Making reusable I-Pod-esq Styled Brushes

We've all seen the I-Pod commercials that are super trendy and just about cliché by now. Here is a great way to simulate the silhouetted style of the I-Pod characters, and use the same method to make them into a brush that you can use all the time.

Tips::

The secret to making the perfect photoshop brush is to make your subject (what you want to be the brush) high contrast and with little to no background to define it as a picture. If you want a brush that is a person - it has to be a silhouette of that person with no background. The fact it hasn't got a background is what gives it versatility. If you want a brush that is a smudge - that smudge needs to stick out / and be perfectly round in nature. This way the smudge isn't going to have square lines in the picture. But the really important thing to know to get a good brush every time is to make it as High contrast as possible. Dark darks and light lights. Gray areas or mid range colors don't work very well. Lets make a cool brush

1. Find a good photo with your subject against a light background

I chose a picture of a palm tree cuz I want a palm tree brush. This is a great pic of a palm tree cuz it has no distinguishable background. palm tree pick

2. Crop the area you want for the brush

3. Desaturate the photo

image > adjustments > Desaturate
It is going to be a silhouetted anyways so you don't need any colors, plus it makes it easier to know what it will look like

4. Brightness/Contrast

image > adjustments > Brightness/Contrast
This is probably the most important part of the entire process. You want the subject to be as dark as possible, but still contain the elements you want present in your brush. You can make it as dark as you want, but if you make it too dark the brush may be a little too rigid. If you can leave some gray in the brush that will make brush anti-alias better.

for this images I used Brightness _ and Contrast _

5. Delete any flaws

Basically you need to erase any area of the background you don't want to be in your brush. If you don't want it in any other pictures you need to get rid of it.