Category Archives: Brushes

Cool multicolor painting tools arrive in Adobe Fresco

Brushes, Illustration, Mobile

I’ve always been part of that weird little slice of the Adobe user population that gets really hyped about offbeat painting tools—from stretching vectors along splines & spraying out fish in Illustrator (yes, they’re both in your copy right now; no, you’ve never used them), to painting with slick features that got pulled from Photoshop before release & somehow have never returned. I still wish we’d been able to shoehorn GPU-powered watercolor into Photoshop’s, er, venerable compositing engine, but so it goes. (A 15-year-old demo still lives at one of my best URLs ever, jnack.com/BlowingYourMindClearOutYourAss )

In any event, the Adobe Fresco team has just unveiled a raft of new features, including some trippy multicolor painting capabilities. Check it out:

More rockin' Photoshop brushes

Brushes

And speaking of brushes…

Brushes
  • GetBrushes.com is a fresh new repository of Photoshop brushes, featuring a user forum & RSS feeds of the latest content. PhotoshopSupport.com has a brief interview with site creator Ivan Dilber.
  • Veerle Pieters offers a short but sweet tutorial on creating grunge brushes. It gives a great start, though I’d suggest going a degree further by playing with the scatter, spacing, and other options in Photoshop’s Brushes palette.
  • The Adobe Web team has now re-launched the Adobe Exchange, combining the content of the former Adobe & Macromedia exchanges. The Photoshop section now contains brushes, shapes, actions, and more.

    • Groovy Photoshop brushes & rendering techniques

    Brushes, Illustration
  • Designer Jason Gaylor has created a handy, stylish set of Fresh Foliage Brushes (Vol. II) for Photoshop. If those are up your alley, see also Vol. I of the same set, as well as Jason’s graffiti brushes and worn brushes (Volumes I, II, and III). [Via] (For more on worn brushes & distressing images, see previous entry.)
  • Putting brushes into action, automotive designer Jonathan Tatum shares some of his moves. Seeing details pop into existence from step to step suggests a big equation with “And then a miracle occurs” hidden among the steps. (For more on automobile rendering, see also Kevin Hulsey’s techniques.)

    • Groovy Photoshop brushes & rendering techniques

    Brushes, Illustration
  • Designer Jason Gaylor has created a handy, stylish set of Fresh Foliage Brushes (Vol. II) for Photoshop. If those are up your alley, see also Vol. I of the same set, as well as Jason’s graffiti brushes and worn brushes (Volumes I, II, and III). [Via] (For more on worn brushes & distressing images, see previous entry.)
  • Putting brushes into action, automotive designer Jonathan Tatum shares some of his moves. Seeing details pop into existence from step to step suggests a big equation with “And then a miracle occurs” hidden among the steps. (For more on automobile rendering, see also Kevin Hulsey’s techniques.)

    • The Joy of Text

    Brushes, Typography

    Being kind of textually fixated these days, I thought I’d share some good type-related resources I’ve encountered lately:

    Legos + Jackson Pollock

    Brushes
    • Having logged an insane number of hours playing with Legos as a kid, I loved seeing this tutorial on how to create Lego Photoshop brushes. You can check out the tips on using the Photoshop brush engine, or you can jump directly to downloading the brushes. [Via]
    • JacksonPollock.org * offers a fun little drawing tool, good for biting the master’s style. [Via] This kind of simple, playful tool makes me want to combine the innovation happening online with desktop creative tools. How can we make extending Photoshop as simple as creating a SWF? Hmm… (For other Flash drawing tools, see TYPEDRAWiNG and Click Three Points.)

    * There’s some controversy here, as these guys, ah, colorfully assert that the Pollock site rips off their work. (Heads-up via Jon Williams.)

    Hipsters, robots, lightning, & more

    Brushes, Photography

    [Never mind that beeping sound; the blog is backing up to unload some good bits that’ve been buffering.]

  • Weekly Shot describes itself as “new kind of group photoblog and photo challenge,” encouraging regular sharing & peer review. Yes, it’s likely to be infested with damn, dirty hipsters, but it looks like fun. [Via]
  • Making out with the Terminator is par for the course in Worth1000’s latest Photoshop contest: inserting robots into fine art [Via]. [Slightly related: Drawn.ca links to a whole mess of robot sculptures.]
  • Cabinet Magazine interviews photographer John Cliett on his work to document the Lightning Field, a large piece of land art in New Mexico. The article talks about the challenge of not owning one’s images (and would-be most famous work), interpreting another’s art, and more. [Via]
  • The excellent Online Photographer blog shares some recent finds: the Klemantaski Collection offers a great set of vintage motorsports images, and Carl de Keyzer tackles Siberian prison camps and much more (click the Books section).
  • If you thought that touch screen prototype was slick, check this out: UnitedVisualArtists has created what looks to be a wicked synthesis of LEDs, 3D cameras, and motion tracking. [Via]
  • Continuing the wicked worn theme, Photoshop brush makers have been busy creating Botched Ornaments [Via] and Handwritten Letters [Via].
  • If you want to keep up with (or stay away from) what the cool kids are doing, see Step Inside Design’s take on Design Trends of 2006. [Via ] [Also for reference: Current style in Web design.]

    • Hipsters, robots, lightning, & more

    Brushes, Photography

    [Never mind that beeping sound; the blog is backing up to unload some good bits that’ve been buffering.]

  • Weekly Shot describes itself as “new kind of group photoblog and photo challenge,” encouraging regular sharing & peer review. Yes, it’s likely to be infested with damn, dirty hipsters, but it looks like fun. [Via]
  • Making out with the Terminator is par for the course in Worth1000’s latest Photoshop contest: inserting robots into fine art [Via]. [Slightly related: Drawn.ca links to a whole mess of robot sculptures.]
  • Cabinet Magazine interviews photographer John Cliett on his work to document the Lightning Field, a large piece of land art in New Mexico. The article talks about the challenge of not owning one’s images (and would-be most famous work), interpreting another’s art, and more. [Via]
  • The excellent Online Photographer blog shares some recent finds: the Klemantaski Collection offers a great set of vintage motorsports images, and Carl de Keyzer tackles Siberian prison camps and much more (click the Books section).
  • If you thought that touch screen prototype was slick, check this out: UnitedVisualArtists has created what looks to be a wicked synthesis of LEDs, 3D cameras, and motion tracking. [Via]
  • Continuing the wicked worn theme, Photoshop brush makers have been busy creating Botched Ornaments [Via] and Handwritten Letters [Via].
  • If you want to keep up with (or stay away from) what the cool kids are doing, see Step Inside Design’s take on Design Trends of 2006. [Via ] [Also for reference: Current style in Web design.]

    • The Best Distress in the West

    Brushes

    If the shiny, happy, fresh-scrubbed “Web 2.0 look” is starting to look a little clichéd to you, check out The Academics of Worn from Airbag Industries’ Greg Storey. Greg talks about ways to leverage the shapes, typefaces, and colors of the past, and he links to Cameron Moll’s popular series of tutorials, That Wicked Worn Look. Besides sharing tips & PSD source files, Cameron also links to additional discussions and a a wealth of examples.
    For more, see also these:

    PS–Hey, no matter what, design these days looks better than ye olde Web 1.0 logos, right?