Turn your Pictures into Brushes

1. Start by opening the picture you would like to make into a brush.

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2. Crop away anything you don't in the brush. For my example I am going to use the pen tool to crop away everything around the dog.

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3. I then prefer to Desaturate (Ctrl-Shift-U) the photo to give a better idea of what it will look like with just one color when it is a brush

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4. Select the image by either using the Marquee Tool (M) or hold down your Ctrl key and click on the thumbnail in your layer

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5. Then on your Edit menu go to Define Brush Preset. Photoshop will then prompt you to name your brush.

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6. Now when you go to your brush palette, you will see the new brush listed last.

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CAUTION!!!
Photoshop does not save this to your default brushes, copy over your current brushes to another photoshop will not save this new brush. So this means if your computer crashes and you install a new copy of photoshop even if you backed up your brushes folder it will not be there. To ensure you have a copy saved go to your Presets Manager on the Edit menu, select the new brushes and save the set as a new name.

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Extra Credit!!!

Use your new brush on your fire template and create a flaming picture!