Making a Custom Brush is one of those early PHSH effects that I actually ended up forgetting about because I always just ended up finding a work around. Sure, the work-around usually took more steps and more time, but for some reason my brain just completely dumped the Custom Brush file, so I thought it was the only way.

That was, until this year, when I was finally doing a project that I couldn’t find a work around for and had to use a Custom brush – then I got frustrated because I didn’t have a Customized Brush for the thing I was doing, and was actually mid-frustrated thought when I remembered I already knew how to make one.

Cue the embarrassment.

Luckily, I work from home, so the only person who got to see that particular fail was my computer. (And now, you guys)

Also luckily, making a Custom Brush is nowhere near as complicated as some of these other Effects I’ve shown you, and I will probably be creating all kinds of them for my work moving forward.

Step 1

Step 1 of this not-so-complicated process is to either open the picture or draw the design you want to use for the brush. Make sure you do this on a white background and have the foreground design black. This way, all the white space will become transparent, and the black will be the opaque part of the brush.

To keep things simple for this tutorial, I’ve chosen this design:

Which is supposed to look like falling snow, or possibly even rain drops.

Step 2

Once you have the design you want to use, use the Selection tool to select the area of the design, then go up to Edit then Define Brush Preset.

After clicking the button, a little pop-up box will appear, prompting you to give the Brush a name.

Once you’re happy with the name, click ‘Okay’. Then you can check that the Brush has been added to the Brush List by selecting the Brush Tool and going up to the menu at the top of the page, then click the little drop-down arrow to open the Brush Selection menu. Scroll through the menu until you find your Brush – usually it gets added to the very bottom of the list.

If you don’t see your Custom Brush listed, double-check the rest of the list and – once you’re positive it didn’t get added to the middle of the list, for whatever reason – try the first half of this Step again.

Sometimes, for whatever reason, Photoshop just… don’t do the thing you ask it to do the first time around. I have no idea why, no idea how to fix it and yes, it does annoy me, too.

Step 3

Now you should be able to paint with your new Custom Brush!

If you chose a fairly easy/simple design, congrats! You’re done. You can now go out and use your Custom Brush on any/all projects you need.

For example, as I said, I wanted to use this Brush to create snow or rain, so I can use mine to paint over pictures like:

In using my brush on this picture, I realized it’s a tad too neatly speckled for realistic snow, but the good thing about knowing how to make Custom Brushes is that I can always delete and make another one.

Or, we can just play with the settings, instead.

Step 4

You can customize the Brush Settings by opening the Brush Properties menu, which should be a dialogue box openable from the right-side panel. (The bar that’s just in front of the space with the Layers Panel and Adjustment Panel)

Once you have this panel open, you can change things like the Size Jitter and Angle Jitter of the brush so that you aren’t just painting a single line with it, as well as things like Scatter, Hue Jitter and Brightness Jitter, so you end up with a multi-coloured Brush stroke that is anything but a straight line.

To demonstrate this, I’ve gone ahead and made a new Custom Brush that started with a base of a piece of confetti, so it’ll give you the best visuals for what all the custom settings can do. I’ve also chosen a new background image to work with.

This is the Confetti Custom Brush before changing any Brush Property settings. (I also re-closed the Brush Properties Panel so it wasn’t in the way)

This is the Confetti Brush after changing the Size and Angle Jitter. My brush just ended up getting smaller when I changed the Size Jitter, so I turned that setting back down to 0% because the original size worked for my needs.

I also realized at this point I was still using Black, so I erased and re-did this part with a more appropriate colour. Which is a good reminder to always paint/add your effects to a different layer instead of the background image when you can, so you can easily undo dumb mistakes like this.

This is the Confetti Brush after changing the Scatter options. I also changed the colour to pink, so you can see what things were changed.

Also, because I’m doing this in pictures, I think it’s important to note: Thus far, the black and teal confetti bits were added individually by me. I was essentially using the Brush as a stamp, just clicking on one spot and then moving to the next.

Changing this Scatter option allowed me to add all those bits of confetti with one click. Playing with the Count setting changed how many confetti bits appeared at once and the Scatter changed how close together they were.

If you’re ever unsure of what you’re changing, check the box at the bottom of the panel, it’ll show a preview of the changes you’re making.

This is the Confetti Brush after changing the Hue and Brightness Jitter from the Colour Dynamics section. (I’ve also changed the colour again)

Changing the Hue changed the colours of the bits and the Brightness changed the white balance of them.

This is the most fun part of creating your own Custom Brush, so don’t be afraid to really play around with these Settings and experiment to see what’s possible.

Step 5

Once you’re done having fun and you’ve got the Brush Settings adjusted to the way you’d like, click on the small arrow at the top right of the Brush Properties Panel, then click on New Brush Preset from the drop-down menu to create and save the new additions to the Brush. You’ll also need to give a name to this brush – be sure not to confuse it with the original!

You’ll also want to make sure the Capture Brush Size in Preset box underneath the Name field is check-marked, so that the saved brush actually captures all the settings you just changed.

And once that is done, you have your new-new Custom Brush!

To double-check that this one also saved, go back up to the Brush Menu at the top of the page and scroll through the list until you find it. In most cases, it should be saved next to the first Custom Brush you made.

You can also go ahead and test out the brush to make sure it works as intended, and if you want, you can also delete the first Brush.

Now that you’ve saved all the dynamic settings for your new Brush and made sure it worked, you can go forth and use your Brush in any/all projects you need it for. Go have fun!

Also, if you’re unhappy with any of the settings, you can always go re-open the Brush Properties Panel and change any of the settings you need to until you get the results you want.

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