House of 3

Think of Brushes as Virtual Stamps.  You can  stamp in various colors, sizes, alter them & get a variety of looks with these brushes.  Digital Brush kits include black PNG files &1 ABR brush file that has the actual brushes in it.  We include the black PNG files for those that do not have Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  You can actually use the PNG files similarly to the brush; drag & drop them onto your canvas, change colors, rotate, etc.

I’ll show you how to load the brushes, recolor/stamp in color, turn & rotate the brush & add layers for a complex look.

Loading Brushes.
1. After you’ve unzipped your Brush kit,  go into Photoshop, select the Brush Tool & click on the arrow to bring up the Drop Down Menu as shown here.  **Mac users; double click on the ABR brush icon & it will automatically load the brushes in your brush palette.



2.  Select>Load Brush (Here, in this Drop Down Menu, you’ll notice a bunch of options. This is where you’ll organize, name, save your brushes later.)
The Load Window will come up & you’ll find your Hof3 Medallion Brush kit.  Select the ABR folder & you will click on the ABR brush icon.  Load.

3.  Now when you look at your Brush Tool Palette, you will see the Hof3 Medallion brushes are loaded.
Size: The number under each brush is not the pixel size, not the name of the brush.  (if you need to know the name of the brush for publishing purposes, simply hover your cursor over the brush & the name will appear.)   Brushes go up to 2500 px.
You can change the size of brush in the Master Diameter Slider. Simply move it up or down.  But, beware.  The size of the brush has a direct effect on the resolution/sharpness of your brush. For example, the Hof3 Medallion brushes are about 900 px.  If you want them bigger, you can slide them up to 2500 px, BUT they will get blurry.  Sometimes you may like that blur, but other times you won’t.
So, just be careful when adjusting the size.  The more you veer from the original size; too large or too small- and it will effect the sharpness of the image stamped.

4.  Now, let’s use these brushes.  Rule #1. Always create a New Layer when you brush/stamp.  Never stamp directly on another Layer. This will make it easy to delete the Brush layer instead of damaging the photo or paper.

So, go to: LAYER>NEW.
Select your Color you’d like to stamp/brush. I have pink for this layout.  And, I’ve created a New Layer under my photo so I can have my stamps peeking out from under the photo.

5.  Simply click the Hof3 Medallion Brushes where you want. If you ever want to delete what you just did, simply hit: apple+z or ctrl+z.

6.  Now, to change the rotation, spacing or even size of your brush go up to your Menu Bar & click on the Brush Tab.

This window will pop up & click on the Brush Tip Shape. This window allows you to control your world of brushes.

A. Diameter: much like the Master Diameter in the other window you can use the slider to adjust the size of your brush.
B. Rotation: You can flip the X&Y Axis by clicking on each of those little boxes.  You can also rotate the Angle Degree by either typing in the degree in the Angle box OR simply rotating the arrow in the circle to turn your brush how you’d like it.
C. Spacing: Here you can use the slider to space out your brushes. I.e. for the Hof3 Medallion brush, if you want a scalloped look you would adjust the slider until you see the brushes spaced at about 92%.  Voila! Scalloped Brush!

We could do an entire class on Brushes because there are so many things you can do with them. For now, this is a great beginner tutorial, but
here are a couple of tips!

Straight Line: Select a default brush, hard, round & about 5px.  Hit your Shift Key while you drag your brush & you’ll have a perfectly straight line.
Dotted Line: With your hard, round brush (any size) go into your Spacing & drag the slider until you have a good dotted line.  Now use the technique above & you’ve got a perfect dotted straight line.

Practice, practice, practice.  Once you get the hang of these, we’ll go into more depth!  Seriously, Digital Brushes will rock your world whether you are a digital scrapbooker, mixed media artist, blogger, photographer or even a traditional scrapbooker!  The world of brushes is a*mazing!

enjoy!

R