(clicking on an image will take you to a full view of it, websites of creators are underneath their images)

Eby-Paidrick Designs

Bert Monroy

I-Evermind

*Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, it is intended to give a brief idea of what is possible, if you want a more complete overview, I suggest you try a google search like this: Photorealistic Illustrator

This Brush pack is entirely free for non-commercial use, however, if you intend to use it for commercial purposes, then feel free to contact me.

Anyway, enjoy the free flower Photoshop brushes!

2. Now press the ‘L’ key on your keyboard, this should automatically select the ellipse tool, so you can start drawing some circles.

3. With the ‘Shift’ key held down, click and drag the mouse to make a circle, as big or as large as you like.

You’ll get something like this:

4. I’m sure you’ll want to change the colours, so pick some new ones from the drop down boxes on the ‘Path’ panel at the top of your screen (while your circle is selected)

You can also change the size of the line around the outside, by changing the stroke to 4 pt (or whatever you like) You should now have something like this:

5. Now add another, smaller circle wherever you like within it, and make it white, or close to it, depending on the shade you like.

6. Now select both of these circles by clicking on one of them, then holding down the ‘Shift’ key and clicking on the other.

7. Go up to the top menu and click ‘Object’ then ‘Blend’ then ‘Make’, or simply press ‘Ctrl’+'Alt’+'B’ on the keyboard

You should get something like this:

also by making other circles of different colours and using the transparency bar, you can create some nice glassy orb effects.

Favicons are so called because they were first used in IE 6 (I believe) and only applied to websites that you had saved in your favourites bar.

They used to be a cool way to make your site stand out, now they’re an essential way to keep up with the crowd.

The basics of favicons are simple really, your icon should be as simple as possible, (even mine probably needs dumbing down a little) The simpler your icon is, the easier it will be for people to notice it and recognise it when it’s only 16 pixels wide!

*most websites only use 1 or 2 letters for their icon as any more is impossible to read!*

So if your website doesn’t have a favicon, head over to the Favicon Generator. and upload any square image to have it turned into a favicon!

Unless you already have a leaked version of the Beta Entitled ‘Stonehenge’ then you probably don’t know what to expect.

The biggest boast made about the upcoming release is that it will have increased support for monster graphics card accelleration

But I don’t have a monster GPU

you might say, and of course, this new feature most likely won’t benefit the majority of users. I think it’s important to note that this is just an attention grabbing feature - as of yet, nobody really knows what to expect! But we’re pretty excited anyway!

But don’t take my word for it, you can see Photoshop Stonehenge in action for yourself

*notice the build date of November 2007, meaning that this is such an early release it’s probably more like a fixed version of CS3 than a real build of CS4*

This new release is expected anytime between October and April, but there’s no official release yet.

1. So, start with the image you want.

*It’s important to have as big an image as possible, the bigger the image, the bigger the brush!*

2. Make sure you get the image on to an editable layer, the easiest way to do this is to go to the layer box (usually on the bottom right of your screen, depending on if you’ve moved it)
Click and hold on the ‘Background’ Layer and drag it onto this icon. This will create a new, editable layer, called ‘Background Copy’

3. To get best results, you should cut out the image using the pen tool. However, you could also use the magic wand or lasso for a slightly rougher finish. If you don’t know how to use the ‘pen’ tool, then try out this tutorial: What is the pen tool anyway? (coming soon)
Here’s my elephant after cutting it out with the pen tool.

4. Now, here comes the secret part. You could just save that as a brush, but the trouble is, it still looks just like a photo. That’s fine if that’s what you want. But I’m going to show you what I do to convert it to a more simple image that I think works better as a brush.

5. Firstly I like to desaturate the image, just hit Ctrl+Shift+U

6. Then click on the Fill/Adjustment layer icon, this will open up a menu, and we want to select ‘Threshold…’

7. In the threshold box, we can move the slider left and right to gain the effect we want.

Now it’s just a case of saving the brush!

8. Simply hit ‘Edit’ on the menu bar, then ‘Define Brush Preset…’

9. Then enter a name for the brush (the name isn’t important really, CS3 displays all your brushes as images anyway)

Congratulations, your new brush is now ready to use!

10. Select the brush tool

11. On the Brush toolbar, click the small downwards arrow, just to the right of the current brush. This will open the Brush menu.

