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Creating Brushes


maggie2

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I am trying to create a brush from an illustration and I can create the brush okay. However, when I resize the brush to a smaller size the lines come out grey instead of black. Can anyone tell me how to prevent that? I want the lines to be black like they are on the brush at the size that I made it. Any help would be appreciated.
Marg
 

IamSam

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Hey Marg, post the brush (.abr file) so we can take a look at it.
 

MrToM

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Change the foreground colour to black?

I'm guessing that whats happening is that the foreground colour isn't actually 'Grey' as you claim but that the 'Brush' has some 'transparency' allowing a lighter colour to show through.

Try using the 'Pencil' tool instead of the 'Brush' tool....if that looks ok then you have transparency.

Or better still.....do as Sam asked and post the brush.

Regards.
MrTom.
 

IamSam

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LOL!! Now who's watching who?

I was just explaining that!
 

MrToM

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Great minds think alike!....(But you knew I was going to say that)

Regards.
MrTom.
 

maggie2

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I have tried to post the brush without success. I can see when I'm in Photoshop and go to my brushes but when I go to my brushes through the program files it is not showing up so I don't know how to get it into there so I can post it here. Hey, my 65 year old brain just doesn't function like it used to! LOL!

I did try using the pencil and when I do the smaller I make the size the darker the brush comes out! Not sure why that's happening?

Anyway, here is a file showing the various sizes of the brush and how it looks when I use different sizes. Maybe this can be helpful. Hope so.

brush1.jpg
Hope this is helpful. If not, let me know and if anyone can tell me how to find that brush so I can upload it I will.

Thanks,
Marg
 

IamSam

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Just for fun, this is how you would save a single brush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O4QKX1YEPE

edit: of course you would skip the part about loading the brush.

Let me check. I don't know if we can still upload .abr files. I think the last time I tried, it would not let me and I had to use an offsite host.
 
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IamSam

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Marg said:
I did try using the pencil and when I do the smaller I make the size the darker the brush comes out! Not sure why that's happening?

As MrTom pointed out, it's because the original was not solid and contained transparency. What you need to do is remake the preset making sure that the outlines are completely black.
 

MrToM

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IamSam

I'm getting an invalid file attachment....
maggie2

Zipping the .abr will work though.

I don't think you need to upload the brush though to be honest....its evident from your image that there is transparency in the brush.

If you look at the larger 792px size brush you'll see that the edges of the lines are various shades of grey. This could be due to feathering or anti-aliasing when you made the original brush preset but whatever, when you make that brush smaller those 'grey' bits still have to be accounted for, despite the drastically reduced number of pixels that make up the smaller brush size.

As you make the brush size smaller those 'lines' get thinner, to a point where in order to still accommodate the 'grey' bits some of the inner 'black' bits get squeezed out...there just aren't enough pixels to show every shade of colour in the line.....hence the outer 'grey' pixels take precedence and as a whole the brush becomes more 'grey'.

Making the brush smaller is effectively 'transforming' the image used for the shape of the brush, reducing the amount of pixels used for it.....it stands to reason that any reduction in pixels is going to reduce the number of different colours that can be used.

Depending on how you intend to use this brush you can 'duplicate' the layer to reinforce the 'grey' pixels....if you duplicate enough times eventually all the 'grey' pixels will become black.

Be warned though that this does rely heavily on how you intend to use the brush.....it may not be possible in your workflow to duplicate the layers and if you do you may need around 8 duplicates to make everything black.

50% transparency added to 50% transparency does not equal 100% transpareny...its around 75%.
Add another 50% to that 75% and you get around 83%.....8 duplicates should get you as near to 100% as makes no odds.

I mention 'duplicating' the layer as hitting the exact same place with the brush 8 times could lead to missalignment......duplicating removes all alignment error.

Regards.
MrTom.
 

IamSam

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"I don't think you need to upload the brush though to be honest....its evident from your image that there is transparency in the brush."

