MAKING A
CUSTOM BRUSH
1. Open a new document with the dimensions below. Make sure
you change your format your color mode to GRAYSCALE
Why grayscale? When you create a brush, Photoshop only
recognizes black and gray values. If you try to make a brush with colors, it
will turn all of the colors to gray anyway.
You can create your brush design with pictures, shape layers
– whatever you want. Below, I have created a star.
Once you have created your brush design, flatten your
document (Layer>Flatten Image). This will combine all of your layers
together. Any area that is white will appear transparent when you actually go
to use the brush.
Then go to Edit>Define Brush Preset. A pop-up will appear
where you can name your brush.
Click OK.
Click on your paintbrush tool and scroll down to the bottom
of your brush choices. Your new brush will be the very last one.
This next step is important – you must SAVE your BRUSH to
use your brush in the future, Otherwise, when you close Photoshop, your brushes
will revert to your original set. To do this go to the little arrow in the
corner of your brush menu and go to Save Brushes…
Save your brushes in your Documents, Downloads, Desktop, or your Library. The Library is
actually the best choice for this.
No you can use your brush normally and with any color.
You can actually make brushes out of pictures as well.
Follow the same instructions as above. Make sure you look for a LARGE image.
ALSO TRY
EXPERIMENTING WITH YOUR BRUSHES PALETTE
So, you actually have a brushes palette that lets you change
the dynamics of the brush. Go to Window>Brushes and your palette will
appear.
All of your brushes will appear and you can experiment with
things like Shape Dynamics (Size, Jitter, etc.) and Scattering (spreading apart
the instances of the brush). To alter any of these options, you must CHECK the
box then CLICK on the category. So if you want to alter the Scattering, check
the box and then literally click on the word “Scattering.”
