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 cjs1ChrisPremium
join:2001-12-22
Trumbull, CT | Tutorial: Creating custom brushes and shapes in PS Ok, so you've created a few avs, and you've found that you're drawing the same things over and over and you'd like an easier way to do this. Or, perhaps you want to try IDrinkFanta's Simple Grass Tutorial*, but you're running PS 6, and you don't have a grass brush. Well, you'll be happy to know that it's very easy to create your own custom brushes and shapes in Photoshop.
*Actually, Fanta uses some other features in PS 7 that aren't available in PS 6, but I had to get the shameless plug in somewhere. 
The easiest way to create a brush is to simply draw it. So let's fire up Photoshop, start a new image, and draw some grass.
The next step is to go to Edit >> Define Brush...
Give your new brush a name. (You'll hurt it's feelings if you don't.)
That's it! Grab your favorite drawing tool, go to the brushes palette, and your brush should be there.
So you've created a brush, but this brush is pretty inflexible in terms of size. What if you want it to be bigger? You could use it and then resize the result, but if you make it larger it will look yucky. What to do? Well, you can create a custom shape. Shapes in Photoshop are treated as vectors, and you can resize them as much as you want. So if you create a custom shape, you can use that to draw your brush design at whatever size you need anytime you want. Then you can convert it to a brush by selecting Layer >> Rasterize >> Shape and following the steps above. Or, you can just use the shape as is, if it satisfies your needs. The point is that if you decide your brush is too small at some point in the future, you've got the re-sizeable shape as a backup to make a new brush.
So how do you create a custom shape? The key is getting your brush design to be a path in Photoshop. First, you'll need to get your brush design into Photoshop. You can simply draw it directly in Photoshop, or you can use another application and bring it into Photoshop in an appropriate format. Once you've done that, you need to select the object using the magic wand (or your preferred method), and bring up the paths palette. The paths palette can be found under Window >> Show Paths, or perhaps on a tab on your layers palette. Then click the arrow at the upper right of this palette, and select "Make Work Path..."
If you like, you can adjust the tolerance. Basically, this tweaks how the path will adjust itself to the selection.
You should now have a work path.
Select Edit >> Define Custom Shape...
Give your shape a name.
Go ahead and select the custom shape tool.
You should see your custom shape in the pull down menu.
There are, of course, other ways to create custom shapes. In fact, this method probably works best if the original shape design is created at a larger size. This will allow for a more precise selection, which will result in a more accurate shape.
If you're already familiar with paths, you might want to create the path directly using Photoshop's built in path tools, and proceed as described from there. Or, if you're an Illustrator user, you can create the path in that, and drag it into Photoshop while holding down the control key. You might want to visit this link for an overview of paths.
You'll most likely want to save your custom brushes and paths. It seems that Photoshop will remember them between sessions, but if you accidentally reset your brushes or paths, they will be lost. Also, saving means that you can easily move or back up your customs by simply finding the files in your Photoshop directory (give them obvious names) and copying them. An easy way to do this is described in the paragraph below which I blatantly lifted from »graphicssoft.about.com because I'm too lazy to type it. You can use the same method for brushes, patterns, etc.
To save your custom shape to a file, go to Edit > Preset Manager and choose custom shapes from the menu. Click on the shape you want to save (shift-click for selecting more than one shape). Click the Save Set button and name your file. The new shape set will be available from the custom shapes picker menu the next time you start Photoshop.
Good luck! 
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What a fine day... for science! | |
cjs1ChrisPremium
join:2001-12-22
Trumbull, CT | The resulting custom brush (.abr) and shape (.csh) if anyone wants them.
They go in Program Files/Adobe/Photoshop 6.0/Presets/(Brushes or Custom Shapes) in my installation.
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What a fine day... for science! | |
| That's a good tutorial Chris, didn't know it was so easy to make brushes, nice two in one tutorial 
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The Fanta Penguin says FANTA FANTA | |
| Fanta, start making a LOT of them! They are very useful, well in my case that is, but I'm sure everyone here has benefitted from them.
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•·.·´¯`·.·•Meteor Dive•·.·´¯`·.·• | |
| Hehe yeah I will, didn't know how easy it was before
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The Fanta Penguin says FANTA FANTA | | |
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| reply to cjs1
Thank You! I've always wanted to know how to do that. | |
cjs1ChrisPremium
join:2001-12-22
Trumbull, CT | reply to cjs1
Thanks all. I decided that I was sick of making sparkles by hand (so many folks want them), so I decided to learn how to make a "sparkle" brush. I was surprised myself to discover how easy it is. Then I popped in here, saw Fanta's tut, and one of the first lines is something like "I don't know if PS 6 has this brush..." The timing just seemed perfect.
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What a fine day... for science! | |
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