This is my first Photoshop tutorial since 2008. In previous year I have a list of web resource for free brushes but didn’t mention on how to use it. This quick guide will explain how Brush Tool were used worldwide.
If I can make a free definition of Brush tool, Brush tool is a set of defined bitmap shapes which can be used as a tip of a real brush. In other words, you can customized the shape of your brush tip to begin painting.
Brush Tool can be either created or imported. Lots of designers make their own brushes to stand out among others. Most of it were distributed freely. I don’t exactly know when it was distributed as free stuff but since Adobe shared it for free, there is no copyright issue regarding brush sets. If somebody distribute a brush to ask for payment, you’ve been tricked!
Tool Overview:
This is the preview of a Brush Tool. In default Keyboard Shortcut, you can activate it by pressing B key.
This is the preview of Brush Tool Options.
The Brush Option will be activated if you are using Brush Tool. The picture above shows the content of Brush Option. You can accessed it via triangle button beside the word “Brush:”. Or you can accessed the Preset Manager from Edit » Preset Manager… » Preset Type » Brush.
To use the Brush Tool, simply click on one of the Brush Shapes in the Brush Option. The thumbnail image is showing the brush tip shape and it’s size in pixels. The size were default size, meaning it is the original size of a brush. You can still increase the master diameter, however it will reduce the quality of the brush.
Well, I’m not going to teach you how to drag, you can RTFM by yourself. One fundamental thing that you should know is Brush Tool can only be used in bitmap based or rasterized layer, it can’t be applied in vector shape layers.
To import Brush from other sources.
You can download free brush source at different shape and size. Most designer make their own brush in high-resolution to preserve quality. You can accessed it through this article. The file will be at the type of .abr or .zip package. Mostly they were zipped to include text document which consist of the creator’s signature. You must unzipped the package and bring the .abr file into this directory:
...\YourAdobePhotoshopDirectory\Presets\Brushes\
If you already open Adobe Photoshop application, you’ll need to restart the application to see the change in the brush preset.
The other way to import new brush is through Preset Manager. Click the Load and find your .abr file to import the brush into Preset Manager.
Modify Brush Tool Using Brush Palette:
You can modify the Brush Tip Shape inside Brush Palette. To access Brush Palette, go to Window » Brush. Therefore, you can edit the tip shape and modified it as you like. Here is the guide:
- Pick the Brush Tip Shape that you wanted to modify in the Brush Tip Shape menu
- Pick the modify options (Shape Dynamics, Scattering, Texture, etc…) one by one and see the change they made
- If the shape seems didn’t have any effect at all, you should try using the brush into your document to see the change they made
- Try to be more creative and use different combination of options
These are the Keyboard Shortcut while working with Brush Tool:
“<" & ">” to toggle between brush tip shape
“[" & "]“ to increase and decrease brush tip shape
Hope you enjoy it.
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