Category: Tutorials

You’ve just grabbed yourself a sweet texture pack (if it’s not this one, then you’re missing out) and you’re excited to get going, but wait – what on earth is an .ABR file? Well, that’s a Photoshop Brushes file. Installing them is super quick and easy and you’ll be ready in no time. Follow these simple steps to realize your textured dreams.

Locate the .ABR files

You can either find these by their file extension, or by their icon. Depending on what version of Photoshop you have installed, they will look like one of the files below.

Install the brushes

You can either drag the .ABR file(s) directly into Photoshop, alternatively, you can go to Edit > Presets > Preset Manager, select Brushes from the dropdown menu, and then add your brushes using the “Load” button.

That’s all folks!

There you have it; You have reached your destination. Hit the letter ‘B’ to activate the Brush Tool and select your brush via the dropdown menu in the toolbar.

If, for whatever reason, you have reached the end of this guide and have just noticed; “Crap, I don’t actually have any brushes, what am I doing here?” Then allow me to introduce you to my Assorted Paint Texture collection, also, I have some free photoshop brushes that you can download here for a test drive 😉

If you are looking to create your own Watercolor Photoshop Brushes but have no idea where to start, then you’re in the right place. It’s surprisingly simple and good fun once you get into the swing of things.

With the inevitable desire for all things handmade in our digital world, the request for Watercolor Photoshop Brushes and the alike have boomed (just look at the google trend). It’s the same story with Handcrafted Fonts and Hand Lettering! And where there is demand, there are people that supply (Psst…Take a look at my Assorted Paint Texture Collection). Whether you’re a professional or hobbyist, this tutorial will provide you with all you need to know to successfully create your own high-quality pack of watercolor brushes for Photoshop.

1. Scan your watercolor pieces using the highest resolution possible. There is no reason why I used colored watercolor, in fact, I recommend you use black for a better contrast. Tip: Solid black paint will not provide much texture when converted. Usually, a nice wash works best, you can always duplicate your layer to strengthen the contrast when desired.

2. Convert the scan to Black and White (Image > Adjustments > Black + White > Auto > OK)

3. Using the Brightness/Contrast options (Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast) make the background as white as possible using the sliders while keeping the detail of the watercolor as high as possible.

4. Using the Lasso Tool (L) from the main toolbar, select one of the pieces and Edit > Copy (Ctrl + C).

5. Make a new document, the dimensions of the copied piece will automatically be the dimensions of the new document. Paste the watercolor (Edit > Paste) and select Edit > Define Brush Preset. If you see a box appear, follow step 6. If the Define Brush Preset option is grayed out, then your document is larger than the maximum brush size for your version of Photoshop. Newer versions allow brushes up to 5000×5000 pixels, older versions allow 2500×2500 pixels. Ensure that your image falls within these dimensions by changing the image size (Image > Image Size). Try re-sizing the largest dimension to 5000px, if it is still grayed out, re-size again to 2500px.

6. Type your desired Preset name (This will not be the name for your Watercolor Photoshop Brushes, just this particular preset), and click OK. Repeat from step 4 for each watercolor piece.

7. Once you have completed creating all of your brush presets, open your preset manager by selecting your Brush tool. You can find the preset manager by clicking on the drop-down arrow to the right of the currently selected brush preset, clicking the settings in the top right of the box, then Preset Manager.

8. Select your lovely brushes while holding Ctrl (or Cmd) and click Save Set. A box will appear and this is how you save your brush pack. The name you choose now will be the name for your finished Brush set. That’s it!

Thank-you for following the tutorial, if you found this useful be sure to share and comment below with your finished pack. I’d love to check them out. Click on the image below to download my brush pack for free.

I offer a bunch of Free brush packs over on Inspiration Hut (An art and design blog that I run with Abbie). Grab them all using the big sign up form on the homepage 🙂

Within this tutorial, you will learn the most effective way to create watercolor typography in Photoshop using free resources created by yours truly. By following the very simple steps below you will transform your type into a lettering piece that looks hand painted. Before we start, I will be using this watercolor brush pack that I published to Inspiration Hut and the Petal Brush font from my Free Font Bundle.

1. Make a new document (I’ve used 800px x 600px). Select the Type Tool and type with your chosen font. This works with most style fonts, but for extra effect, I’ve selected my Petal brush font.

