saving/defining brushes help

inkdotcreator · 07-13-2005

I'm pretty used to brushes now, and have quite a few, but how do you actually make them? I once saved a star, but brushes such as Biorust's "Ancient Maps", how would you save such a brush? And actually, I've forgotten how I saved that star, so could you please run it past me how to do it again?

Thank you v. much in advance.

**Bub** · 07-13-2005

Take the brush file -- *.abr and move it to Photoshop\Presets\Brushes folder and it will be there I'm pretty sure.

If not then you have to open PS and define the brush with the Edit/Define Brush Preset option.

Uncle Ghed · 07-13-2005

to create a brush from a photo or a drawing, all u need to do is create a selection around it and then edit/define brush preset.
remember that brushes are all in grayscale, so you might want to edit your brush-source-image in b/w and play around with contrast. the white parts of the selection will be transparent in the brush...
once you've done this, go to your brush palette and click on "preset manager". delete the brushes you don't want in your set, then save the set.
.. i think i said it all... ^^

**Bub** · 07-13-2005

**Man1c M0g** · 07-13-2005

Hey, don't forget that Lexiblue has also given us a shape-making tutorial! You can find it over at http://www.biorust.com/tutorials/detail/48/en/

inkdotcreator · 07-13-2005

Thanks guys, v. much appreciated.

Alas, tis not all. I have indeed understood about defining, but as to the state the image needs to be in before you define it, I am still unsure. I'm not talking solid shapes here, I mean where you're playing around with opacities and contrast. Here is a link to

the image I'm working from - (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...s/07130005.jpg)

and what I've done/looking to do -
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...es/brushes.jpg).

Of the second image, in the bottom left and top right, the one's in blue, are prints of the brushes I've come up with. Same define, just different levels of contrast. The one's in grayscale, top left and bottom right, are the one's I'm looking to make a brush similar to. And If you've seen, as I mentioned before, Biorust's "Ancient Maps", then it's that I would like to make a similar brush to.

Once more I put a question forth. What state does an image need to be in, and how would you achieve such a state?

Many thanks to anybody who provides an answer.

Uncle Ghed · 07-14-2005

ok, as long as I know:

you should bring your image to grayscale, because the brush applies only where he finds a "colored" pixel. Thus, if the pixel is white, he will consider it transparent when you turn your image into a brush.
To bring out nice and solid lines of thick black, you should probably contrast your image to the point that black lines stand out nicely against a brighter background.
Obviusly, to this point, experimenting is the key to get what you want...

probably the Middle Earth map you're starting out with is a little too blurred to get that high definition that the Ancient Maps brush set carries...

playing around a little, i came up with this... although it already lost a lot of depth... probably played around too much! :P
I gave it a heavy +75 for the contrast and a +15 to the brightness...
http://www.uomodiavolo.it/images/middleearthbrush.jpg