Brush Tutorial
Ever wondered how those brushes were made? Do you already know how to make some brushes of your own? There are some basic, beginners tips in this tutorial and then some tips and how tos that might help the more advanced user.
Lets start with the basics. Lets make a plain generic brush.
1. Open a new document. Set the resolution at 300 pixels per inch and the width and height to 1 inch. |
 figure 1 |
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2. We are going to make a simple little flower brush. To do this, we will use our custom shapes. Select the custom shapes tool from your tool bar, I've placed a red circle around it here in figure 2. You might need to hold your mouse down on the corner of the tool that is there to see the fly out menu and select this tool from it. Then if you look up under your menu bar in the options bar, the customs shape menu will become available. Click on the upside down triangle and all the shapes available to you are shown. The shapes showing here are the default shapes. If you have already loaded other shapes into this then your shapes will look different.
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3. Click on the little triangle that is on the right side of the shapes and another fly out menu will appear. Scroll down this menu to Basic Shapes and select that to be loaded into your shapes. You will be asked if you want to replace the shapes you already have or you can choose to append them. Either choice is fine, since you can always reload these shapes. To make our flower brush, we are going to select the flower shape that is in the second row of the basic shapes. |
 figure 4 |
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4. Your cursor will now look like an X with a circle in the middle of it. Position the cursor in the upper left corner of the new document you opened in step one. Hold the mouse down and pull it diagonally down to the bottom right corner. The flower shape will be drawn in your new document. If you don't like the way it looks, click Edit, Undo and try again, as many times as it takes to make one you like.
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 figure 5 |
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5. When you look at the paths menu, you will see this flower path selected. Click on the triangle that I have selected in figure 6 and scroll down the fly out menu to "Make Selection". You will be asked about feathering - set the feathering radius to 0 and make sure the anti alias box is checked. This will turn the path into a selection - instead of a solid line, you will now have marching ants. |
 figure 6 |
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6. Now - with the selection still in place, make your foreground color black and using your paint bucket fill the selection with black. |
 figure 7 |
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7. Click Select>All and the whole image will be selected. With the whole image selected, go to Edit> Define Brush Preset When you select this, a little window will pop up giving you the choice to name your brush. Let's name this brush flower. |
figure 8 |
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You now have a new brush named flower. But lets see if we can do something with it other than just stamp flowers on a page. |
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8. Create a new document (you can close the document your created in step 1, you no longer need it once you have your brush made.) I made my document 12 inches by 12 inches and set the resolution to 300 pixels per inch. With the flower brush selected, go to the brush presets tool. This is the one that opens up when you go to Window>Brushes. Here is where you have all the fun with your brushes. |
figure 9 |
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9. Lets make a field of flowers. In the first window, move the spacing tab over to 75% - it is located on the bottom of the brush presets tool. Then, click on the word "Scattering" and make sure the box is checked. These are the settings I used. Play with the settings and see the results in the window at the bottom of the presets tool box. Then, run your brush over the new document you made in step 8. I had to do this over and over when I first found out about it. Now, change the color of your brush and change the size of the brush and do some more and change again the colors and size and do more. Make a pretty field of flowers. |
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Here is my field of flowers - I put down a layer of little green flowers first then worked my way up in size. |
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10. So, you don't want to change the colors manually? Then click on the words Color Dynamics in the brush presets tool. Make sure the box is checked and make the following settings: Foreground/Background Jitter - 100% You can play around with this percentages and get some great color combinations.
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Now lets go one step farther and make some grass - the kind that grows in your yard. First you will need a different brush. Make a new document, just like the one in step one. Then using a regular brush draw a lazy X in it. |
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Then in the brush presets tool box make these settings: Brush Tip Shape: Shape Dynamics: Scattering: Color Dynamics |
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To make the above graphic, I set my brush settings as stated and then drew lines back and forth on my screen. Obviously, these grass blades are rounded and large, but if the brush size was smaller it would be smaller blades of grass. Also, if the original brush was a sharp X instead of a lazy X, the blades would be sharper. |
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