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- If you want more information on the different options for brushes available in the Brush Settings Window, Obsidian Dawn has an excellent video that goes into detail about each of the options. Find it here. She also has a tutorial about creating brushes that might have a bit more detail than I went into and you can find it here if you are interested.
The challenge for this week would be to make a custom brush or ten! 
Show us what you made, or share the ABR if you are inclined.
It's time to vote for your favorite entry in the first monthly "Show & Tell" Challenge. (Any and all are welcome to vote and to join us if you'd like to participate next month!) It will just take a minute to vote and it would be much appreciated.
The entries are located in this forum post. Each response has been assigned an entry number. Scroll down through the entries--there are 29 to choose from. Pick your favorite (it's gonna be hard--there are lots of pretty responses.) Take note of the entry number assigned to the one you like best. Click the link to the poll. Tick the number for your choice and click "vote." That's it! Thanks so much and good luck to everyone who entered!
Hi Annette. Thanks for this tut. I will have to change my focus for awhile. I am busy learning how to create brushes in Adobe Illustrator at the moment.
I'll have to watch those videos later. I might want to dive right in and try my hand at a dynamic brush. We'll see how it goes. lol
Well, I didn't dive in headfirst and toy with making a dynamic brush. lol I'll test that out some other time.
For this challenge, though, I made 6 brushes in PSP, saved as pngs, then opened in PS.
Scalloped heart: I don't know how to do scalloped anything in PS, not yet at least. However, a long time ago I made a scalloped line style in PSP. It can be used on any preset shape. Comes in handy!
Flower 1: It's the one that's gold. I drew out an oval and used Mesh Warp and Warp Brush on it to get a petal look. In PSP, you can rotate a single layer around the canvas center. I put the bottom of the top petal close to the center of the canvas, duplicated it, rotated it at varying degrees, and continued until I had 5 petals. I then moved the petals around to give it a not-so-uniform feel.
Star Outline: Easy to do in PSP. Used a preset star shape, set background to transparent in Materials settings, and in the Shape settings I adjusted the line width to create an outline/cutout/whatever you want to call it. lol
Flower 2: The pink one is a flower I made years ago. Desaturated it and saved it as a brush in PS.
Round-Tipped Star: It was pretty darn pointed, but I used Mesh Warp, Warp Brush, and the Push tool on it.
Dotted Heart: I first drew out a heart shape, then used the circle Brush tool (with the Step adjusted for even spacing) very, very, very slowly around the edge of the heart.
The download is in my freebie thread.
This one goes far beyond my abilities!lol
But I will watch the videos and try to learn how a brush is made... personal challenge!lol
Manu Scraps has an action for stamp and brush making. Thanks for the brushes Christina. Hopefully I can do a few today.
Here is a preview of some of the brushes I have made so far. How do I share the abr file?
There is a flower scatter brush, a chain brush, a coil brush, a string art arrow head brush and the eyelet brush is also a scatter with a color hue jitter.
OH, YAY . . . you made brushes! Very fun, Gail. I especially like the chevron that looks like it is satin-stitched and the flower scatter GOOD JOB!
To export an ABR file, you either highlight all the brushes you want to include or if you made a brush group, you can activate that group file folder and then from the little gear in the upper right-hand corner of the brush picker box, you choose "export selected brushes." Choose a place you can find them again to export them to . . . I chose my desktop. And name it whatever makes sense when the dialog opens up to do so. Your ABR (with either the highlighted brush selection OR the brush group you defined) will be wherever you saved it. You probably will need to put it in a zip file to share it. ABR is kind of a weird file type.
If I didn't explain that well enough or it is confusing, I sure can screencap some pics or answer questions, Gail. LMK.
Thanks so much for playing and making brushes, Gail! I love them!
Hi Annette, I have saved them. I want to find out how to share them here if anyone is interested in them. Your tuts are making me explore more than just the basics that I have been used to using. Thanks again for them. Love them.
Gail, I didn't mean to interrupt your Illustrator lessons. Is it confusing to be learning both software at the same time? My thought (20+ years ago) was I would learn Photoshop first and then tackle Illustrator. I guess I still don't feel like I have figured PS out completely because I never shifted my focus to Illustrator!
Gotcha. I use Media Fire to share my zips here, but if you don't pay, it isn't a direct link.
Drop Box?
You can share ABR files in The Commons. They are under "Photoshop Sundry" for some reason. Share a preview and then upload additional files (your ABR) on the next page.
Does that help? (And of course, you are welcome. I am glad you found the Scraptorial helpful and were inspired to try making brushes. YAY!)
No worries, Mariana.
The scraptorials don't have a due date, so you can always come back to them when you have time or feel confident enough to give them a try. The videos I linked to have a lot of information in them. My eyes might have glazed over a couple of times from being overloaded with a bit too much information.
I need to watch them again in a few days and let all the information percolate and hopefully some of it will stick with me a bit better.
I love using brushes in Photoshop, but I usually let people (who are more talented and inclined to do so) make them for me! It was fun to figure out the basics of it so I could write up the scraptorial, but I don't really aspire to be a professional brush maker, so that might be why the vids overwhelmed me a bit, too.
What a fun, useful set of brushes, Christina. I am trundling over to your freebie thread to snag them as soon as I post this comment. I really like your off-kilter daisy and the star with the rounded tips BUT I can see a use for all of them and thanks so much for explaining your process. I do like reading how people get stuff done.
