If you have photoshop you are already aware of the awesome brushes you can use to customize your online work for scrapbooking, templates, and pictures. There are hundreds of sites online with pre-created brushes like:
But what happens if you want something more personalized or to use for commercial purposes? I wanted to show you a quick and easy way to create your own brushes that you have rights to and can be used to Watermark your images. You can package these brushes for download for others or use for a personal creation.
I also happen to think its a fabulous way to Copyright your photos with your site logo or name.
This can be especially useful as a mom blogger with pictures of reviews and children on your site. It looks a ton more professional and takes a lot less time than typing text over each photo.
A few before thoughts: Anything white is transparent, so its not necessary to be overly thoughtful on cutting out images with a ton of white around them like the sample below.
Step one:
Pick a photo or text to use for your brush. You can create something by hand in a sheet or use a photo you have taken. Its common sense to know that you need to have rights to the image you use.
I picked an image of MomDots Header Logo.
Step 2: Your photo or image needs to be turned black and white for best results. CNTRL + SHFT + U = black and white.
Make sure you fine tune after that and sharpen/darken your image.
Step 3: Click on the LASSO and select the part of the image you are turning into a brush. For this image, we want the full word of MomDot. You may have a picture where you are cutting out a flower from a group of flowers. This is where you would do that.
Step 4: Go to your EDIT on top and scroll down to you reach this:
Step 5: Name your Brush.
Step 6: Now to test it out!
Go to your brushes and select your new brush. Dont forget to adjust the size and if you want to change the opacity and color.
I pulled a picture of Charlotte to put the logo on.
Use for quick and easy marketing of your site or twitter account!
And the end result with a copyright that is hard to remove off of your images:
Last but not least, don’t forget to save your new brushes in a preset so they are there next time!
I hoped this tutorial helps you in continuing to protect and create awesome images and custom designs for your site!
~Trisha
This was awesome a it definitely worked! Thanks for the tutorial!
I made a brush!, Yay! My first one ever…I’m doing cartwheels down my street! Thanks Momdot!
Thanks…I’m getting Photoshop as part of my back to school package plus a bunch of other software I have no idea how to use. This will be helpful in a couple months!!! ;D Hope you’re having a great week!
Love it! That is much easier then going through the whole thing over and over. Thanks for posting!
I need PhotoShop!
Thanks Trisha! I was wondering how to do this with photoshop.
Great tutorial…so easy to follow!
You are so smart. And I so wish I had Photoshop! Santa, are you listening???
Never used photoshop nor do I own it
But great tutorial!!
NICE! it’s been a while since I have used Photoshop brushes… This is a great post – thank you for the short/quick tutorial! Diane
Thanks for the great informtaion Trisha. I’m very new to photoshop and was wondering how to place my logo on my images. Now it’s time to play!
I love making photoshop brushes – the possibilities are endless!
You ROCK!!! (Mwah, Mwah!)
Thank you so much for that easy tutorial. I can’t wait to try it!
Trisha, ok I have a question. I did this an existing piece of art I had just to play with it and it worked great then I built a new piece of art and saved it as .jpg and black and white (grayscale) and on this one I can’t do it, the brush presets (what it’s called on mine) is grayed out.
That is a great Tutorial Trisha and spot on! Something that i think anyone who puts a photo online needs to be able to do!
Thank you a ton Trisha! I am off to try these out…