Using PS7 Brushes
page oneIt’s pretty frustrating to be in possession of the Photoshop 7 Brushes palette when you can’t paint a straight line. Luckily, there are still quite a few things that you can do that don’t require you to be a painter.
Please note that brush dimensions are measured in pixels so a low resolution image will use a much smaller brush than a high res picture in order to get the same effect. With that in mind, for this tutorial, please use File > New and choose Default Photoshop Size from the Preset Size menu. Make sure Resolution is 72 and Contents is set to White.
In the toolbox, click and hold on the shape tool to get the tool fly-out menu. Choose Custom Shape Tool from the group that appears.
On the shape tool’s options bar, click on the the Paths button. It’s the middle of the three icons at the left end of the options bar, shown highlighted below.
On the shape tool’s options bar, click on the thumbnail to the right of the word Shape. This will open the custom shapes pop-up palette. In that pop-up palette, look in the upper right corner and click on the little down arrow to open the palette menu. From that menu, choose Nature to load the Nature shapes. Choose Append in the alert that appears.
In the Nature palette, look at the very bottom and click on the Grass 3 shape. It’s the last shape in the palette. Hover your cursor to have the tool-tip show its name if you’re not sure. Once you’ve chosen it, press the Enter key to close the pop-up palette.
Place your cursor on the upper left part of your new white document and drag down and to the right. If you find yourself to near an edge, you can press the spacebar (while still holding down the left mouse button) to reposition your shape in mid-drag.
Open the Paths palette by choosing Window > Paths. You’ll see one path titled Work Path.
You need to save the path or you’ll lose it the minute you make another shape. Double click the words Work Path in the Paths palette. In the Save Path dialog, either click OK to accept the default name of Path 1 or give it a name of your choosing.
Open the Layers palette by choosing Window > Layers. Click on the New Layer button at the bottom of the palette (it’s the icon just to the left of the garbage pail), or you can choose Layer > New > Layer.
Open the Swatches palette (Window > Swatches). Click on the little down arrow in its upper right corner to open the palette menu. Change the display to Small List. From the list, click on the color called Dark Green. This causes that color to become your foreground color.
Go back to the Paths palette. Click once on your path to select it if it is not still showing dark blue (selected). Then click on the Load Path as a Selection button at the bottom of the palette. It’s the one third from the left.
Go back to the Layers palette and make sure your new, empty layer is still selected (showing dark blue). If it’s not, click on it to select it. Then press Alt-Backspace, or choose Edit > Fill and Foreground from the menu to fill the selection with the dark green color that you chose from the Swatches palette. Press Ctrl-D or choose Select > Deselect to deselect. This creates our starting shape, shown below.
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Go to the Layers palette and add a new layer, same as before. Make sure it’s on top (new layers are created above the currently selected layer, so click on the green shape layer before clicking the New Shape button). Make sure that new, empty layer is selected.
In the toolbox, choose the paintbrush. Make sure the paintbrush tool’s Mode is set to Normal on its options bar. Throughout this tutorial, whenever I ask you to change a blend mode, it will be in the Layers palette, not on the paintbrush tool’s options bar.
Open the Brushes palette by clicking the Brushes palette icon at the right end of the paintbrush’s options bar or by choosing Window > Brushes.
Click on the Brush Presets tab if it’s not already selected and scroll down the default palette to find the ‘Hard Pastel on Canvas 33’ brush. If you have a hard time finding the right brush, try clicking on the little arrow in the upper right corner of the palette and choosing Large List. This will change the way the presets are displayed and make it easier to identify your presets.
Go to the Swatches palette and click on the swatch called Light Pea Green.
In the Paths palette, make sure your path is selected and then click on the Stroke Path button at the bottom of the palette. It’s the one second from the left. The Stroke Path command uses the currently selected tool and color to stroke the selected path. You need to make sure you have the paintbrush tool selected in the toolbox with the right brush and right color also chosen before stroking your path (as we have done).
When the path is selected, it shows up as a sort of glittery thin line in your picture. This can be distracting. To see your stroked shape without the path getting in the way, go to the Paths palette and click in the empty gray area below the path.
Undo the stroke or delete its layer. In the next technique, I’ll show you how to use strokes as fill.
After you’ve removed the stroke layer that we just created, you should be looking at just the original green filled shape. Make a new layer above it. Then go to the Paths palette. Press Ctrl and click on your path. This is a shortcut to load the path as a selection.
In the Brushes palette, do the following. From the top Brush Presets tab, choose the Spatter 27 preset. Then click on the Shape Dynamics tab and set Size Jitter to 100 %. Click on the Scattering tab and set Scatter to 100 %. Click on the Color Dynamics tab and set the Foreground/Background Jitter to 100 %, Hue Jitter to 5 % and Brightness Jitter to 50 %. Under the Other Dynamics tab, set Opacity Jitter to 30 %.
Go to the Swatches palette and click on the swatch called Dark Green Cyan to make that your foreground color. Press the Ctrl key and click on the swatch called Light Pea Green to make that your background color (pressing the Ctrl key while clicking a swatch selects the background color).
Make sure your selection outline is still active and your new, empty layer selected in the Layers palette. Then scribble within the selection until you get it filled as shown in the top example, below. When finished, choose Select > Deselect or press Ctrl-D..
Undo your painting or delete the layer and make a new empty one in its place. Go back to the Brushes palette. Click on the Brush Tip Shape tab (not the Brush Presets tab). From the Brush Tips palette, choose the ‘Soft Elliptical 131’ tip. It should be in the very last row at the bottom of the palette. Unfortunately, you can’t change the way the palette displays in Brush Tips the way you can under Brush Presets, so you’ll have to hover your cursor and rely on your tool-tip.
As before, go to the Paths palette, Ctrl-click on the path to load it as a selection and then scribble with the new brush within the selection to fill it with a different blurry, blotchy bunch of color. Deselect when you are finished. See the results second below.
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