How does one 'create' a custom Brush???

[mybrokenhalo]

So I'm new to biorust and I thought I'd post the most plaguing question on my mind today...Does anyone have any helpful tips/suggestions/anything for going about the creation of a custom brush? Or even shape?

So many times have I wished that I could just save something I've made as either of the two but have never been answered on the 'hows'.

Help? Please?

[Phoenix Wynde]

Well, when I'm working with, let's say a tribal image I wish to save as a brush I fill the whole image in as black, (that's of course there's no fine detail in the image) and, if the image is a good size, I usually end up leaving it as being huge, that way I can always resize it later if I need to. However, larger images can leave crazy "jaggies". There's a tutorial on "jaggies" here at Biorust to help you with that, if need be.

Now, on the abstract side of things, it's fun to experiment with putting different shapes together. I like to take one tribal design and mutate the crap out of it, either with liquify or by merging one or more design, that way when I'm using the brush later on it can open up new ideas for me as to what I wish to do next with an image.

Try shrinking, rotating, enlarging, duplicating, cloning, liquifying, and merging different images together to see what you can come up with. You'd be surprsied what you will find. Remember, inspiration can come from anywhere.

Help this helps a bit.

[tamlin]

I may be wrong but I believe the O.P. is asking about the actual technique of creating custom brushes and shapes. If that's the case:

CUSTOM BRUSH

1. Open the image in Photoshop.
2. If you only want part of the image to be your brush, select it with your favourite selection tool. A tip: if you're making a brush that will be used to apply a background texture, try feathering the selection so the edges of the brush will be easier to blend with others.
3. Select Edit > Define Brush Preset...
4. Give your brush a name and hit OK. Your custom brush will now be available in your currently-loaded brush set.

To save your new brush(es) to a new set, select Preset Manager from the Brush Tool's drop-down menu. Click on the brush you want to save (or use Ctrl+click to select more than one), then hit Save Set...
Give your new set a name.

CUSTOM SHAPE

Creating Custom Shapes is a little different: a custom shape is defined from a path, so if you want to create a custom shape from a bitmap (rather than a vector) you first need to define a path from your shape. The easiest way to do this is to select the area (again with your Selection tool of choice), then right-click the selection and choose Make Work Path... Set the tolerance and hit OK. You can now select Edit > Define Custom Shape...

Hope this helps.