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Note: This tutorial uses CS2, but is valid for most versions of Photoshop.
Brushes are perfect for digital scrapbookers. Nothing else offers you as much creative control, or can be used in as many different ways as brushes. Brushes can be digital scrapbooking papers, mattes, frames, embellishments, accents and even text. They are extremely versatile.
If you are new to digital scrapbooking and/or graphic work, the easiest way to understand brushes is to think of them as a combination of rubber stamps and punches.
When you use a rubber stamp, you pick a stamp design, you decide what color ink to use on it and where to place it on the paper. You get these same options with brushes - and more.
First off, let’s discuss the terminology. When we say “brushes” what we really mean is “Custom Brush Shapes.” But that's too long to say, so everyone just says “brushes.” But by saying “brushes” rather than “custom shapes,” it gives the impression they can only be used by the Brush Tool, and nothing could be further from the truth. Custom Brush Shapes, or brushes, can be used with many different tools in Photoshop. You use them with the Brush Tool, the Pencil Tool, the Clone Stamp, Pattern Stamp, History Brush, Art History Brush, Eraser, Blur, Sharpen, Smudge, Dodge, Burn and Sponge Tools.
Installing Brushes
There are exact directions for downloading, unzipping and installing included with each brush purchase, so please check that instruction sheet if you are unfamiliar with how to install your brushes.
Adobe recommends keeping all your brushes in one folder inside the Photoshop folder. But keeping all your brushes in one folder can lead to a disorganized mess if you become addicted to brushes. You can put them in other places than the Adobe Photoshop Brush folder if you want. For instance, I keep my brushes in My Documents> My Photoshop Stuff> Brushes. Then I have multiple subfolders for my brush files in there, named by subject (grunge, animals, edges and frames, etc.). I'll discuss how to locate and use them from other folders in the next section.
Finding and Loading and Choosing Brushes
Whenever you pick a Tool that can use a custom brush shape, your Tool Options Bar will change to reflect the various brush options available. After picking the Tool you wish to use, you need to pick a brush to use with it.
You pick a brush by clicking the thumbnail or the drop down arrow in the Brush Preset Picker.
This will open a window displaying some brushes. Don't be concerned if you do not see all your brushes there right away. You must load the set of brushes you wish to use before it will show up in the thumbnail window. Click on the right arrow (A) in the upper right corner to open the menu.
If you installed your brushes to the Adobe Photoshop Brush folder, your brushes will be in the list at the bottom of this menu (C).
If you installed your brushes elsewhere, you will use the "Load Brushes" option (D) to access them. When the window opens, simply navigate to where your brushes are and select the set you want to load.
The Brushes will be displayed in the thumbnail window on the left in the order you loaded them. Photoshop offers you many ways to view the brush thumbnails (B), so your window might not look exactly like this one.
Also note that Photoshop does not display some brush images correctly. It distorts them in various ways or they may be too similar or small to differentiate by the thumbnail alone. If that is occurring, simply chose one of the List options and the name of the brush will be written out.
You select a brush to use from the thumbnail window by double clicking it.
Brush Options
There are too many brush options to go over them all here, so I'm just going to cover the main ones. Please consult Help or your owner’s manual for information on the other options.
Size: Once you have selected which brush to use, you can change its size by using the Diameter slider in this same window. The number is the size of the brush in pixels. If you don't know how many pixels you want your brush to be, hold the Brush Tool over your image, you'll see an outline of the brush shape in the exact size it will be. You can use this to determine if the brush should be bigger or smaller.
Opacity: You can change the Opacity of the brush by using the Opacity slider on the Tool Options Bar. The Opacity slider determines how transparent your brush image will be.
Rotation: You can rotate your brush in any direction. The controls for rotation are found on the Brushes Palette under "Brush Tip Shape." Use the "Angle Options" to turn the brush image.
The four “directions” or “corners” in PS are 0, 90, 180 and -90. If you want to do four corners with a corner brush, these are the numbers you need to remember.
Choosing Brush Colors
The color of your brush is determined by your Foreground color square in the Toolbox.
Brushes in Patterns
By using your brush with the Pattern Stamp Tool, you can put brushes down in patterns.
Brushes in Straight Lines
Want a row of brushes perfectly straight as a border or frame? Simply put down your first brush where you want it. Hold down the Shift key and click where you want the last brush. Voila... a perfectly straight line of brushes.
Use the Spacing Option on the Brush Palette to pick the spacing of the brushes. A lower number will put the images closer together. Here is a row of Cats with only 1% spacing. They are all on top of each other and you can't tell they are cats.
But move the spacing slider to 100% and you start to make out each cat.
Making Embellishments with Brushes
By applying styles and filters to your brush images, you can make your own embellishments. I put this Heart brush down in red then added an Inner Bevel and drop shadow to it.
With third party filters, you can do even more to your brushes. Here's a Heart brush used with Flaming Pear's free filter Primus.
Brushes as Punches
Now let me show you how to make digital “punches.” When you use a brush with the Eraser Tool, it “erases” from your layer.
In this example, I filled a layer with a dark purple. I made a second layer and filled it with a lighter shade. I selected the Eraser Tool and picked this cat brush. With the top layer active, I clicked. As you can see, it erased the top layer allowing the bottom layer to show through. I then added a drop shadow to the top layer to make it show better.
Brushes as Edges
Brushes can be used to edge anything: paper, photos, mattes, etc. And the edges can be “put on” or “taken off.”
Here's two examples. I “took off” the edge of the photo of the cat by using a brush with the Eraser Tool. I “put on” the edge of pink hearts by using a brush with the Brush Tool.
Brushes as Frames
By using brushes in straight lines you can frame anything... a photo, a journaling box, your papers, etc. And remember, a single corner brushes can be rotated to make a frame (remember - 0, 90, 180, -90 are the four corner rotation angles). This frame is made from one Inked Edges Corner Brush rotated in four directions (0, 90, 180, -90) to make a complete frame.
Other Artistic Options
There are tons of other options for use with brushes, nothing else will offer you as many creative possibilities. Just explore the Brush Palette. You can add texture to your brushes, apply more than one brush with each click with the Scattering option, you can have multiple colors of brushes with the Color Dynamics settings, etc. The list goes on and on.
I hope this helps get you started with Brushes. They truly do give you unlimited artistic and design capabilities. Enjoy!
Tutorial uses:
Tutorial written by Lori Cook
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