Turning Shapes to Brushes
In Photoshop, it is very easy to turn the custom
shapes that are supplied with PS into brushes.
That way you can easily have a variety of sizes,
colors and textures at your fingertips.
Start by opening up a new document at 300 pixels
per inch (for the best quality if you plan to
print). From your tools menu, select the custom
shape option (use fill with color) and then
choose your shape and draw it on your document.
I
have chosen the paw print for my brush, but want
a more interesting texture and appearance.
Fig.1 Paw Print Custom Shape
Select your eraser tool, and then at the top
menu click on the drop down arrow at the side of
the brushes (any brush can be used as an
eraser!) and load the Natural Brushes 2 (you can
choose any brushes, but these give a little
texture). Also at the top menu line (in most
versions of PS and PSE) are the opacity and fill
sliders for your brushes, I reduced both of
these so not too much is erased at a time.
Choose a brush and at the top alter the size
slider so that your brush fits as much as
possible over the shape. Then erase away,
moving the erasing brush around to give more
variety. I chose two brushes to create my paw
print brush. You can see the outline of the
brush I am using as an eraser in Figure 2.
Fig. 2. Eraser Over the Shape
I
then used a Gaussian blur filter from the filter
menu to just blur it all so it had a slightly
softer, smudged look. I then duplicated this
layer and worked on creating a second paw print
by erasing a little more on this layer.
Fig
3. Gaussian Blur applied.
If you use the move tool (select the transform
edge box) you can reduce the shape in size, as I
wanted a slightly smaller version. This can be
done evenly by positioning on a corner to see
the little two way arrow and holding down the
SHIFT key while you reduce the shape. I now
have my two paw print shapes on separate layers,
one of which is smaller and more faded.
Fig 4. Transforming the Shape
