Playing With Brushes, Part 1
We all like brushes in Photoshop, they are so
easy to use and make papers and patterns for our
digital scrapping. Well here are some ideas I
have been playing with to make some very nice
textured brushes that you can use alone, or use
with other similar brushes, for a complex
pattern that takes the guess work out of sizing
up patterns for your papers.
If we try here with a basic large textured
brush, you need the size between 200 and 500
pixels. Use one that comes with Photoshop
or make your own. You want one that is fairly
nondescript at this point and open textured (so
you can see a bit of the underlying layer.
I
have chosen rolled terry rag at 120px from the
faux finish brushes in Adobe brush pack that
comes with PS. From here I will put
down the settings each in turn, and a picture of
what you should get if you follow my settings.
1. Brush Tip Shape
Choose
the brush and set it between 250 and 500px
Make
the spacing between 25%and 40%
Check
the wet edges box (gives definition to the edge
of the brush)
Check
the smoothing box
2 Size Jitter 10, or anything between 5-20
Size
jitter control off
<inimum
diameter between 5 and 12
Angle
jitter 100 (makes the brush swirly)
Angle
jitter control off
Roundness
jitter 0 (keeps the brush round not thin)
Roundness
jitter control off
Check
the boxes Flip x Flip y
3. Scattering
On both axes 40-50%
Count 1
Count Jitter remain at 0
Count Jitter Control off
4.
Texture
Choose
a pattern with a smooth texture and one with a
rough texture try them both see how you find
them.
Choose
one and scale it to suit between 20-80%
depending how it looks to you.
Texture each tip
Blend mode multiply
Depth 50
Minimum depth 0
Jitter 0
Jitter control off
5 Color Dynamics
Controlling the color is a personal choice.
However, try this:
Choose foreground color and background color.
Set the color jitter to 6
Control off
Jitter the hue just slightly to keep within the
given colors you have chosen.
Saturation 10% will keep them even
Brightness between 5 and 15%
Purity try between0 and -5
At this point try your brush and if you are
satisfied with the look overall save it in your
brushes pallette. Don't forget to save it, too,
in your preset manager or you will lose it if
you reset the brushes.
This brush will paint on a shaded feathered
effect that you can use over a base layer and
allow some of the base layer to peek through, or
you can paint it on more heavily for an
altogether more subtle effect. Of course if you
play around with the settings one at a time, you
can vary each brush and come up with a series of
textured brush on patterns.
Part 2 in this series will follow soon and show
you how to paint a textured pattern within a
pattern.
