Creating and Saving Brushes in Photoshop

Continuing in our design theme, we’re going to talk about making and using Photoshop brushes. Brushes
are a great way to save design elements that you use commonly and to add texture and interest to your
Press Products and Press Books!

The great thing about brushes is that as a Photographer, you have one of the key elements to making
amazing brushes right at your fingertips, your camera! If you can keep design in mind when you’re out
and about, snap photos of cute and interesting objects, fun textures, and cool patterns.

Some things to remember about taking photos for brushes:

• If you’re trying to get a single object; like a tree, flower, or sign; make sure to isolate that object
away from similar colors.
• When you take photos of textures and designs, using macro photography can be and awesome
way to amp up the detail.
• Make sure to keep the entire object in focus. Short depth of field makes for interesting photos,
but it’s harder to translate to brushes!

Step 1: Pick your photo

Try to pick a photograph that the object will be easy to separate from the background. If you’re doing a
grunge texture you won’t need to worry about this. Here’s the photo I chose for this project:

Step 2: Select the object you want to use for a brush.

Use the Polygonal Lasso tool and zoom in close for the best control over what you select. Remember, if
you mess up your selection, you can use the “add” or “subtract” options for selections to fine tune it. No
need to start over again!
Step 3: Create a Mask

Using your selection, click on the ‘mask’ tool located at the bottom of the Layers Pallet.

Your selection should now be there, with the rest of the unwanted things from the photo cut out.

If it won’t let you create a mask, make sure that you aren’t working on the locked background layer, and
make sure that the layer you are working on isn’t locked. If it shows the reverse of what you wanted it
to, just press ctrl+i (command+i for Apple users).
Step 4: Black and White Conversion

First, select the layer that your object is on, then go up to Image > Adjustments > Black & White

This will pop up a dialogue box that looks something like this:

At this point in time it’s important to remember something about brushes. With a brush, the darker grey
a part of the image is, the higher its opacity is there, so a completely white part of a brush will put down
no color. A completely black part of a brush will put down 100% opacity of whatever color you select.
That being said, try to chose a setting that is dark enough that your brush will show up, but still light
enough to show some detail (if that’s what you want.) Play with the slider bars a little, if you mess up
you can always cancel out and try again. If you want to create a completely solid brush, all you need to
do is paint over your photo with a black brush. Your layer mask will retain the shape that you’ve already
selected.

Here’s what I came up with for my brushes. One has varied opacity, one is solid black:

Fig. 1

Even if you prefer your brushes final result to still have details and highlights (like the image to the left in
Fig. 1) I find it’s a great idea to still make a second brush that is 100% filled (like the image to the right in
Fig. 1). This way you can layer a solid color under your brush while still maintaining the shape of the
brush. Here’s an example of what the brushes will look like when used:

Fig. 2

Varying Opacity Brush Solid Brush The Two Brushes Layered

You can see how the blacks and whites translated over to the actual brush by comparing the image I
used for the brush (Fig. 1) with the product of the brush itself (Fig. 2).

Remember, you don’t have to limit brush use to black and white! Here’s some color samples using the
same brush:

Step 5: Save your brush

Now you have a great Black and white base for your brush with no background on it. As a reminder, it
should look something like this:

To save your brush, all you need to do is go up to Edit > Define Brush Preset.
This will pop up the ‘Brush Name’ dialog box. You will need to name your brush something you can
remember, and then hit ‘OK’.

Don’t worry if the thumbnail of your brush looks skewed. Photoshop automatically creates a square
thumbnail by compacting your brush file. This is just a reference. Your actual brush will be correctly
proportioned!

Step 6 – Find and Use!

Now that you’ve saved your brush, you can find it in the palette with all your other brushes! You can
find these by first selecting the brush tool, then clicking on the small arrow next to the brush shape on
the bar along the top of the screen.
As you can see, the Brush that you created will be the last one listed in the group.

Now just select your brush and the color you want and get to using it! If you’ve created a brush that is
meant to work like a stamp (like my rose) one click on your image is enough to get it on the page. Here’s
an example page I made using my brush, just to show you what you can do!
Step 7 – Share! (Optional)

If you’ve created an awesome brush and want to share it, or your friend has made one that you’d like to
use, you can save and share your brushes easily.