2. Right-click on your Text layer in the layers panel (the ‘T’ icon, not the text) and click ‘Select Pixels‘ (or Ctrl + Click on Layer). This will make a selection around your type. Make a new layer and hide the text layer just like the example below.

3. Selected the new layer and load your chosen Watercolor Brush pack. If you are using the same pack as I, please keep in mind that they were designed to work better with large artwork. So re-size your preferred preset to roughly fit 3-4 letters, by doing this, the quality improves drastically. Experiment with different presets and sizes until you’re happy with the results. Here is my result with the No.74 brush preset and a size of 600px (hover over the individual presets to see the number of the brush).

4. For the finishing touches, I duplicated the watercolor layer to increase the contrast and sharpened (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, then, Edit > Fade Sharpen > 40% > OK) the result. I also added a brush in the background on a new layer for an extra effect.

Now that we’ve nailed the basics – repeat the process and don’t be afraid to use color like I have in the example below. The splats were actually taken from a font that I designed (the Hamilton font family for Design Cuts)

More Examples – These examples were created using my Tallow Font Family and my Watercolor Brush Pack (No.1). My premium brush packs were created after learning a more effective way of converting artwork for digital use, so they are of a much higher quality than my free packs.

Useful Resource List :

• Free Watercolor Brush Pack 
• Premium Watercolor Brush Pack 
• Free Paper Textures (Useful for backgrounds for extra effect)
• Premium Vintage Paper Textures

This little trick is the easiest, most effective way to remove backgrounds from your sketches, custom lettering pieces, illustrations, and so much more. The quality of the end result is so good, that I use this solution to remove the background from the textures, fonts, and illustrations that I sell. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to use a custom lettering piece that I drew up real quick.

1. Firstly, let’s get your image scanned. Ideally, you’d want to use a DPI of 300 or higher. However, I have used this technique many times with nothing but an iPad camera (so it’s ideal for quick pratice pieces). Here is my very rough lettering piece. Far from perfect, but that doesn’t matter! (read the tip below).

*Tip – You don’t have to nail your finished piece on paper. Everything can be edited. Don’t throw pieces away because your lowercase ‘a’ looks a little shitty, just carry on scribbling underneath. I’ve found that by doing this I become less frustrated and more creative with my work. Also, you can see that I have the tendency to create little extras surrounding my type. They might come in handy, you never know!

2. Change your image to Black and White (alt+shift+ctrl+b) by selecting Image > Adjustments > Black & White. You can leave the settings as they are, or do what I do, click auto then OK.

3. Navigate to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast. Tick the ‘Use Legacy‘ option, and play around with the sliders until the background is as white as possible and that the texture of the piece is to your choice. The soft style I’ve gone for below will allow for some of the photo to show through (or whatever you place behind).

If you want a solid fill, your contrast will usually be much higher than your brightness. Again, the numbers do not have to be exact. Once you’re happy, click OK.

4. The next thing you want to do is copy your image. Navigate to Select > All (Ctrl + A), then, Edit > Copy (Ctrl + C). Now that you have your image copied, select the ‘Edit in Quick Mask Mode‘ (Q). Then Edit > Paste. You will now have something that looks like the image below.

At this point, turn off the quick mask mode by selecting it again (or Q again). You’ll now notice that you have the inverted selection of your artwork. Now, Make a new layer (Layer > New > Layer), inverse your selection (Select > Inverse) and fill the selection with your desired color using the paint bucket tool (G) in the new layer. Delete the Background layer, and you will be left with something like this.

5. Technically that’s it, but I’ll finish this piece. I’ve grabbed a good’ol unsplash.com stock image and placed my lettering on top (I duplicated the lettering layer, and offset the bottom of the two layers, then changed the color to a dark grey to create the shadow effect).

While the outcome looks pretty cool, there are a few issues with the lettering (specifically the letter spacing and sizes), I also want to incorporate one of the circles. This is where the joys of digital can help. Below, I reshaped the S, E, T, and C along with a few bits and pieces. Bish bash bosh, the finished piece.

Useful resource list:

• Download my original scan image
• Inspiration Hut’s Printable Dot Grid Paper
• Unsplash Stock Images