Tips from Experimenting with PS Brushes

Here is a brush experiment with a photo I took in the Louvre. Some of the brushes I used are:

• The shoreways acrylic set
• Some of recife's great brushes
• Old letters by Ruby Proudfoot
• Alex Dukal Stamp Brushes
• Scully's typographic grunge
  

and no doubt others that I am forgetting to mention.

I realize that you may love or hate my brush experiment, but here are some lessons gleaned from the process:

• Your photo rejects might deserve a second chance with brushes in mind. The photo I chose was not as sharp as I would have wanted, and I would never have used it for a regular print. Sharpness becomes less important, however, if you plan on layering textures over the photo.
• New layer, new layer, new layer...I must have made at least 20 new layers. Why? Because I could have more control over opacity, color, and blending modes for each new element.
• Change the opacity. Did you know that there is bright orange in my image? It just happens to be at about 8% opacity.
  
• Blending modes. This is a good time to use that little pull-down menu of blending modes (in your layers palette, where it says "normal").
  
• Erase. Do you remember the heyday of faux-finishing? Brushing (or ragging, or stippling, or whatever) the finish away was just as important as applying it. Try applying a texture with a stamp and removing some of it with another. Magical things happen. When you click on the Eraser tool (E) you can load and select different brushes just as you have done with the brush tool.

I had a lot of fun modifying the photo. The brushes create a pleasing depth. Perhaps, you say...but what does it mean?

Free Photoshop Brushes Resources

I've been lagging behind on my posts (sickness, end of semester and holiday rush, etc.), but I hope to correct that very soon.

In the meantime, here are a few good sources of photoshop brushes to keep you working on the Monthly Special:

Smashing Magazine as a list of 50 must-have photoshop brushes

Photoshoproadmap lists 100 brushes (you will begin to see some crossover between lists).

Qbrushes lets you browse a decent selection by category.

Tutorial blog has a list with some good ones.

The talented Eduardo Recife shares some great brushes (under "goodies") and fonts. No previews, so you will just have to trust me that they are worth the download. And while you're there, check out his art. I love the handmade (i.e. no Photoshop) collages (see Illustrations--> Collage Book 1, for example).

and finally, there's the massive collection at deviantart.com.

Finding, Installing, Loading, and Using Brushes in Photoshop and Elements

Finding Brushes
Finding free brushes for Photoshop is easy. In fact, the number and variety of free brushes can be overwhelming. Google "free photoshop brushes" and you will see what I mean. I will do a future post with links to some of my favorites, but for starters, check out this list of 75 hi-res brushes picked by Elite by Design (I will be writing four posts for them in January, by the way). Once you have found some brushes that you want to download, pay attention to the following:

• Compatibility. Not all brushes work in Elements or in every version of Photoshop, and many brush sets won't specify compatibility. If you like it, go ahead and try it. Either it will work or it won't, but it shouldn't crash your system or anything (Should I be putting a legal disclaimer here? hmm.), so give it a try.
• Brush size. If you want to use brushes to create a new banner for your blog, pretty much any size will do. Larger images, however, may demand larger brushes. Look at the maximum pixel size of a brush to see if it's hi-, medium-, or low-res. 2500 px, for example, is hi-res.
• Price. With so many free brushes out there, I would think twice before buying a brush set . If you see a must-have set that is not free, check places like deviantart to see if something similar is available for free. Another thing to consider: you can make your own brushes. I will teach you how this month.

Installing Brushes
The process is the same for Photoshop and Elements. Once you download (and unzip as needed) a brush set (should be a .abr file)...
Go to Applications-->Photoshop (or Elements)-->Presets-->Brushes and drop it in. That's it.


If you had Photoshop open at the time, you will have to quit and re-open before you can access your new brushes.

Loading Brushes
Select the brush tool (b), and look at the brush menu bar on top. In Elements, you will see (on the left side) a swoosh-like image of one of the basic brushes:
In Photoshop, you will see (second from left) a dot representing the active brush:
Click on the arrow to the right of your brush image (swoosh or dot) to get a menu with Thumbnails of your brushes. From there, click on the small arrow(s) for a menu that lets you change the size of the thumbnails (I like to make them larger so I can see the custom brushes more clearly). You will also see a "load brushes" command, but you will not use it because you have already put the brushes in their proper place. Instead, in Elements (I'm using Elements 6 for Mac), you will locate the pull-down menu just above the thumbnails...
where you will find a list of your brushes (including any that you dropped into the brushes folder before opening the application). Select a set you want to use, and you're ready .
In Photoshop, the brushes will all be listed in the menu that pops up when you click the small arrow. (In CS3, you can hit F5 and bring up a brushes palette on the right that will do the same things).
When you select one of the sets, a dialog box will ask if you want to replace the current brush set with the new ones. You do. No worries, your other sets will still be there in that same menu when you want to switch.

Using Brushes
This tutorial will only cover the basics, and in a future tutorial I will talk about some of the options.

• Changing brush size: You can either use the slider in the brush palette, or (and I highly recommend this shortcut) use the left ([)and right (])bracket keys to change brush size. Also, for brushes that have hardness/softness settings (such as basic brushes), hold shift while pressing the left or right bracket keys.
• Opacity: There is an opacity slider in the top brush menu, or you can make a new layer for your brushes and change the layer opacity—although the latter option will uniformly change the opacity while the former allows you more control.
• Color: You can change the color of the brush by clicking the foreground color box and selecting a new color.

This should get you started on the December Monthly Special.

December Monthly Special: Photoshop Brushes

We are jumping into the ever-growing world of Photoshop brushes for the month of December. I can honestly say that until today I have never used brushes for anything other than masking. But brushes are hugely popular and easy to use, so why not give them a try?

I won't go into any full-fledged tutorial in this post, but I promise that several will be forthcoming in the next few days.

If you are new to brushes, let me tell you from my own experience as a brush novice that it was a lot of fun. In the case of the ever-popular grunge aesthetic, we get to abandon the less-is-more mantra and just go crazy. During the month, I will teach you the basics of installing and using brushes, creating your own brushes, finding the best brushes for your project, and achieving different looks with brushes.

Here is my first experiment with brushes...


Before the attack of the grunge brushes:
After grunge gone wild:

The brushes I used include:
dripping brushes
grunge brushes
grunge corners
grunge border brushes
grungy watercolor
more grunge brushes
and perhaps most importantly, a graffiti brush set (for which I can't find the reference—so if you know, please comment and I can give them credit).

The best thing about using brushes is that the results are fast and that you can't really get it wrong. I am hoping for a lot of creative experimentation this month, so be sure to post and link back here with your brush projects (see the FAQ is you have questions about how to do this).