Modifying brush properties

Hidden away at the bottom of a popup in the Tools panel is the Art History Brush tool. The first time you experiment with this tool, its default brush settings can be off-putting, to say the least. But with a little experimentation, you can produce interesting results:

1. Go to File → Open and browse to the 10-Brushes folder. Select four documents, Brush-01.jpg, Brush-02.jpg, Brush-03.jpg, and Brush-04.jpg, then click Open.
2. Each image is taken from a series of paint marks I created, captured with my iPhone and then cropped down to size. I applied a Levels adjustment to ensure that the white background is pure white (red 255, green 255, blue 255) and the brush has transparent edges. With Brush-01.jpg active, go to Edit → Define Brush Preset. Name it Brush-1 and click OK. Close the document.

Figure 10.6: Saving real brush marks as digital brush tips in Photoshop

3. Repeat the same step for Brush-1,...