Thanks so much for playing and making brushes! And for sharing them with us! You are awesome!
Annette, I am actually finding illustrator easier to use for drawing and designing than photoshop, with the result I am flipping between the both of them. I will try dropbox and the commons. Thanks. If all else fails, I am prepared to e.mail those who want them.
I made them pretty darn big. lol That way people can use them on papers and resize them smaller if necessary.
I have no idea if PS has the ability to rotate a single layer around the center. It's a massively useful feature in PSP when designing flowers and other stuff from scratch. I used to make butterflies, bows, etc. using the warp tools. Using extracted real stuff is a time-saver and a half! Creating graphics from scratch is a very time consuming process. But that's where scripts/actions come into play. It's just a lot of work and I don't have the desire to do it as much anymore. Although, I do, very much so, love Diane Hiller's stuff.
Anyway, like you, I'd rather use brushes made by other people. It's easier and there are SO many options out there to play with, so I really don't have to make my own brushes anymore. With that said, thank you for the tutorial! It's always fun learning new things and stretching out my creativity. You are awesome for making these tuts. I realize it's a lot of work, doing the research, writing up the tuts and challenges. So just know you are greatly appreciated!
Gail: Those scatter brushes are superb! Super useful for everyone! I mean, who doesn't love a good scattering on their layouts? lol
I made one!!!!!!!!!!! Uhuuuu!!!! Just do not know how to export it and put ir here... You are all too cool to teach us these awesome things!!!!!!!
Christina: I can send the file to you if you like since I can't seem to share them on here.
Hello. I need help please. I have put my abr file into my dropbox. How do I share the link. Thanks
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eivp3o1wasv1f9u/Gail%27s%20Brushes.abr?dl=0
I think I figured it help. Please let me know if it works.
Yes, you figured it out! Just tested it and it works perfectly! Great job!
Mariana: Select the brush you want to export, then click on lined tab in the upper right corner of the brush panel. Scroll down to "Export Selected Brushes". That's it!
Thanks
Thanks for the brush set Gail the download works fine. I didn't see any other links for the brushes but nice job everyone. I use Paint shop pro but I'm going to see what I can come up with to join in.
Hey, Beth. I put my brushes in my freebie thread.
I created mine in PSP. I also use PS, but I've been using PSP for over 20 years, so I'm very reluctant to giving it up completely, especially since I simply don't know the ins and outs of Photoshop as I do PSP.
Glad you're joining in!
I followed the Scraptorial, but I must be missing something in Elements, as it just wouldn’t work for me. It appears to create the brush, but that’s as far as I get. I tried to follow the Obsidian Dawn one as well, but I just couldn’t follow it. So I’ve posted in the forums to see if a smarter PSE user can point me in the direction of an easy to follow tutorial for Elements. It’s probably some simple setting that I’m missing. I might have another go another day, when I’m fresh. But for now it’s got me beat.
EDIT: I've had another go, following the scraptorial, AND what it says in the PSE User Guide, and it still doesn't work for me. The User Guide tells me to do things that aren't even options in either v15 or v2023, so I have no idea what to try now.
PSE has Edit > Define Brush, so it MUST be able to be done, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it! Hopefully someone will reply to my question in the forum...
I've now had another look at the Obsidian Dawn tutorial, but I'm too tired to try that again tonight. That's for future me to worry about!
Thanks so much, I found the file Christina. I 100 % get what you are saying. I also have been using it for 20-plus years & just can't let go.
This link is to the user guide at Adobe.com. The one they say is for PSE2023. It might be what you already looked at and couldn't find the answer, but I share it in case it is different and might be helpful.
Beth: Glad you were able to snag the file! At this point, I switch heavily back and forth between PSP and PS. The two things I stopped doing in PSP altogether are recoloring elements, as it's so much easier and quicker in PS (and I get better results), and gaussian blur--PS's goes beyond 100. The majority of my personal templates are PSPimages, so Color Changer works just fine on them. I've been slowly converting my templates to PSDs, though--here and there when I use them. The brush options are also extremely superior to PSP. The two things I don't care for in PS are bevel and drop shadow. Beveling in PSP has way more options and distinctiveness to get all kinds of looks--same with Eye Candy. I have a gazillion bevel presets I've made over the years, and I've never managed to come close to recreating any of the looks I like in PS. Perhaps I'm just not used to PS's drop shadow, but I've used it on a few flower centers and, to me, it just doesn't look right. Although, it looks fine when certain others use it. Both programs have pros and cons in my opinion.
Other than PSE having less extensive brush settings and the settings being part of the brush selection, I was able to follow the directions. Thanks, I have never saved my own brush group.
This is from the font "Love is in the air" using the question mark, the dot from the 'i' instead of a round dot, and SheilaReid_distressedset02_ texture (7)
PSE brush settings:
I can't see anywhere to make the brush rotate while dragging. Maybe there is not a dynamic brush, but only a 'stamp' type brush? I will have to look into that.
I don't know if I am allowed to post links to other sites here, but if not, please let me know or delete the post.
Here is a very nice tut for PS dynamic brushes, they go through all the different aspect in detail. For those who are interested
https://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/photoshop-brushes/
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