Making a Photoshop Brush Part II: Texture Brushes

Jay Hilgert — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:02:13 +0000

A long, long time ago I wrote a detailed tutorial on how to make a Photoshop brush. Today, I want to show how to make a texture brush. It’s one of my favorite ways to add texture to a design, without the need to mess with merging images and blending modes on top of that. Let’s get started.

Start with a cool texture image.

The Setup

If you want to make a large brush, the maximum size is 2500 pixels (height or width, either one) Also, if you are running CS1 or earlier, your max size is probably 1000px. So with that said, you can create your file. Then place your image and get it positioned.

The Secret of Brush Making:

Our next step is to convert our image to black and white. Why? Because when making a brush, Photoshop treats pure white as 100% transparent, and pure black as 100% opaque. This is great because it means we don’t have to do any clipping and the images we use to make brushes can be very complex and still turn out decent.

Convert to Black & White

There are multiple ways to convert to black and white but I like to either add an adjustment layer or simply go to Image > Adjustments > Black and White.

Make your adjustments until you’re happy with your image. (doesn’t have to be perfect)

Additional Adjustments

Next, you have a lot of adjustment options, but I find the tweaking the “Levels” usually gets the job done. (Image > Adjustments > Levels) or CMND/CTRL + L.

Final Step:

Once your happy with your image simply go to the Edit menu and select “Define Brush Preset.”

Name the brush if you want and then click “Ok.”

Done!

Now you have a brand new texture brush in your brushes palette. And you can do things like go from this:

To this in a single click:

It’s not a complicated process, but I’ve found texture brushes to be the most useful in my toolset. Hopefully you can too. Oh, and don’t forget to save your brushes from the brush palette menu or you’ll lose all your hard work!

Photoshop: The “Pixelated” Brush Problem

Jay Hilgert — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:18:06 +0000

This question has come in through various channels recently, so I thought I’d do a write up on a quick fix. If you’ve ever wondered why your brushes look “pixelated,” there’s a perfectly good explanation. Photoshop isn’t broken, you aren’t missing a setting, and you probably got here because you like keyboard shortcuts.

You probably think you’re crazy because you hit “B,” the keyboard shortcut for the Brush tool, and all your brushes still look like crap. This is probably because your not actually selecting the brush tool. The keyboard shortcut for the Pencil tool is also, you guessed it, “B.” When the pencil tool is selected, all the brushes will appear pixelated. Take a look at your tools and make sure you actually have the Brush tool selected. Hold down on the Pencil tool to select the Brush tool.

That’s it! You were just a victim of your own productivity (Evil Twin Keyboard Shortcuts). You can always change the keyboard shortcut for the Pencil tool to prevent future attacks :)

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