhone or iPad with paintings on it, don't update or reset it for now.
Get in touch
Tell us a bit about what you have and we'll get back to you about opening it. We won't use your email for anything else.
Brushes was made by Steve Sprang. We're not connected with him, or with the app called Brushes on the App Store today.
