The other option for working with custom brushes is to create a custom brush from scratch. A good place to start is to find an image with some texture that you would like to reproduce as a brush stroke. The next step is to make a selection around the part of the image that you want to use, and then copy the selected region to a new layer. (Layer ->New ->Layer via Copy)

 

Next, set all other layers to invisible by clicking their eye icons. The layer containing the selection you made should be the only one that is visible. At this point you can choose Edit->Define Brush Preset from the menu bar to display the following dialog box.

 

 

You should see your selection in the preview square at the left of the box. Be sure to give the brush a unique and identifiable name, and then click OK to create the brush preset.

 

(You may want to consider feathering your selection before you copy it to a layer, as this will often produce a smoother brush stroke in the end.)

 

Next, select the brush tool from the toolbox and then display the Brushes palette by pressing the F5 key.

 

 

In the brush palette, click the Brush Presets option at the top left and find the brush that you just created. (It should be appended to the bottom of the list.)

 

Click on the brush you created, and then set up the other brush attributes at the left of the palette as you require. 

(In the image above, the scale of the texture in the new brush is being increased with the slider switch.)

 

When you have finished tweaking your preset, click the Create new brush icon.

 

When the Brush name dialog appears, enter a name for the new brush that you created and customized. Click OK to save this improved brush at the bottom of the preset list.

 

 

When you have saved the newly improved preset, you may want to consider deleting the old one (the earlier version) to avoid confusion. You can delete a brush preset by dragging it from the Brushes preset list to the trashcan at the bottom right of the Brushes palette.

 

The practice exercise at the end of this lesson will give a detailed, step by step example of creating a new brush from scratch.