Making the Brushes
A Photoshop brush is composed of 2 parts: tip shape and presets. We’re going to make the tip shape first.
1) Create a new, transparent file 30×30 pixels in size. Next, click View>New Guide and create a vertical guideline 15px in.
2) Create a new layer and turn on snap (View>Snap) if it isn’t on already. Select the pen tool, make sure it is set to shape (circled on the screenshot) and use it to make a symmetrical black triangle, pointing up like this.
3) Go to Image>Image Size, deselect ‘constrain proportions’, and resize your image to 2500 pixels tall. This is the largest size a photoshop brush can be in any dimension, which will make your brush as versatile as it can be.
4) You now have the base you’re going to build the brushes from. Save it, so that you can come back to it. We’re going to make a few different brushes from this. Our first brush is going to be a fairly thick speedline. Click Edit>Define Brush Preset… and name it ‘Thick Speedline’. We’re going to adjust the presets in a moment.
Note: Photoshop CS3 does not appear to let you define the brush if the vector mask (the black triangle) is the active layer, but it works fine if the other layer is selected. If this does not work on your version of photoshop, try rasterizing the shape layer.
5) Let’s make some thinner ones. Resize your image to 20px wide and define another preset called ‘Medium Speedline’. Resize it again, to 10px wide this time, and call this one ‘Thin Speedline’. You’re going to need these names because the thumbnails will look very similar. You can make further, thinner versions if you like, though the thinner you go the less smooth the tapering will be.
I don’t suppose you know how to do this using Photoshop Elements 5.0? I can’t work out how to creat guidelines since it’s not under the “view” menu and if you search that into Adobe help then you just get loads of unrelated ‘guide lines’ for how to do things, rather then ‘guidelines’ if you could help that would be great thanks.
I’m not sure where in the menus they would be on 5. The only thing you need the guide for here is to make the triangle symmetrical, so you might be able to find another way to do that. (Do one side, extend the canvas, copy and flip for the other side?)
Check photoshop’s help. You also might be able to get some by dragging them off the rulers if you turn those on.
Thank you, I’ll try to find out how to do it without using the guidelines :)