Tutorial: Custom Brushes/Stamps in Photoshop

Here's What You Will Need:
- Paper that can withstand wet media
(I use Bristol Board - I don't recommend watercolour paper because the texture will get in the way - you want a smooth surface)
- Cup of clean water
- Brushes of various sizes/textures
- Black or dark-coloured India Ink / Acrylic Paint / Gouache / etc
(you don't need all of these, just one or two - something that dries quickly!)
- Various fun things / found objects - think feathers, sponges, tissue paper, paper towels, anything that might make a fun texture, etc.
- Adobe Photoshop & Scanner

So, we've got our supplies all set up. 

Start making marks and have fun with it!

Organic, loose textures are usually best - for example, dip your brush in your india ink and flick it onto the paper. Or lay down your paper towel, wet it with water, and lay ink over top and let dry. Or stamp with a dry/wet sponge. The point is to be free and messy ;)

Make sure you leave white space around each mark!

Here's an example of mine: 

Once your marks have dried

(I did about 6 pages worth), 

scan them in at 600 dpi.

Scanners usually default to 300 dpi - this will not be large enough; just go in and change it before scanning. 600 dpi is extremely important - you will want to create large custom brushes, so the higher the dpi, the larger the brush will be!

Bring your file into Photoshop. Adjust Levels. 

(Image > Adjustments > Levels)
Adjust the white and black so that no paper texture shows.

Zoom in. Lasso the texture you want to make into a brush. Copy it.

Then, create a New Document. 

I do 8.5x11" at 300 dpi.

Cropping is important,  

because you don't want a ton of whitespace around your brush. It will be hard for you to tell where it hits on the page when you go to use it.

Then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset 

(this is making it into a brush)

See that little number below the brush thumbnail? 

That's the largest you can scale the brush up to. You can always scale down, but if you scale up beyond that number, your brush will appear pixelated. This is why we scanned at 600dpi. If we had scanned at 300dpi, this brush could only go up to roughly 690px. Too small!

Now we're ready to use our new brush!

Make a new document. Select your brush tool.

Go up to the brush size/type icon to change your brush. Scroll down - there is your custom brush!

Gorgeous! We're so happy, we have custom brushes! 

Go and repeat this process with your other textures. 

Once you get the hang of it, it goes really quickly!

(Just a small note: if you are making brushes and wanting to transfer them to another computer, save to a thumb drive or CD. To open on another machine, go to Edit > Preset Manager; Load > Select .abr brush file. Voila!)


Here is an assignment I did for my Computer Illustration Class using my custom brushes:

{ art (c) erin mcmanness 2012 }


Thanks for reading this tutorial, lovely birds! 
Hope it was helpful & enjoyable :)
Any questions? Comment away ~!