Set of Star Brushes

It is almost Christmas and what would Christmas be without any stars? I thought I would dive in and design several stars and put them all in one easy-to-access brush file.
You can download the file for free right here:

JAM_StarBrushSet.zip

You can place the stars anywhere on your designs and lay-outs, use them singular or have them trail a line that you draw with the mouse or pen.

To use the brushes, download the file, unzip the file to a folder where you keep your extra brushes. Keeping brushsets seperate from the Presets folder of the PhotoShop folder will help to keep loading time of the software reasonable.


Star Frame

To make a border around a picture, follow these steps:
Select the Brush Tool and load the Star Brush set and select a star.

Use these settings in the Brushes Panel:
Tip Shape: size 160 pixels, Spacing 94 % or higher

Shape Dynamics: Size Jitter: 68 %
Min. Diameter 8%

Scattering: Scatter: 20%

Color Dynamics: Hue Jitter 5%
Saturation Jitter: 3%
Brightness Jitter: 4%

Check Smoothing (= default setting)

1. Drag two guides drom each side to the place where you want the frame or border to be, these will act like your visual aids.

2. Add a new layer in the Layers Palette and make this layer active.

3. With the Brush Tool selected, place the cursor in one corner, hold down the Shift key and click on the next corner of the frame. You will now have one line with stars.

Keep the Shift key down and click on the next corner. Another line is drawn. Repeat untill all sides are done.

4. Press Ctrl + H to hide the guides.

There is so much more to do with these brushes. Go and have some fun!

Free PhotoMasks for Download

In case you don't want to make your own photomasks, here is a pack with 6 different photomasks for you to download.

Download from here (4Shared.com)

These masks were made with the free brushes that Andrei Oprinca provided for free (Personal Use only).

To make your own versions, follow the instructions below and download the brushes too.
Have fun!

Creating a simple photo mask in PS

In my previous entry I mentioned the free brushes from Andrei Oprinca and supplied the link. In case you do not know what to do with it, I made a photo mask with these swirls. Here are the instructions for you to make some your self.



1. Start with a New Document
Select a transparent background, 300 dpi and the size of the page that you want to make, or, if you use the Photo Mask later as an element in a page, set the size of the new document to the size of the photo and add some extra along all sides.




2. Use the Rounded Rectangle Tool
Select the right tool, not the Marquee Tool. Set the following options in the Options Bar: Fill with Pixels, Radius 40 px, Mode: Normal.




3. Draw the Photo Mask
With the Colours set to Default (Black is Foreground, White is Background) draw the rectangle the size of your photograph. It is helpful to have the panel Info open, so you can see the size while drawing it.




4. Clip the Photo to the Rectangle
Drag your photo into this document, and clip it to the layer with the mask. (Hold the Alt key, hover with the cursor over the line between the 2 layers in the Layers Palette and click).
If needed, adjust the size of the photo using the hot key Ctrl+T.

5. Add a Layer Mask
Make the layer with the photomask active again. Add a Layer Mask (button at the bottom of the Layers Palette).




6. Load the brushes
Select the Brush Tool from the Tool Bar. Hit F5 to open the Brushes Panel. If you have not loaded the Floral Brushes set yet, you can do this by clicking the small arrow and selecting Load Brushes.
Browse to the folder where you have copied the brushset to and click the filename. The brushes will appear in your Brushes Panel now.




7. Add the brushwork
Select a brush and with Black as your Foreground Colour, stamp once at the bottom of the photo mask like I did. Use Ctrl+Z when you don't like the effect.
Try several brushes and save the project.If you want to use the mask later as a seperate element, save it in the PNG file format. You can then drag it into a LO when you need it.

Just stamping 2 times with a brush, at top and bottom, gave this nice effect. Quick and simple!