I've always used the preset manager to load my brushes, but yesterday I was clicking around in Photoshop and found a nifty trick. Well, I think it's nifty anyway. :)
Behind a LJ cut because there are several images.
First, select the brush tool and then click on the button shown.
Next, click again.
You will see that the default view is stroke thumbnail, and that's what we're going to change.
Change that to large thumbnail.
Now, instead of this:
you have this.
Nifty, huh?
This really makes a difference on scanline brushes and texture brushes. Now you can see exactly what each brush is and how it varies from its neighbor.
Hope this is useful. :)