Even though Photoshop does come with a good selection of default brushes – it is a lot of fun to create your own brushes and brush sets, as well as giving you more creative freedom. If you have never created your own brushes and think this might be complicated – don’t worry… It’s very easy – you might need a little time to experiment until you get the results you are after but the actual brush creation is quite simple.

You can understand a custom brush essentially as a black and white image which you can then use to ‘stamp’ your image with. Note that our custom brushes would not be used as the airbrush, for example, with which you would imitate the real tool and use via click and drag. A custom brush however would be applied by a single click – though clicking and dragging can at times produce some interesting results as well.

You can create a new brush from anything you have drawn or painted yourself – or you can use an image edited to suit. Once you start creating a lot of specific brushes you can then also save your own brush presets for easier use.

1. painting a brush preset

1. create a new document in Photoshop using a white background (for clearer view of the new brush shape)
2. create an empty layer and using a soft brush, create one dot in the middle of your document as shown below
3. edit the dot using additional brush strokes, transformations or filters – here I have used the Liquify filter:
   top menu > filter > liquify
   
4. once you are happy with your shape – choose the rectangular marquee tool and draw out a selection around your newly created graphic. Check that you have the correct layer selected and make sure not to cut off any edges as this would also become part of your new brush and might not give you the desired result.
   
5. with your selection active – define your new brush: top menu > Edit > Define Brush Preset…
   name you brush and click ok.
   
6. you new brush is now saved as part of the current brush set – to try out your new brush, select the brush tool and go to the brushes palette. To see the thumbnail of your new brush – set the viewing options of the palette to ‘thumbnail’.
   
7. with your new brush selected – you can now have some fun experimenting… just to get you started:
   • click more than once on the same area to intensify the brush stroke
   • use different brush sizes
   • experiment with different pain modes (remember that these will need some existing colour or image to show their effects)
   • create new brushes from the your current bush as variations (mirrored, different scale of effect…etc…)

   

2.1 creating a brush preset from an image – TEXTRUE BRUSH

1. create a new document in Photoshop using a white background (for clearer view of the new brush shape)
2. open up a suitable source image – this can be anything, from a scan, a photo or any other photoshop work you might have done yourself.
   to follow the next few steps – feel free to download the source folder here – all images © image*after and morguefile
3. check image size and resolution and edit setting to suit your needs.
4. to create a soft-edged texture brush it will be important to edit an appropriate selection – here a layer mask has been applied:
   
5. as any brush preset works with black and white – you will need to edit the image’s colour range. You can apply any working methods you usually use to render the image greyscale. I prefer to work with adjustment layers whenever possible as they allow more flexibility.
   
6. next, you will need to edit the outer edges of your texture. I have added a new layer on top with solid white and used a layer mask to edit an irregular and soft edge, fading the new texture.
   
7. you can now define your new brush (top menu > Edit > Define Brush Preset…) and try it out…
   

2.2 creating a brush preset from custom graphics – CORNER BRUSH

1. create a new document in Photoshop using a white background (for clearer view of the new brush shape)
2. create your graphic either working in colour and converting to greyscale before defining the brush – or working only in black and white from the start.
   I have used several layers with varied opacities to create the visual shown below.
   
3. in the case of a corner brush – make use of the sharp corner and create your graphics accordingly. Imagination is your only limit – have some fun and take some time to just play, create 4 different corner brushes, forming any sort frame, use some of your vector artwork – or find inspiration in ornamental fonts…
4. once you have completed your graphic – you will need to merge all used layers in order to define your brush.
   It is good working practice to always keep hold of a layered version of your original artwork or image edits. I generally set up a folder for this (see screenshots) and keep all layers backed up.
   You can quickly and easily produce a merged layer containing all artwork while at the same time keeping all existing layers as backup (note: this is for Photoshop CS2):
   • highlight all layers
   • hold down the ‘alt’ key and choose ‘Merge Layers’
     (top menu > layer > merge down or: use the options on your layer palette)

   

5. select your artwork layer and define your brush (top menu > Edit > Define Brush Preset…)
   … and have some fun trying it out and creating more …
   below you can see the brush applied to the previous sample graphic.
   

2.3 creating a brush preset from object photos – OBJECT BRUSH

1. create a new document in Photoshop using a white background (for clearer view of the new brush shape)
2. open up a suitable source image – this can be a photo of any object of your choice. As we’re discussing brushes here – I have used an image of a paintbrush with paint.
   [the image used is in your source folder - download folder again - all images © image*after and morguefile]
3. as with the other textures created – the image needs to be edited to suit.
   quick sum up:
   - check size and resolution and edit to suit
   - edit colour range to greyscale
   - fade edges as desired for better blending
4. remember you will need a single layer containing all artwork to define your brush
   (top menu > Edit > Define Brush Preset…)
   
5. to use the brush – give yourself some time to experiment with different sizes and colours. Work a layered set up to make use of the layer modes and opacities.
   The sample image with added brush:
   

3. saving custom brush into sets – BRUSH SETS

Once you have created a number of brushes – the currently loaded brush set might be a little heavy to work with. The more brushes you will need to load – the more processing power photoshop will require….
To create your own brush set – use the Preset Manager. You can access its panel via the brushes palette.

You do not need to delete the default brushes – but while creating you own brush sets this might be easier to work with than looking at a ever growing number of brush descriptions.

Now select all your own custom brushes and save your set.

To use any brush set – simply load it via the brushes panel. You can choose to ‘Append’ the selected brush set which will replace any current brushes entirely – or you can load several brush sets at once.
Depending on the number and size of your brushes – you should not overload your brushes panel, this can slow down Photoshop quite a lot and could cause a program crash if you do not have enough power.

… and that’s it – have fun and go crazy with brushes…