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About this lesson

Learn how to create a custom brush to paint in soft fluffy clouds into a scene whenever you what, and with far more control than the automated Photoshop generator offers.

Exercise files

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Quick reference

Topic

Learn how to create a custom brush to paint in soft, fluffy clouds into a scene whenever you what, and with far more control than the automated Photoshop generator offers.

When to use

Use this tutorial to customize brushes for various uses. Paint in clouds onto an image, but you can also adjust the setting and make it fog, or billowing smoke, or simply an abstract background

Instructions

Customizing a brush to generate clouds

  • Select the Brush Tool, and then from the tool dropdown select a standard 400px soft brush.
  • From the Window dropdown menu, choose Brush
  • Brush Tip Section
    • Leave everything same except spacing (set to 30%)
  • Scattering Section (turn option on)
    • Set scatter to 120% (on both axis)
    • Control: off
    • Count: 10
    • Jitter: 100%
    • Control: off
  • Texturing Section (turn option on)
    • From drop down, select the ‘clouds’ pattern
    • Set scale to 500%
    • Mode set to ‘Color Burn’
    • Depth: 100%
  • Transfer section (turn option on)
    • Opacity Jitter: 100%

To Save this custom brush pre-set

  • At the base of the setting panel, choose the ‘create new brush’ button
  • Rename
  • Save
  • Brush will be added to the bottom of the brush pre-set menu

Tips

  • Don’t use pure white for cloud (off white with slight tint to match setting)
  • Add slight inner shadow for some extra depth.
  • Play around with brush settings for effect like fog for example.

 

  • 00:05 Hey everyone, creating a custom brush
  • 00:07 which will produce realistic clouds in Photoshop, and just to give you an idea
  • 00:10 of the result we’re looking for,
  • 00:12 this image that you see in front of us didn't contain any clouds when it was taken.
  • 00:16 It was a clear blue sky. The brush we're going to create in this video
  • 00:20 will allow you to create nice fluffy clouds.
  • 00:23 Now, some of you may be asking: well isn't there a filter in Photoshop that can create
  • 00:28 clouds for me?
  • 00:29 Sure there is. If you want your final result to look like this.
  • 00:34 You probably don't. Let's make something a little more appealing.
  • 00:40 To start the brush creation process,
  • 00:41 let's select a standard brush. Let's go ahead and use the 400 pixel soft brush.
  • 00:46 Now we need to edit the brush properties. If you don't have your brush panel open
  • 00:51 on the right side,
  • 00:52 head up to Window and then click on Brush.
  • 00:56 In this panel, I'm going to take you through some of the options which will help create that fluffy look.
  • 01:00 Some of the values will remain the same, some will change.
  • 01:03 But, like in every tutorial which contains values, you can change them up
  • 01:07 to your liking.
  • 01:07 In the first brush tips section, we're going to keep everything the same:
  • 01:12 except the spacing. Let's set that at 30%.
  • 01:15 Next down is Scattering. When you turn this option on,
  • 01:19 set the scatter to 120% on both axes,
  • 01:23 control is off, count is at 10, jitter at 100% and control is off.
  • 01:28 Texture is next. Now this is probably the most important property
  • 01:34 that we're going to be editing.
  • 01:35 Without this setting, we won’t achieve any of the fluffiness.
  • 01:38 This drop-down allows you to select the pattern for the clouds.
  • 01:42 Now, ironically, we're going to select the clouds pattern, which is right here.
  • 01:46 Now, if you don't see the clouds pattern, which many of you
  • 01:50 probably won't,
  • 01:51 click on the arrow to the right hand side and select ‘patterns’.
  • 01:54 If you click on append, it will add the new patterns to your current
  • 01:59 list.
  • 02:00 Now you can go ahead and choose the clouds pattern. As for the values,
  • 02:05 the scale will be set to 500%, mode will be kept at color burn
  • 02:09 and depth at 100%. And finally, let's turn on transfer, which on older
  • 02:15 versions of Photoshop
  • 02:16 is under the 'other dynamic section'. This will give some opacity variation to our
  • 02:21 clouds: we don't want them all to be pure white.
  • 02:24 Simply set the opacity jitter to 100%.
  • 02:27 Perfect, and that's that for the settings. We definitely want to make sure to save
  • 02:31 our brush.
  • 02:32 At the bottom if you press the ‘create new brush’ button, you can choose to save
  • 02:36 it for future use.
  • 02:37 It will now appear at the bottom of your brushes drop down menu.
  • 02:41 All you have to do now is select your brush and click.
  • 02:44 Here are my suggestions. Don't use pure white for your clouds,
  • 02:49 they really won't turn out very realistic. Use a slightly off-white color,
  • 02:53 maybe with a little bit a blue in it.
  • 02:55 You may also want to add a slight inner shadow, to add some additional depth
  • 02:59 to your cloud, but that's completely up to you. And last,
  • 03:03 like everything, play around with the brush settings. See what works for you
  • 03:06 and your project.

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