Creating a Custom Brush for Paint Shop Pro 8
Tools:
Paint Shop Pro 8
Font Type Selfish
One way to create your own custom brushes is Paint Shop Pro 8's Create brush tip from selection tool. This tutorial will cover creating a brush by manipulating letters from the Selfish font (example). Download and install the Selfish font (provided above) and open a new file in PSP8 with the following specifics:
Use the Text Tool (
)and type out whatever you'd like. See which letters
you think you could warp to make an interesting design. For now, we'll use the
letter X. (Tip: Make your brushes large so that they don't appear
all pixelly and icky if you have to resize them later.) Right now, I'm using font
size 208:
Copy the X and right click > Paste > Paste As New Layer. Make
sure the new layer is selected and go to Image > Mirror. Use the Move
Tool (
) to
drag the top X over so that it overlaps the bottom X slightly on the right. Your
image should now look like this:
Now it's time to crop the image down to size. Right click on the top layer
and hit Merge > Down. Using the Selection Tool (
),
select just the double-X design. (Tip: Use shortcut keys to save
time. Holding Shift while selecting changes the mode to Add, and
holding Ctrl while selecting changes the mode to Remove.) Once
everything's selected, go to Image > Crop to Selection. Go to Selections
> Select All. Now, click on the Paint Brush Tool. Clicking on the
Brush Type button pulls down this menu:
Click on the Create brush tip from selection button. The Create Brush Tip dialog box should now pop up:
Name the brush whatever you'd like and hit OK to save it. Now you can select that custom brush from the Brush Type menu any time you'd like! =D With the Create brush tip from selection tool, you can create custom brushes from not only fonts but also from photographs, vector designs, etc. Remember that this tool only works with selections no larger than 500 x 500 pixels. Have fun!