I agree.
 

maggie2

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Ian,
I knew how to save the brush just never thought to save it to my desktop! So I did that and now will try to upload it at the end of this message.

Mr. Tom, so can you tell me how to avoid the transparency? Is there a way to do that? I cut the graphic out from another one and wanted to use it as a brush. Is there a way to do that and avoid the greyed pixels?

Thanks everyone for the help. The people here are always so helpful.

View attachment Sample2.abrView attachment Sample2.abr

Well, I tried to upload it using the image icon and what I got is above. Guess that didn't work for me.
 

IamSam

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Marg, when you created your brush you just did not make sure that it was all black, there is some transparency in it.
 

MrToM

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...Mr. Tom, so can you tell me how to avoid the transparency?...
Sure...

When you create a brush preset PS uses this process:
Any pixel that is 100% black will have 0% transparency...or 100% Opacity if you prefer.
Any pixel that is 100% white will have 100% transparency...or 0% Opacity if you prefer.

Therefore in order to avoid any transparency the image used for the brush preset must only contain either 100% black or 100% white pixels.

In other words....no grey.

Regards.
MrTom.
 

maggie2

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Sure...

When you create a brush preset PS uses this process:
Any pixel that is 100% black will have 0% transparency...or 100% Opacity if you prefer.
Any pixel that is 100% white will have 100% transparency...or 0% Opacity if you prefer.

Therefore in order to avoid any transparency the image used for the brush preset must only contain either 100% black or 100% white pixels.

In other words....no grey.

Regards.
MrTom.

Thanks, Mr. Tom. Can you tell me how to get the grey pixels out of the picture I want to use? That will make a very hard line, won't it? Will it not look jagged? And would it work better if I were to learn to use Illustrator? I have it but don't use it. However, I would give it a try if you think it would work better.

Thanks
 

IamSam

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If you still have access to the original illustration or the psd file you used to make your brush, isolate the pattern again as you did before. Once you have it isolated, make several (6) copies of the layer (Cmd/Cntrl + J).

Once you have done that, highlight all the copied layers and hit Cmd/Cntrl + E to combine them. This should make the the pattern close to 100% opaque (black).

Now use this to define a new brush preset.
 
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IamSam

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Hold the phone..............

Making the original custom brush 100% opaque does NOT change the problem Marg is having.

This is a 100% opaque custom brush. Notice how it loses it's opacity as you make the brush smaller....
Screen Shot 2015-04-19 at 6.39.21 PM.png

Notice a standard brush maintains it's opacity as it becomes smaller.
Screen Shot 2015-04-19 at 6.48.32 PM.png

Any thoughts?
 

MrToM

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...Thanks, Mr. Tom. Can you tell me how to get the grey pixels out of the picture I want to use?...

The easiest way is to use a 'Threshold' adjustment layer...

Using your image as an example I set the 'Threshold' to its maximum...255...

threshold_MT_03.png

...then backed it off slightly to remove the noise....around 253...

threshold_MT_04.png

Once you've done that create your brush from it...

...BUT...

Reducing the size of the brush will still result in a soft edge and the 'grey' colour.

Unfortunately, custom brushes cannot have a 'Hardness' setting....the brush is defined purely on the image used.....in pixels.

What you'll have to do is create several brushes of differing sizes.
Use the 'threshold' technique above to get your original clean.
Make one copy of it for each brush size you want.
Transform each copy to the size you need making sure that 'Interpolation' is set to 'Nearest Neighbour'.
Isolate each layer and create a brush preset from it.

Thats about the only the way I can think of to maintain a hard edge with a custom brush.

Using a 'Shape', converting to a 'Shape', using illustrator or PS to create a vector is pointless as whatever is used as the 'image' is always rasterised before a brush is created from it.

Thats not to say the actual image is rasterised, but when used for a brush preset it will be a rasterised version of it that is used.

Regards.
MrTom.
 
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IamSam

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It amazes me at how there are completely different interpretations of what is stated in these posts. Makes me want to throw in the towel.
 

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