*Note your brush menu may appear slightly differently, it’s been changed in the latest update to Photoshop CS3 to the one I have displayed*

12. If you click the arrow in the top right of this menu, it will open a drop-down menu, the option we’re looking for is ‘Preset Manager…’

13. Select all of the Brushes you don’t want, and hit press delete on your keyboard, then click ‘Done’


9. Now, to save your new Brush. Just like in step 6. We want to click the little arrow on the brush toolbar, just next to your new brush.

10. Then, again, click the arrow in the top right of the brush menu.

11. In the drop down menu, select ‘Save Brushes’

Technorati Tags: make, brush, photoshop, cs3, tutorial, guide, how to, free, brushes, easy

*Note, this guide is for images like the one below, which you’ve either made yourself, or you don’t wish to edit.*
For making brushes from a photo, or other image which needs altering first, then please read the tutorial on The Secret to Making Brushes from Photographs

1. Firstly, we need something which you want to turn into a Brush. Here’s a tentacle I made in Illustrator and copied into Photoshop.

When it comes to Brushes, the bigger, the better! - This gives you more flexibilty later when you come to using them.

2. Either get the image in it’s own document in Photoshop, or select it with the rectangle tool.

3. Simply hit ‘Edit’ on the menu bar, then ‘Define Brush Preset…’

4. Then enter a name for the brush (the name isn’t important really, CS3 displays all your brushes as images anyway)

Congratulations, your new brush is now ready to use!

*If you wish to save your brush to a file, say if you wanted to submit it to a site like Brusheezy then continue!*


5. Now select the brush tool

6. On the Brush toolbar, click the small downwards arrow, just to the right of the current brush. This will open the Brush menu.

*Note your brush menu may appear slightly differently, it’s been changed in the latest update to Photoshop CS3 to the one I have displayed*

7. If you click the arrow in the top right of this menu, it will open a drop-down menu, the option we’re looking for is ‘Preset Manager…’

8. Select all of the Brushes you don’t want, and hit press delete on your keyboard, then click ‘Done’

9. Now, to save your new Brush. Just like in step 6. We want to click the little arrow on the brush toolbar, just next to your new brush.

10. Then, again, click the arrow in the top right of the brush menu.

11. In the drop down menu, select ‘Save Brushes’

12. Pick a name, and where you want to save it, and you’re all set!



Technorati Tags: make, brush, photoshop, cs3, tutorial, guide, how to, free, brushes, easy

Essentially, this brilliant tool allows you to scan any image for color schemes, it then generates two sets of colors: ‘dull’ and ‘vibrant’ ok, so it’s not exactly feature-packed. It is however, rather useful for if you want to create a whole color scheme around an image. So, for example, you had a header image which you wanted to use as the basis for an entire site, well bingo!

The main draw-back is that you can’t use this tool with images on your hard-drive. So it involves uploading the pictures to the net, you can either do it to your own site, or, alternatively to Flickr, Photobucket or Imageshack

GIMP and Inkscape

If you’re familiar with the Linux operating system, then you will probably already know about these two programs. Although they are both available on Windows and Mac OS X, they are more well known as stars of the Linux pantheon. GIMP and Inkscape are free rivals to Photoshop and Illustrator, respectively.

GIMP boasts intuitive and powerful tools and controls, meaning it goes right in many places where Photoshop goes wrong. Unfortunately I can’t help but feel like it’s just a watered down version of Photoshop, not to mention that the amount of available online resources (brushes, etc) is abysmal. However, it’s probably still the best alternative by far. And since it’s free, and available on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, well, that’s a lot more than can be said for Photoshop! Also worth special mention is the ability to extend GIMP with various user created plug-ins, allowing for endless possibilities for customisation!

Inkscape also partly falls into the trap of trying to be too simple and easy. It is a very versatile vector program, and you can see some user’s creations Here So it’s clearly capable of some impressive stuff. It is however more prone to problems than Illustrator, and as can be seen on the support forums, Inkscape appears to be in ongoing development instead of a state of completion.

Also worth a mention is the aptly named Draw mostly because of it’s inclusion and integration with OpenOffice This makes it very useful, IF you happen to use OpenOffice, however, it’s not much use to the rest of us. Especially considering that it’s pretty run of the mill.

I would go on to review other programs, such as: DrawPlus but then why review the rest, when you’ve already done the best?

Here is a set of 2 Car brushes that I had left over from another project, they’re simple, yet effective! Also feel free to make requests for any other freebies you might want.

This Brush pack is entirely free for non-commercial use, however, if you intend to use it for commercial purposes, then feel free to contact me.

Anyway, enjoy the free wood Photoshop brushes!