How To Make A Photoshop Brush
I’ve been releasing some of my Photoshop Brushes, and I’ve gotten lots of feedback on them, so thank you for that. I’ve also gotten a lot of questions concerning how to “make” a Photoshop Brush. I labeled my Brushes as High-Res, but that’s only because they were really BIG brushes. You can make any size Photoshop brush in exactly the same way. Here’s how.
Size Limitations
If you want to make a brush that is “High-Res,” you will need Photoshop CS2+. In CS2 and CS3 you can make brushes up to 2500px in size. (height or width) In Previous versions like CS, 1000px is the limit. (and maybe much smaller for really old versions, I’m not sure).
Setup Your File
You all probably know that you can make a PS brush out of just about anything, so setting up your file correctly is key. Wether you are using a scanned image, a photograph, or whatever, you need to set up your Photoshop file in a way that will give you the best results for your brush.
Mistake:
It may be temping to have a file open and see something that you want to make a brush out of and do it on-the-fly within that file, but in order to make a brush knowing it is sized right, it’s always a good idea to make a separate file to make your brush.
Setting Up The File:
You may not need a high resolution brush, but what if you need the same brush to be larger 6 months down the road? It’s always a good idea to make your brush as large as possible in order to use it for other projects later. If you are in CS2 or 3, You can make your file 2500 X 2500px. If you are running a previous version of Photoshop, you will most likely be limited to 999px, if not less.
Color
You can use a color image to define a brush, but you might find it easier to convert your document to Grayscale in order to get a better idea of what to expect. When defining a brush preset, Photoshop will automatically convert your selection to grayscale to make the brush. White pixels will become transparent (which means you don’t have to erase the white/background pixels! Keep reading below for details), Black pixels will be opaque, and everything in between will be see-through black/gray.
Adjust Your Image
It’s only natural that your image may need a little tweaking before it’s brush-worthy. Here are a few adjustments you can make. (all found in the Image > Adjustments menu)
Levels
Curves
Exposure
Shadows/Highlights
Brightness/Contrast
The Secret About Brush Making
For the longest time I couldn’t figure out how people made such detailed brushes, and I kept telling myself that it would take way too much time to clip out the intricate shapes. Well, there’s a reason why even the novice Photoshopper can make amazingly detailed brushes. Like I said earlier, since Photoshop defines brushes based on a grayscale, there is no need to erase or clip anything! All you have to do is use the adjustments above (you may want to erase unwanted pixels here ands there) and everything that is 100% white disappears. White=Transparent, so put down that eraser or magic wand, and define your brush.
Define Your Brush
Once you get the right amount of contrast and black/white in your image, you’re ready to make a brush. Make sure you have the correct layer selected and do a “select all.” Command/Control + A. Now go to Edit > define Brush Preset.
Name your brush, and you’re done!
You should now see your new brush show up in the brushes palette. So? What are you waiting for? Start Brushing!
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Related Posts:
- Working with Illustrator ‘Art’ Brushes: Options and Adjustments
- Free Hi-Res Watercolor Photoshop Brushes Set II
- Free High-Res Photoshop Brushes - Leaves
- Free High Res Photoshop Brushes: Grungy Texture
- Free High-Res Photoshop Brushes: Grungy Wings
- Free Hi-Res Watercolor Photoshop Brushes
Your site is fantastic, thanks for all the freebies and tips.
I have just been playing with making brushes, but this will help me out further.
Ever wondered how to do such things..
Thanks a lot for this help!
Stefan
You sir, are a legend.
Thanks.
Great tutorials. Keep them coming!
Nice tips you have here on creating brushes. This will come in handy with my logo designs.
True. You are an amazing tutor! I appreciate your site and have it on my google homepage so I never miss an update. I realize that you are a photoshop guy. But for the sake of wondering… would this same technique work on the gimp?
Best part of the blog is the Adjustments quickie highlight, Personally I think that is is the greatest part of photoshop outside of the one who is creating something’s mind. Levels are key.
@Lizzard
I’m not sure. I’ve honestly never used GIMP.
~Bitt
Thank you very much, kind sir.
