Need Help Creating a Custom Brush

[Rich54]

I'm trying to create rope in Photoshop. I used the pen tool to create this basic shape, which I saved as both a custom vector shape and as a custom brush:






If you string enough of these together, you get a reasonable simulation of rope, like below. If I set the brush spacing to about 60%, I can draw any length of rope in seconds. However, when I increase the brush size beyond how I originally created it, the brush edges start to pixelate badly, like the blue section below.

Every other brush in Photoshop stays sharp at any size. I can't seem to find instructions for how to create a custom brush that will stay sharp at any pixel size.

Anybody know how to do that?

 

[thebestcpu]

Have you tried starting by creating the initial brush much larger? A brush can be made up to 2500 x 2500 pixels. Brushes scale down much better than scaling up.
Just a thought
John Wheeler

 

[Rich54]

Actually, yes. The brush I made is already larger than what I need. I also saved the design as a vector shape, so I can easily create another, much larger, custom brush by starting with a very large vector. But now I'm curious about how brushes are actually made.

The brush tool allows a brush to be sized up to 2500 pixels. I suppose that if I create the custom brush at 2500 pixels, then anything smaller will automatically not pixelate. Is that how all brushes are made? Or is there some special technique that makes them behave more like a vector shape?

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi Rich
I don't know all the ins and outs of brushes with the myriad of settings and what controls edge sharpness.

Here is an example. I took a standard photoshop shape, made it fill the square size of 2500 pixels, rasterized it and created a brush.

Then I took your posted image, double the size and just brushed across wit the spacing set so that they did not overlap. Looks pretty crisp.

So other then that, we could dig down into your specific bush if you want. I have no problem helping out debugging a problem (lifeblood for me ). If that is of interest, I think the first step would be for you to save the brush preset. and add it in a post. You just go to the brush panel, select the brushe (or brushes) you want to export and choose from the hamburger dropdown "Export Selected Brushes" to save the brush preset to a file. I could import it then and examine it as a starting point. That would help confirm its size and its starting sharpness.

Just one approach to go after it and other forum members may jump in with their thoughts too.
John Wheeler

 

[Rich54]

I did the same with my shape. I took the vector version, enlarged it to 2500 pixels, rasterized and made a brush that is perfectly crisp at that huge size. Maybe this is how all brushes are made.

 

[thebestcpu]

I think something else is going on with your brush, either in its creation of the settings when using it. I made a hue map of your image and showed the boundary around the brush edges from the pure blue to the background color hue. It was a nine pixel distance.




Yet for the same brush I just did, the distance was only 2 to three pixels.




So yours should be a lot sharper if you started with a 2500 pixel brush. May have to dig in further.
Let me know how I can help
John Wheeler

 

[thebestcpu]

Once you have your Path turned into a Shape Layer, before raterizing, check the properties panel for the Shape. The feather needs to be at zero for it to have sharp edge.
This may no be the issue, yet it can be a source of softness
John Wheeler

 

[Rich54]

So yours should be a lot sharper if you started with a 2500 pixel brush.

In my original post, I used the very first brush I created, which was 125 pixels. This is larger than my immediate need, but — just as an experiment — I enlarged it beyond 125 pixels and then ran into my pixelation issues.

After one of your posts, I went back and created a second custom brush, starting from a vector shape at 2500 pixels. With that new huge brush, there are no pixelation issues at any (smaller) size.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought that the standard set of Photoshop brushes were somehow immune to pixelation issues because of a command or technique that I don't know about. But perhaps it's actually the case that all photoshop brushes were originally created at the maximum 2500 x 2500 pixel size, so it's just an illusion that they have some kind of special non-pixelating quality.

Here's the vector shape, if you're interested.

 

[kabak]

Hi!
An easy alternative
You can use this font (Rope Rich54)
and
make it like a normal text with: ROPE or always one of these 4 letters
RopeRich54-Regular.ttf : https://www.cjoint.com/c/OBlljCgjznp

 

[thebestcpu]

In my original post, I used the very first brush I created, which was 125 pixels. This is larger than my immediate need, but — just as an experiment — I enlarged it beyond 125 pixels and then ran into my pixelation issues.

After one of your posts, I went back and created a second custom brush, starting from a vector shape at 2500 pixels. With that new huge brush, there are no pixelation issues at any (smaller) size.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I always thought that the standard set of Photoshop brushes were somehow immune to pixelation issues because of a command or technique that I don't know about. But perhaps it's actually the case that all photoshop brushes were originally created at the maximum 2500 x 2500 pixel size, so it's just an illusion that they have some kind of special non-pixelating quality.

Here's the vector shape, if you're interested.

HI @Rich54
I misunderstood that your problem was solved when make a larger brush to begin with. That is what I experience as well.

When I took your PSD of the vector shape and set it to your initial size, created a brush preset and then enlarged itto the ~l390 pixle size, it duplicates closely what you were seeing.

Some of the brushes PS has work differently as you suspected. One item of note is that you can set the hardness of the PS brushes and the ones your create yourself you cannot.

That is about the end of my knowledge about brushes. Maybe another forum member has more info
John Wheeler

 

[IamSam]

Have you tried creating a "Custom Shape Tool"? I made the original shape, that I created the tool with, fairly large (from your file). Always available just like a brush.



This is a screen shot, but shows much less aliasing in the two different sizes I made with the custom shape tool.




If I were making a rope, I would just duplicate and move.



It can be resized maintaining it sharpness.
Bottom "rope" is the same image you see above. The top "rope" has been resized using free transform.