Over the last few weeks, our readers have complained that we have been releasing "way too many freebies". Apparently, we have been posting "too many filler articles" containing freebies that can be found elsewhere on the Web. We would like to make it clear that we do try to release useful things, and we do try to keep the high quality of these freebies and it has never been our intention to fill our publishing schedule with freebie posts.

We are going to continue to release freebies from time to time (though not as often as we have over the last months), and we'll make sure they meet our (and your) standards of high quality. Please let us know your opinion in the comments section below and in the poll below. Thank you.

In this post we release two sets, a Light Blurs Photoshop Brushes, a set of 23 high-quality "light" brushes and Vector Photoshop Brushes Decoration Pack, a set of decoration brushes for Photoshop.

Light Blurs Photoshop Brushes

Light Blurs Photoshop Brushes is a set of 23 high-quality brushes, created for Adobe Photoshop and available for free usage without any restrictions whatsoever. The set is created by Ben Collier especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

• large preview
• download the set (.zip, 18 Mb)

Motivation behind the design

Here are some insights from the designer himself:

"I recently discovered the fireworks mode on my Sony Cybershot and have since been experimenting with a bunch of different light sources. The results have been pretty interesting, so I thought I would make some of them into a brush set. For this set I used candles, a desk lamp, my iPhone, my car radio, my car cigarette lighter, a clock radio, street lights and some sparklers (the most fun!).

I then took the image, changed it to a grayscale document, inverted the colours, then adjusted the levels until I was happy with the contrast. They're all quite large brushes and could be useful for a lot of different effects so I hope you enjoy! Feel free to use them for anything you like - both commercial and personal. Some of them are released for free on my weblog. Please send me a link if you end up using any of my brushes in your designs – I would love to see them!"

Thank you, Ben. We appreciate your efforts and your intentions. By the way, together with a couple of professional Photoshop tutorials for glows and light effects you can certainly use this set to add some beautiful lightning effects in your designs.

Vector Photoshop Brushes Decoration Pack

A set of decoration vector brushes compatible with Photoshop version 7 and higher as well as a vector .eps-file compatible with Adobe Illustrator 8. Designed by 123freevectors.com exclusively for Smashing Magazine and released as a gift to its readers.

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

• large preview
• download the set (.zip, 1.7 Mb)

We would like to express a sincere gratitude to designers helping us to release professional high-quality freebies. We appreciate your support and your good intentions.

Would you like to have freebies on SM?

We would like to know your opinion. Would you like to have more or less freebies released on Smashing Magazine? Or you think that SM’s freebies are unnecessary and do not fit to our magazine? Let us know in the poll and in the comments! And please also suggest some freebies you would like to have released via SM!

Please notice: multiple choice is possible in the poll and you can also add your own suggestion to the polls.