Size Limitations

If you want to make a brush that is “High-Res,” you will need Photoshop CS2+. In CS2 and CS3 you can make brushes up to 2500px in size. (height or width) In Previous versions like CS, 1000px is the limit. (and maybe much smaller for really old versions, I’m not sure).

Setup Your File

You all probably know that you can make a PS brush out of just about anything, so setting up your file correctly is key. Wether you are using a scanned image, a photograph, or whatever, you need to set up your Photoshop file in a way that will give you the best results for your brush.

Mistake:

It may be temping to have a file open and see something that you want to make a brush out of and do it on-the-fly within that file, but in order to make a brush knowing it is sized right, it’s always a good idea to make a separate file to make your brush.

Setting Up The File:

You may not need a high resolution brush, but what if you need the same brush to be larger 6 months down the road? It’s always a good idea to make your brush as large as possible in order to use it for other projects later. If you are in CS2 or 3, You can make your file 2500 X 2500px. If you are running a previous version of Photoshop, you will most likely be limited to 999px, if not less.

Color

You can use a color image to define a brush, but you might find it easier to convert your document to Grayscale in order to get a better idea of what to expect. When defining a brush preset, Photoshop will automatically convert your selection to grayscale to make the brush. White pixels will become transparent (which means you don’t have to erase the white/background pixels! Keep reading below for details), Black pixels will be opaque, and everything in between will be see-through black/gray.

Adjust Your Image

It’s only natural that your image may need a little tweaking before it’s brush-worthy. Here are a few adjustments you can make. (all found in the Image > Adjustments menu)

Levels

Curves

Exposure

Shadows/Highlights

Brightness/Contrast

The Secret About Brush Making

For the longest time I couldn’t figure out how people made such detailed brushes, and I kept telling myself that it would take way too much time to clip out the intricate shapes. Well, there’s a reason why even the novice Photoshopper can make amazingly detailed brushes. Like I said earlier, since Photoshop defines brushes based on a grayscale, there is no need to erase or clip anything! All you have to do is use the adjustments above (you may want to erase unwanted pixels here ands there) and everything that is 100% white disappears. White=Transparent, so put down that eraser or magic wand, and define your brush.

Define Your Brush

Once you get the right amount of contrast and black/white in your image, you’re ready to make a brush. Make sure you have the correct layer selected and do a “select all.” Command/Control + A. Now go to Edit > define Brush Preset.

Name your brush, and you’re done!

You should now see your new brush show up in the brushes palette. So? What are you waiting for? Start Brushing!

Final Image

This is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

Open up a new document (1024X768px) and paste in a photo of a skateboarder.

You can find the original photo here: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/143913

Step 2

Now use your lasso tool to cut around the skateboarder, and then copy/paste him onto a new layer. Then do the same for his board, and copy/paste this onto a new layer also. Then merge the layer’s together. The image below shows the data on the merged layer, with the original photo hidden:

Step 3

Now return to your original photo layer, and apply a linear gradient overlay ranging from FDBE37 to D47300. Set the blend mode of the gradient to ‘hard light’, and the angle to 50 degrees. The image below shows the original photo layer, with the isolated skateboard layer hidden.

Step 4

Now find an old paper texture image. I used this one: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1088062. Apply the paper texture over your photo, and then change the texture layer’s blend mode to ‘overlay’ and it’s opacity to 70%.

Step 5

Now make your isolated skateboarder layer visible again and apply a gradient overlay (gradient ranging from: 012544 to 010D16). Make sure that your blend mode for the overlay is ‘multiply’.

Step 6

Now duplicate your skateboarder layer and change your gradient overlay to a black color overlay (settings shown below). Then erase away parts of this layer using a large, soft eraser brush. Don’t erase all of the black overlay layer, but just enough to allow some of the dark blue layer show through.

Step 7

Now paste in one of the images from our Free Sunburst Set. Make sure that you paste the image onto a new layer above your original photo layer, but below your old-paper texture layer as you want the texture to be applied to this shape. Once you’ve done this, apply a red color overlay, and reduce the layer’s opacity to 20%.

Step 8

If you noticed in the last step, the sunrays overlapped the building and edge of the skate ramp in our photo. I want to create the effect that these objects are in front of the sun rays. To do this I select my sunburst layer and go to layer>apply layer mask>reveal all. Then I select around my building/skate-ramp and fill my selection with black. This will mean that any data within these areas becomes hidden. You can see the result of this in the image below:

Step 9

Now create a new layer below your isolated skateboarder layers and above your texture/photo layers called ’splatter’. Grab a free splatter brush (I used one from our roundup up of 40+ Halloween/Gore Themed Brushes). Select a nice grungy looking brush and set it’s color to black. Then apply it to the edge of your skateboarder. Keep applying different brushes, trying to achieve a melting kind of look.

Step 10

Now find a retro looking pattern online, I picked mine up from SquidFingers.com, a great resource for patterns and other freebies. Open the pattern image in a new Photoshop document and then go to edit>define pattern and choose a name for your pattern. Then return to your original document and duplicate your sunburst layer. Go to blending options for your duplicate and remove the red color overlay and apply a pattern overlay instead, using your newly created pattern. Be sure to make your pattern overlay’s blend mode ‘hard light’. Then reduce this duplicate layer’s opacity to 10%.

Step 11

Now find a photo of some clouds. I used this image: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1099805. Paste it over your image, making sure to place the clouds over your sunburst layers, but below your texture layer. Then change the layer’s blend mode to ‘linear burn’. Finally to fade the photo gradually into the main background, apply a layer mask (reveal all) and then drag a black (100% opacity) to white (0% opacity) linear gradient upwards to mask off the bottom of your cloud image.

Step 12

Now find an image of some smoke and paste it into your document. I used this image: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1073897. Rotate the image to fit over the chimneys on the roof of the house in your photo, (to rotate to go edit>transform>rotate and then manually rotate it). Then duplicate this smoke layer and fit the duplicate over the other chimney on your house.

Step 13

Now change both layer’s blend mode to ’screen’ and you’re left with just some white smoke, minus the original black background. Then use a large, soft eraser brush at around 25% opacity to erase the parts of smoke that cover up the chimney tops, and also erase the edges of the smoke so that it appears more natural.

Step 14

Now paste in an image of some tape onto a new top layer (I got an image from the Grunge Essentials Freebie Pack right here at PSDFAN). Then to make it darker apply the hue/saturation/lightness settings shown below:

Step 15

Now type some text over the tape, and rotate it using edit>transform>rotate.

Step 16

Now select each of your letters using the magic wand tool. Then with your selection still in place delete your text layer. Select your tape layer, and then apply a layer mask (reveal all). Then fill your selection with black to hide the areas of tape that follow the shape of your text.

And We’re Done!

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial, and would love to hear your thoughts on it. If you appreciated the techniques that I’d love a Digg or Stumble :). Just click on the image below to view the full sized wallpaper.