This site helped my creativity flourish much in very litle time
Bravo!
I was one of the people who asked you to do a tutorial on this. Thanks!
Thanks for your help
Many Thanks! What a generous soul you are..
you’ve inspired me.
I am going to try it in the gimp. I have CS2 at work, but at home (being a poor soul) I use the gimp. I’ll let you know how it goes.
After making almost every thing I owned into beatiful brushes, photoshop “unexpectedly quit” and I lost all my brushes. For some reason I thought they would be saved automatically into the brush library?
No chance in getting them back I assume. :[
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Do you have any examples of paintings created with these cool brushes? I would love to see them in action!
skip,
Click on the “BittBox @ Flickr” Banner above.
~Bitt
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Thank you for your work
http://sakadu.com/blog/
brilliant work bitt, so glad ive found this blog! its the best one ive come across!
cheers again,
AD
thanks! cheers!
RJ from philippines
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so where are the brushes saved?
You don’t need to copy them into a specific folder. Just enable the brush tool and click on the dropdown list for your brushes. There’s a little arrow on the right top. Click it and you can choose to “Load Brush”. Locate your brush and it’s installed.
@Lee anne
Photoshop/Presets/Brushes
Thank you so much. This has been a great help to me.
favor de decirme como puedo crear un rostro que ya tengo en una fotografia con otras fotografias m?s osea que se forme con muchas fotos por ejemplo un rosto de una persona.
Thanks for the tips. They’ve reminded about things I’d forgotten so your site is a great quick reference. Also getting some good ideas.
I’ve use PS7 and I’m able to make brushes that are 2500px. Initially, I couldn’t figure why it wouldn’t define brushes with photos I had. Yes, they were larger than 2500px.
So thanks for fixes that stone in the shoe.
Any good references that you could recommend?
this site continues to amaze and educate me
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Hi.. thank you for your easy to follow tutorial.. I was wondering also I have made a brush out of the pen tool.. but it wont seem to show the brush makier in edit..the custom shape preset will show and pattern as well but the Brush Preset wont.. is there any particular reason.. I have saved as PSD and in grayscale.. tried everything.. Paula
Eu n?o gostei em tal maneira porque o lugar est? em ingl?s e eu n?o obtive nenhuma escova. Eu quis que voc?s mim eles requisitasem o esplicando do email mim como faz uma escova.
Thank you!!! thats so much help. could not find anything on the adobe site about it. :-)
Thank you! :D It helped a lot! =D
valeu muito,so queria sabe como q faz pra muda a porra da cor dos olhos e me ensinam a ler frases em ingles
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Setting Up The File:
You may not need a high resolution brush, but what if you need the same brush to be larger 6 months down the road? It’s always a good idea to make your brush as large as possible in order to use it for other projects later.
—–>
i don’t advise you to make a brush as big as possible (2500px) so that you can use it for any situation in the future. I did this with a 2500px x 2500px star, then tried to use it in a web interface and it looked terribly aliased and chunky. I don’t think scaling a brush tip on that big of a scale is something photoshop likes to do. I made a new brush 250px in size and scaled that down to about 150px and it looked perfectly crisp.
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Yo hice una recopilación de sitios que poseen pinceles para descargar, son unos 100 enlaces a los cuales de alguna manera accedí en mi vida profesional, por ahi a alguien le sirve.
http://hernandavos.com.ar/000/recopilacion-de-100-enlaces-con-pinceles-para-photoshop/
Ok i didnt quite get how to do them i men like the creation of the brush it self but still nice site you got here good job
I’m from Portugal, Azores island and I must say that you are amazing with your work.
Awesome job, now I can push photoshop even more XD
Hey how do you make the brushes downloadable? I made some brushes of my own but they are not in the brushes folder (though they are in the palette)???
I’m a freelance illustrator from Indonesia, thanks a lot!!! this is a kind of site that i’ve been looking for.
I’ll always wait for ur new tricks!
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Thank you!!!!
I´m so lucky to find this site!!!
I won´t tell anyone about it..!! lol
just kiddin´
THANK YOU SO MUCH !!
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This tutorial is fantastic!!! Thx so much.
