Making brushes in Photoshop for experts

VisceralD

So questions for the experts, I have a huge folder of alpha brushes that I built up in zbrush. Is there a quick way I can convert my folder full of multiple alpha maps in to a photoshop preset folder (.abr) I can start painting with.

iconoplast

Yes, but to do it in a not-annoying way takes a little setup. Luckily, since I've needed to do this too, I can save you everything except the need to copy a few files and follow instructions. I did this in Photoshop CC 64-bit on Win 7 and make absolutely no promises that it'll work anywhere else, but with that said it really should as none of this is calling on any particularly advanced capabilities. Each brush will be named according to the filename it has when you do this, so make sure you like that if you don't want to change it manually later.

Here's what you need -- copy the .jsx into your /Presets/Scripts/ folder for Photoshop and put the .atn in the /Presets/Actions/ (or wherever if you want to load it manually). If everything is on a transparent background, leave the conditional (the "If") unchecked in the actions. If you have stuff that's on a black background, check it. (More advanced instructions for that below.)

Next, go to File -> Automate -> Batch... . Choose "Make-a-Brush" for your set, and "AutoBrush" for the action. Set up your source and leave destination as none -- the action is set up to ignore any changes that might be made to the base file, so files aren't going to be saved. When you click OK, it'll open each file, make the brush, then close the file. I recommend clearing out your brush presets in advance so you can just save the new ones as soon as the automation finishes.

As for the black backgrounds: that "If" statement just runs the "Black to Transparent" action (and there's not an actual condition on it, I just don't know another way to call an action inside another action in photoshop). Test that on a few files before you use it in bulk. The "Levels" command in there is just running an Auto-Contrast to cope with files that aren't well prepared. Uncheck that if you won't need it. The "Color Range" selects black and things close to it and does its best to not leave a sharp edge. If you aren't getting good results with it, double-click the action step that says "Color Range" and play around with the values, then click OK. It'll save the new values to the action (though that's only temporary unless you explicitly save the action set again after that).

Hope it helps you out! Let me know if you've got any questions.

VisceralD

thanks, your the perfect person to help me with this