brushes

[fodo]

I just discovered the "brushes" forum here (feeling dumb because it took this long to notice), and it made me wonder when I saw the recently posted "cable brushes"; is there a way to keep the paint brush even or straight instead of having to do it 100% freehand? I guess you could snap it to a grid or guidelines, but what about curves and stuff? Anyone have any hints or tips?

-fodo

[CHunter]

You can simply hold down the Shift Key when using the Paint brush to paint "straight."

To paint curves, create paths with the Pen Tool and then stroke the paths with the Brush.

Chita Hunter, Adobe Systems, Inc.

[freebird]

to separate lines when holding down shift you will have to click on another tool and then back on paintbrush. If you don't click off the paintbrush and then back on it the lines will keep connecting to each other.

Here's something you can try. Load in your assorted brushes and choose the reindeer or star one --double click on it and turn up the spacing to 100. Make a oval with elliptical tool and in path palette make your oval a work path and then stroke it choosing the paintbrush. Whatever spacing you choose determines how far apart the brush objects go but they don't always come out evenly spaced so you have to play around with the spacing a bit (or a lot sometimes)--it isn't perfect system but sometimes it comes out ok and it will help you learn more about the brushes and how they can work for you.

[fodo]

Thanks for the great help! I'll try that out, and do some experimenting. It seems that it will open up SO much potential to be able to use the brushes instead of just lines and the sort. : )
Thanks again!

-fodo

[freebird]

brushes are fun and easy to make your own. Here's a picture to help explain--and the heart brush was just made from a webding font and stroked along a path with spacing 140%

[fodo]

Ok then, that looks good. So, how easy is it to make a brush? Can I just make an image, and save it as a ".xar"(I think that's right) file?
Thanks in advance.

-fodo

[Erik Heyninck]

The brushes forum is a Xara X related forum, not a Photoshop one...

[freebird]

Thanks Erik, a little confusion going on here I guess.
OK, Xara is a whole nother program and no xar. format in Photoshop.
For Photoshop you can look in help files under brushes and creating a custom brush. You can use a brush for decoration or for adding texture to something.
Here's what I remember about making them. Use a white background and rectangle marquee around the area you want to define as the brush. Then in brushes palette click on define brush and it will save into the brushes palette. It will only save in black or shades of gray. When you go to use it then you can pick a foreground color for the brush.

[fodo]

Thanks. I thought the .xar looked kinda funny for Photoshop, because I've looked at them before, and didn't think that was extension. Anyhow, thanks much.

-fodo