The only question I have is, how can i save the brush i created as an independent archive??
tHnks!!! . . u rock man!!
this is a great tutorial but i wonder, how can you create alot of brushes from alot of vectors from Ai format i know how to do one but i like to know if there is a way to do alot at once
thank you so much!!! what an awesome tutorial!!
I’ve now created some brushes with CS3, but how can I make them work with previous Photoshop versions, with 7.0 i.e? Thanks.
I cannot select define brush preset. Do you know why this is?
@Darenator,
Make sure your document size is no bigger than 2500px wide or tall (CS2, 3) or 1500px (CS1). If your selection is bigger than allowed, you will not be able to define the brush. I’d start there.
~Bitt
I went through your entire site and you have taught me so much in just on night!! Thank you and keep up the amazing work!
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Thanks dude! this info is awesome and it seems easy enough to follow. Now I’m gonna try to make my own brushes.
A+++ man!
thanks i have been wondering how to do it for awhile and ur steps were easy
ooh i LOVE my brush :P
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this is awesome! :)
I was just wondering tho (and if you’ve already mentioned it, I’m sorry for being dense) how to create a new brushset… I mean now that I can make the brush, how do I isolate them from the set that was open when I created it?
thx,
much luv :)
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Thanks for your article. I’ve made brushes before but they never quite turned out how I wanted them, this made me realize my mistakes.
Question: How would one convert PS7 brushes to CS3? There are a few of mine that aren’t working properly and unfortunately I can’t find anything, ANYWHERE, on how to fix the situation.
New tutorial on that in the future? :)
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Why does the brush print like a pattern instead of smearing smoothly in a line?
I notice some of the default PS brushes smear smoothly, but the brush I made with this tutorial just repeats in a pattern….
hmmm… any help is appreciated.
@Matt,
This style of brush is meant to be used more as a “Stamp.” as opposed a paintbrush.
~BItt
Thanks.. want to say that you helped me a little.. i was making a Brush from a Layer.. :)
Thanks BittBox
Filters, Filtros, ???????, ??????, ??, Filtres, ??????, ?????, Filter, Filtri, ???
Brushes, Pinceles, ?????, ?????, ???, Pinceaux, ????????, Penselen, Spazzole, ???, ??, Bürsten, Pincéis
Este blog contiene:
“…multitud de plug-ins para vuestro Photoshop. Se iran añadiendo otras cosas interesantes para vuestros diseños, como tútoriales…Pero por el momento teneis cerca de 250 pinceles de alta resolución (HR) que os pueden ser de mucha utilidad para vuestros diseños actuales o futuros”
By (^^,)
This blog contains:
“… Many of your plug-ins for Photoshop. Were other interesting things are adding to your designs, as tútoriales … But by the time you have around 250 brushes high-resolution (HR) you can be very useful designs for your current or future ”
http://cyberplanetgreen.blogspot.com
Saludos/Regards
By (^^,)
Awesome, thank you so much for sharing!
Many people were asking about making a brush seperate from other brush sets. Under the brushes menu there is a preset manager where you can delete the brushes you don’t want in the set and save your brush(es) in your own set. I hope that helps. It took me awhile to find that out, but I found it!
aw..it was so simple, tnx!!!
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Thanks for all your great info on this site - I really - really appreciate it.
I have made some brushes and would be happy to share them.
let me know if i can send 1 or 2 to you.
thanks
c
hi! I just stumbled upon your site and WoW! You’re tutorials are awesome! Tons of useful information on this site! Can’t wait to get to the rest of the tutorials! Thanks a bunch for all of this! >_< b (that’s a thumbs up btw)
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Thanks for the detailed turoial!
It really helped!
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Very Nice, now i can create my own brush.
Again, thank you very much.
Thanks for the brush tutorial.
hello!
thank you for that tutorial.
here’s another question though.. how do you make a set of brushes.. the .abr file.. i can’t seem to figure out how.. so, i’m hoping you can help me..
Thanks for the turoial it was just that I want!
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thanks, this will come in handy.
Ok i can make the brushes but how do i save them?
So that i can have a file of them and possably let people download them?
Great site and great guide :D