Create custom brush

[Kenneth Liffmann]

A few days ago someone posted that he or she created a custom brush simulating a film strip. I thought that I should like to try to do this, but have been unsuccessful. Here is what I did:
1. scanned film strip and saved in My Pictures (Windows XP), both as TIFF and BMP.
2. Opened Elements (v.1) and opened the file
3. Used rectangular marquee with feather=0 to select, and got "marching ants". I had set marquee to fixed size, 1024x1024 px.
3. Went to Edit>Define brush
4. Named brush "film" and clicked OK
I can't find film brush in Elements.
Where did I go wrong?
Ken

[Chuck Snyder]

Ken, I just tried it, and it wound up as the bottom item of the Default
brushes list. It might wind up at the bottom of whatever brush list you
have open, not sure...but check the default brushes first.

Chuck

[Kenneth Liffmann]

Chuck,
I have Elements v.1, and there is no default brush category in the list. I do have assorted brushes, and looked there as well as among all the other preset brushes.
I thought that I followed the drill on page 144 of the user guide.
Not too long ago I downloaded the clouds brushes that someone had posted on the Adobe site, and these brushes are there in a separate category after the download.
Ken

[Chuck Snyder]

Ken, I switched to Elements v1 and defined the brush there. It showed up at
the end of the active brush set with the number it was assigned when Define
Brush was run. I made two of them and they're both there. Then I switched
brush sets, and created a new one - it appeared at the end of the
newly-selected brush set. I'm guessing you'll find it there somewhere!

:-)

Chuck

[Kenneth Liffmann]

Chuck,
I checked in windows explorer and this brush file is not there.
Going back over this, what size did you set the rectangular marquee to? Perhaps 1024x1024 px is too large.
Ken

[Chuck Snyder]

Ken, instead of Windows Explorer, go to the Paint Brush toolbox and click on
the down area next to the icon right next to the word Brush: (left end).
This will give you a dropdown of the current brushes - scroll down to the
very last one and it should be there. I think 1024x1024 is the limit, but
it should work...

Chuck

[JodiFrye]

Ken, in Pe1 the default brushes is called 'reset brushes' in the drop down. Before you begin click on that option and then when you see all the default brushes right click on every brush in that palette and click 'delete'...I think the only one you wont be able to delete is the first one ( size 1 )...( you aren't really deleting them...trust me ). Now go ahead and make the rec marquee around your film strip and click 'define brush' in the edit toolbar. Your brush should appear in the palette. Now you can use the 'save brushes' in the drop down palette and name it 'my brushes' and your brushes will be saved wherever you put them. When you need to bring them back in just click ' replace brushes' or 'load brushes'. Once you have made a comfortable amount of your own brushes you can then put the file in your presets and it will always appear in the drop down list in the program.

[Chuck Snyder]

Jodi, I see the problem: the defined brushes don't 'stick' unless you save
them in a separate folder from the default brushes...?

Chuck

[JodiFrye]

Right chuck, they don't stick. They must be saved. Do me a favor and mail me...just testing...again !

[Chuck Snyder]

Jodi, I e-mailed you about 30 minutes ago....no luck, huh?

Chuck

[JodiFrye]

Chuck, i don't understand it. I'm getting some mail but not all mail. When i called tech support tuesday morning they said they were working on it that they were having problems with their router. Meanwhile, I've mailed you, Beth and Juergen today and so far no reply. I'm getting very angry.

[imacgirl]

Ken,

I'm the one who made the filmstrip brush. I'm running PSE 2 and here's how I did it:

1) scanned the 35mm filmstrip directly into PSE 2 and turned that in to a .psd.

2) Had to first clean up the 35mm strip in Elements before making it into a brush. Used the rectangular marquee tool to remove the area that contains the negatives (made openings transparent) and then the magic wand to remove the sprocket holes so they are transparent also. Then I used the eraser tool to fine-tune them. Takes some doing to remove these neatly. You can add a drop shadow if you choose, I made my filmstrip brushes with and without drop shadows. If you want an image placed below the filmstrip to show through, you must remove what I did above. You could also paste an image on top of the negative area, but the sprockets look best removed to transparency.

3) Then I went to Edit>Define Brush and I Saved it. I see it's different in PSE1, so do a Search in the Elements Help Menu for 'Custom Brushes'...it's great, it explains everything about them.

Hope you can find your custom brushes. When I first made mine, I forgot to Save them and was looking all over in my brush list too. ;-)

Barb

[Juergen D]

I didn't look at this thread before, so here again:

Jodi,

I got two messages from you and answered both... the last one only a few
minutes ago.

Juergen

[Kenneth Liffmann]

Cuck, Jodi, Barb
Thanks for the explanations. The manual does't explains the process
in detail. Shall work on it. Still trying to digest all that this program has to offer.
Ken