Create Photoshop Custom Brush

In Photoshop you can create your own brush either by modify its setting from native brush that include with Photoshop or create completely new one from scratch. You can create brush from any of your image. You can also create Photoshop brush from traditional painting tool by paint the brush stroke on a canvas and scan or copy it with your favorite digital camera. When you define new custom brush Photoshop simply convert selection area in your image to gray-scale and define it as a brush.

To Create Custom Brush

Photoshop normally calculate brush tip from image brightness in each pixel. The area in black color will define as brush tip with 100% opacity and gradually decrease its opacity in to lighter area (Gray) until completely white which is 0 % opacity. You can simply create brush in 2 steps.

• Use Rectangle Marquee tool to make selection. I usually use square selection to preserve proportion of image, you can do so by holding Shift keys while making selection. (if not square photoshop will automatcally extended your image)
• Using menu Edit » Define Brush Preset, this will pop-up New Brush dialog, renaming it if you want. Now you will find your new brush in Brush Palette.

From sample above I’ve already change Brush Spacing to 75% and decrease Brush Diameter fro 190px to 70px. When create new custom brush the brush spacing will always set to 25% (default) with same size with max. dimension of your selection.

Note: The setting in brush pallete are not automatically save. If you have some modification with your brush you have to save it manually to keep your brush setting otherwise it will be reset, if you select its preset thumbnail again.

You may notice that from above sample, my brush is nothing just repeat duo tone images and may be no use. As describe above, photoshop just convert image to gray-scale and use black color to define brush shape on white background. Normally we should make some color adjustment to clearly define brush tip shape instead of let photoshop doing it.

Below is quick step-by-step tutorials that will show you how adjust color of image to clearly define the shape and suitable to use as brush. We’ll create custom brush from shape of coconut tree and discard the sky background.

1. Open your image you want to use as brush. To keep your original image save and untouched, using menu Image » Duplicate and then close your original file.
2. Use Crop Tool to crop the image. Or use Rectangle Marquee tool to select square area to define as your brush. and crop it by using menu Image » Crop. This will let you determine your brush size easier for next step.
   
3. Determine your target brush size and resize it, if need ,using Image Size command. Using menu Image » Image Size in this case I resize it to 200 pixel for both width and height to create 200px brush and using Bicubic Sharper interpolation method (See also Photoshop Image Size). If you’re not sure about brush size or if you will plan to use in it many diameters, it’s good idea to keep it large to preserve tiny detail for your brush tip.
4. For color image, as in this example, you can use Hue/Saturation to lighten or darken selected color. This can soften the strength of Curve, that you will use in later step, to keep better brush detail. You can use menu Image » Adjustment » Hue/Saturation or Ctrl(Command) + U to open Hue and Saturation dialog. But the better way to do, and you can go back and change your setting, by using Adjustment Layer. Click Create Adjustment Layer Button at bottom of Layer Palette and select Hue/Saturation.Select Color Channel you want to adjust, by select Eyedropper Button and click at the color to sample. Select button and Click or Shift + Click to add color to sample. Or use button and click or Alt(Option) + Click to remove color from sample. Now you can use Lightness slider to make sampled color lighter or darker.
   
   For this tutorial, First I select Blue and sample color at the sky and cloud. I also Shift + Click at other area of sky and also around the sea background to add color to sample. Then I move Lightness slider to +100. Next I select green channel and sample at the green area on the leaf of coconut tree and decrease Lightness to -100. Be-careful not to sample overlap color of both channels. Now go to Master Channel and decrease Saturation to -100%. (You can also see more detail about Adjustment Layer at PhotoshopTips.net)
5. Use Curve to turn background completely white to discard it form brush and darken the brush tip area. You can create curve layer by, with Hue/Saturation layer select, click at Create Adjustment Layer Button and select Curve.
   
   Move the top right end of curve to the left to lighten the white area and the other end to right to darker the black area You can also move to middle part of curve to adjust midtone. While you are working with curve you can use your cursor and click sample color on image to see it’s position in the curve. As you see in sample below the color at mouse cursor will mark as curcle on the curve. You can make sure that the sample part will turn to complete white if it’s fall in to upper flat part of the curve and vice versa at lower flat part for black. For this tutorial I use Curve setting as shown below.
6. You may see some unwanted parts that cannot be adjust using Adjustment Layer. You have to create new layer by click at New Layer Button at bottom of layer palette. Make sure that new layer is on top of all layer, and then use Brush Tool to paint with white color on the new layer to cover unwanted parts with soft round brush.
   
7. Now your image is ready to define as brush. You can simply create brush by press Ctrl(Command) + A or using menu Select » All and using Define Brush Preset command as describe above. You an define brush without Merge Layer or Flatten Image but make sure while you use this command you’re select color layer not adjustment layer otherwise this command will be dimmed.
8. You can modify your new brush size, brush roundness or add some brush dynamic to your brush but don’t forget to save brush preset after your modification to keep it. From sample below I use follow setting. (See also Modify Brush Shape and Photoshop Brush Dynamic)

Brush Dynamic Setting Brush Spacing: 40% Size Jitter: 100% Minimum Diameter: 0% Angle Jitter: 100% You can download this custom brush set, which have 4 brushes, below in this page. In brush set include 1 brush create from image (without color adjustment), Original coconut brush (without dynamic), 100px and 200px coconut brush with dynamic. If you like, you can load this sample brushes to your photoshop and see how it work. If you not have a clue how to load it please visit Saving and Loading Photoshop Brush Set.

Note: If you feel that your brush is too sharpe, you may use Filter � Blur � Gaussian Blur to soften your brush edges. To use Gassian Blur filter you have to merge all layer or flatten image first. Anyway you can do it by keeping your layer untouch, incase you need to make a change later.

1. Press Ctrl(Command) + A to select all image.
2. Use menu Edit » Copy Merge or Press Ctrl(Command) + Shift + C
3. Without deselect. Select top-most layer and using menu Edit » Paste or Ctrl(Command) + V
4. Use Grassian Blur to blur your new layer or make any modification as you want.

With Copy Merge Command, you can keep as many as versions of your brush in one file. You can select layer to define new brush by simply hide or show the layer.

To Save Modified Brush Preset

After you make a modification to you brush shape or brush dynamic, you can save brush by do one of following using Brush Palette.

• Using Brush Palette Menu and select New Brush Preset.
• Click New button at bottom Brush Palette.
• If you use Small Thumbnail or Large Thumbnail you can click at empty area (your cursor will turn to indicate you can click to save the brush).

To Delete Brush Preset

You can delete unwant brush by do one of following option:

• Select brush you want to delete and select Brush Palette Menu and select Delete Brush.
• Select brush you want to delete and click Trash Button
• Select brush you want to delete Right Click or Control + Click (for MacOS) and select Delete Brush.

Download:

freetimefoto.com – Coconut Brush (4 brushes) Download

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