How To Create A Texture Brush In Photoshop

Sometimes there are small tips and tricks that can be subtle game-changers in your design-making ventures. Take a few minutes today to check out our tutorial below on how to add depth and texture to your brushes in Photoshop. If you haven't already,visit our posts on how to make your own textures and how to create your own vector textures in Illustrator so you can become the master of all things texture.

1. Open the brush menu

Open a new document in Photoshop and select the paint brush tool. You can open up the brush menu by double clicking the brush icon. Here you can add textures and depth to your strokes.

2. Choose a brush

Adjust your diameter and select a brush that is relatively generic. You want to be able to clearly see the changes you make by adjusting the depth of your textures, which may be impinged by crah-zay intricate brushes. We chose the top brush from the brush palette.

3. Open the Artist Surfaces

Click the small button on the right of the brushes menu to open the drop down selection menu, and click on Artists Surfaces. From here you'll see the box change to preview a range of textures.

4. Pick your textures

You can change and manipulate your Bristle Qualities within the Brush Tip Shape section which will appear in its own menu.

Click the Texture category and your new textures will load and replace the existing textures.

5. Adjust depth, contrast, and brightness

Once you've chosen a basic brush and texture from the palette, there's a general guide to follow (just remember you're only changing the texture in each individual brush stroke, not the brush):

* Increase how much texture you can see in each brush stroke by sliding the Depth slider up or down.

* Adjust the scale slider to change the size of the texture in each stroke.

* Bump the contrast to change the lightness and darkness of the texture in each stroke.

6. Protect it

Check "Protect Texture" to use this texture for all brushes. Have a play and experiment and share your favorite RB works that feature this tip in the comments below.

Have you had any success making your own brushes? Do you have any favorite RB images that use a lot of hand painted textures? Please share your work, and the work of others in the comments below.