| Star brushes have many uses. They can add the finishing twinkle to something like Fancy Text or a spray of Magical Glitter from the offering of an Angel! They are an all important addition to any Artist's collection of brushes, with that said... Let's get started! |
| 1.) Create a New Document. Go to File > New. Make it 300 X 300 pixels at 72 dpi in RGB Mode on a White background. Now press D on the keyboard to set the Foreground Color to Black. |
2.) Now, go to the
Layers palette and click the Create a new
layer button 
to generate a New blank layer. |
3.) Hold the Shift
key and Tap U until the Line tool
becomes Selected. Go to the Options bar and Select the Fill Pixels
option and set Weight to 4 px as shown. |
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| Next, go to View > Rulers. Click on the Horizontal and Vertical rulers and pull out Guides until they snap to the Center of the Document. Go to the work area now and Draw the Pattern shown below. (In this way, the image will be Centered and the Filters used later will then work correctly.) |
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| With the image in place, you can then Turn Off the Guides by going to View > Show > Guides. |
4.) Select the Brush
tool  .
Carry it over the work area and Right-Click to Open the Brush library.
Select a Soft Round brush (I Selected the 45
pixels).then hit Enter on the keyboard to Close library. |
(If the Library is different, click
the blue arrow 
(Top Right corner) and a Pop-out menu will appear. Select Reset
Brushes. A dialog box will appear, just click OK and the
correct library will load.) |
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Now, click twice
in the center of the image to produce a nice glow. |
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5.)
Next, go to Filter > Blur >
Guassian Blur. Set the Radius to 0.5 then hit
OK to apply. (This will soften the edges a bit.) |
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| 6.) Now, go to Filter > Blur > Radial Blur and follow settings below, then click OK to apply. Press Ctrl+F Twice (to run the Filter two more times.) |
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| 7.) I usually run another Filter at the finish. Go to Filter > Distort > Pinch. (This Filter will Reduce the image for you and keep it good and sharp.) Move the slider to 100%, then apply. Now, press Ctrl+F as many times as needed to Reduce the image to a usable size. |
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| 8.) Create the brush. Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset... when the dialog box appears, name it as you wish, then click OK to close. |
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| The brush is now saved in the active Brush library as the Last entry and ready for use. Also Save the Document so you do not loose the Original image. |
| I have supplied a 36 Star brush Pak
for this CD set of Tutorials. Press B to select the Brush tool,
then Right-Click on the work area to Open the Brush-Picker.
Click the blue arrow
(Top Right corner) and a pop-out menu will appear. Select SD-Stars.
A dialog box will appear, just click OK and the correct library
will load. |
Sample
or Preset files are available at the main index Mastering
Brushes for Photoshop. |
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| Here is the library enlarged for viewing purposes. The Last 7 brushes are Special Effect brushes. |
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| TIP:
When using Star brushes to accent any works, in the Layers
palette... Click the Create a new layer button
each time before you add a Star. This will place each Star on it's
own layer and allow you to rotate them independently if needed.
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| To rotate Stars... click the layer the Star is on you wish to rotate. Press Ctrl+T to bring up the Free Transform bounding box. Now, place the curser on the Outside of one of the corners and Click+Drag to rotate. Double-Click inside the box to apply. |
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| Let's try out one of the Special Effect brushes so you get a feel of how they work. We'll start with an inspirational photo I Created for use. Go to the Samples folder for this CD and Open it. Inside locate the file named Angel.psd, then Double-Click it and it will Open in Photoshop. |
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| 1.) Click the Foreground Color swatch and change to a Color of your choice. (I used a light blue #33FFFF.) Now press B to Select the Brush tool (if necessary) and Right-Click on the work area to Open the Brush-Picker. Select the brush named Special Effect 4, then press Enter on the keyboard to Close the library. |
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| 2.) Now simply Click+Drag through the Center of the stars in an arched motion and Release. That's all there is to it! (A star just happened to crown her forehead and I decided to just leave it for a nice Effect.) |
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| Also included on the CD are special Glitter brushes courtesy of Stephanie Shimerdla. (They should be already installed and listed as SS-glitter.) You can find more great brushes from her website http://www.obsidiandawn.com |
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Using a brush from
Stephanie's set, the image was then completed. |
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| Special Effect brushes can save the user a great deal of time which would otherwise prove to be quite time consuming. |
| Use Different Foreground and Background Colors when using the Special Effect brushes to expand their effects. |
| The Full Tutorial on how to Create the starting image "Angel" is beyond the scope of this lesson, however, it will be released in my future works. |
Copyright © 2006-2007 Glenn Schemenauer - Spacific
Designs™ - All rights reserved. |
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