To share a brush you’ve created, first, go up to the small arrow beside the brush type and click it.
There’s another arrow in the palette it opens. Press that arrow too. It will open a menu. You want to
select the ‘Preset Manager…’ option.

3
This will pop up a dialogue box that looks like this:

Select the brush (or brushes) you want to save. You can select multiple brushes by holding the ‘ctrl’ key
while clicking.

Once you have all the crushes selected that you want to share in that file, click ‘Save Set…’. This will pop
up a save dialogue box:

This box functions exactly like the normal Photoshop save function. Just pick where you want to save
your brush, give it a name you can remember, and hit save!
Photoshop will create an .ABR file that you can email or transfer to your friends, or just move to another
of your own computers to use!

If someone has given you a brush for your own use, it’s simple to load it up on your computer. All you
need to do is open the same menu you accessed the ‘Preset Manager’ from, but instead of choosing
that, chose ‘Load Brushes..’.

On the ‘Load’ Dialogue Box that pops up, navigate to where your saved brush file is, select the file, and
hit ‘Load’.

Remember: Don’t use brushes directly on your photos. Always make a layer above them to work on so
you don’t accidently save over your only original file! Have fun!
Scattering a Brush
If you’ve created a brush that is simple and can be used overlapping without destroying the integrity of
the image, you may want to use the same brush repeatedly in one area. An example of a use for this is a
sparkle effect. For this option, I created a simple brush using the guidelines above. It looks like this:

Here’s an example of what scattering looks like with this brush:

Step 1 – Find the Brush Palette

In order to further edit this brush, I first need to access the Brush Palette. You can find this by going
Window > Brushes, or pressing F5.
 This will bring up the Brushes Palette. Let’s take a moment to familiarize ourselves with this palette.

Here are various Your current brushes;

options for changing the one with the bold
your brush. Each of line around it is the
these can be clicked one currently selected.
and changed. You
need to make sure
they are checked for
any changes on that The size of the Brush
palette to take effect. you have selected.

A preview of what your

brush looks like.

Step 2 – Shape Dynamics

Check the ‘Shape Dynamics’ Box and highlight that option. This will give the following options:
For this look, I like to set the ‘Size Jitter’ to 100%. This will change the brush size with each instance that
it is applied. You can constrain the minimum size by altering the ‘Minimum Diameter’ option.

I also set the ‘Angle Jitter’ to 100%. This changes the angle for each instance of the brush that is applied.

These two features help to randomize your brush. Remember, these settings are only my preferences. I
encourage you to experiment with what each setting does and find your favorites!

Step 3 – Scattering

This is the option this portion of the tutorial takes its name from. First, check the ‘Scattering’ box and
make sure that you have this option highlighted. This will give you the following options:

For this option set, I turn the ‘Scatter’ bar up to 1000% and made sure it was checked for ‘Both Axes’
This allows the brush to be placed at random around the area that you are painting, instead of a straight
line.

I also turn down the ‘Count’ to 1 because I like for there to be fewer stars so each is more distinguished
from the others.

Step 4 – Other Dynamics

This option set controls the Opacity and Flow of the brush. Make sure to check the box and highlight the
option. When you do so you will see the following options:
Because I like variance for this brush, I have turned up both the ‘Opacity Jitter’ and the ‘Flow Jitter’ to
100%. As you can tell by looking at the preview, this creates a large range of impact, some pieces being
darker than others. I think this option, coupled with the size jitter, helps provide depth to the scatter.

Step 5 – Texture

This step is optional, but texture can add some fun detail to your brushes. As with the others, check the
‘Texture’ box and make sure it’s selected. You will see the following:
For this particular brush, I chose to use the ‘Molecular’ Texture. There are a lot of options you can
choose from, and you can even import your own textures (but that’s another tutorial for a later time.)
Experiment around with the different textures, and don’t forget to toy with the scale (which is the size
at which the texture is applied.) This brush has a Scale of 42%.

Step 6 – Use Your Brush!

Those were all the options I changed to make a scatter brush. There are other options on the palette, so
don’t be afraid to experiment and see what cool effects you can come up with!

All you need to do to use your now finished brush is select the brush tool (or hit B), select the color you
want, and start painting!

I used my brush to add interest to a background, as well as embellish a photo. See if you can spot what I
did with it below:

That’s all for this month’s tutorial, and I hope it inspired you with lots of great ideas for making your own
Press Products and Press Books!