How to Create Custom Smoke Brushes in Adobe Photoshop

What You'll Be Creating

Smoke trails are elegant, beautiful, and amazing to watch. Thin wisps of smoke dancing through the air reveal just how fluid our atmosphere really is. The effect is deceptively simple, and the dynamics of it are dizzyingly complex. 
Recreating believable smoke in a digital environment is no easy task. However, capturing the practical effect is a much easier prospect. In this quick tip, I'll share a technique that I use to create stunningly beautiful custom smoke brushes in Adobe Photoshop.

1. Create the Practical Effect

The most important thing to remember during this project is safety! Open flames are dangerous, and you should take every precaution to be able to extinguish the fire if things get out of control. Keep a cup of water nearby to douse the lit matches and a fire extinguisher at hand too, just in case!

Step 1

The materials for this project are very simple and probably already found in your house:

• A small but flameproof surface, like a metal cake pan
• Matches (or a lighter)
• Cotton swabs
• Clothespin
• Petroleum jelly

Step 2

Take a cotton swab and coat one end with the petroleum jelly. This becomes the wick of our project. The petroleum jelly will create a very hot flame that will be sustained for much longer than just a match. It will also produce much more smoke.

Step 3

Pinch the clean end of the cotton swab in the clothespin to hold it vertically. Place both on the fireproof surface. I used an inverted cake pan. This way, any scorching that happens will be on the bottom of the pan, and won't make our cakes taste funny!

Step 4

Set the pan somewhere with a very dark background and a controllable light source. You can see my setup here. I have a black backdrop hung across the back wall of the room. The light is positioned behind the wick, off to one side, and pointing upwards. I found this to be the best position to illuminate the smoke without interfering with its movement. After a few test shots, I added the reflecting umbrella to keep the light from spilling out onto the backdrop.

Here's the same setup with the light turned on and the rest of room darkened.

Even if you don't have the same photographic light equipment, you can make do with a darkened room, a black sheet, and a strong flashlight.

Step 5

Before lighting the wick, work with your camera settings. It is highly unlikely that your camera's auto setting will work, as the camera will say the scene is too dark, and the flash will ruin the shot. Instead shoot on Manual without a flash. I found that a shutter speed of 1/100, aperture of F/5.0 and ISO 500 worked really well for my setup. The release mode should be set to Continuous to capture as many frames as possible. Here's a test shot with those settings. It is very dark, but the smoke will stand out nicely!

Step 6

Now it's time to carefully light the wick. If you are using matches, be sure to have a cup of water handy to drop the lit match into.

Allow the wick to burn for a few moments to work up a full head of flame.

Extinguish the flame by gently blowing it out, and behold the beautiful smoke tendrils!

Step 7

Now! Shoot it now! Quickly compose the shot to capture the smoke against the black background. Try to keep the light and wick out of the frame. Then hold down the shutter release to get as many frames as you can until your buffer fills up. The wick will continue to produce smoke for about 30 seconds to a minute, which should allow plenty of time to capture several shots.

Repeat the process as many times as you want to produce more smoke photos. Be sure to dispose of the spent wicks in the cup of water to prevent the smoldering coals from accidentally igniting anything else.

 2. Create the Digital Brush

Now that we are done playing with fire, it's time to process those smoke images and turn them into a useful digital resource!

Step 1

Open one of the photos in Photoshop. Even though the smoke appears to be gray, there is some color information present. Photoshop disregards color when creating a brush, so it is best that we do the same. Add a Black & White Adjustment Layer to desaturate the image.

Step 2

Add a Levels Adjustment Layer and pull the outer handles inwards to touch the edges of the histogram chart. This will increase the contrast of the image and ultimately create a stronger brush effect.

Step 3

Add a new layer just above the background layer and name it Edge Treatment, and then use the Brush (B) with black paint and a large, soft tip to make certain the edges are all completely black. In areas where the smoke touches the canvas edge, reduce the brush Opacity and gently fade the edge to black. This will prevent the custom brush effect from producing sharp edges when used. Use this opportunity to also paint out any stray marks that might disrupt the brush.

Step 4

Photoshop's custom brushes interpret black as positive pixels and white as negative, so the image needs to be black on white, not white on black. Add an Invert Adjustment Layer above the others to completely reverse the black and white values.

Step 5

Photoshop will not define a brush as long as the targeted layer is an Adjustment Layer, so click on the Background layer to make it active and go to Edit > Define Brush Preset. Give the brush a name in the dialogue box and hit OK. Now this new brush will be available for you at the bottom of the list of Brush Presets.

 3. Use Our Brushes

I fully encourage you to follow along with this technique and learn how to create your own custom resources from practical effects. But If you don't have the time to do it yourself, I'm including a full set of my custom smoke brushes for you to use here!

Step 1

Download the attachment for this tutorial and unzip the CustomSmokeBrushes.abr file. Then go to Edit > Presets > Preset Manager. In the Brushes section, use the Load button to navigate to the downloaded file.

This will add 15 custom new smoke brushes to your Brush Presets.

Step 2

Now go be amazing! Take these smoke brushes and use them to create any manner of smoke-filled digital designs. Smoke is an easily recognizable natural element that can be pushed and warped into almost any form, and smoke effects add a sense of dynamic energy to a scene. So use them in fun and creative new ways.

Want More?

Can't get enough custom creative brushes in Photoshop? Hungry to learn more about how to use custom brushes in photo manipulation projects? Check out my profile of courses and tutorials here at Tuts+ and find all that, and much more!

Creating your own library of digital resources pulled from real-world practical effects is a skill that will pay off exponentially in the future. Instead of searching stock sites for interesting textures, try creating some for yourself! I'd love to see them in the comments below.

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Create Your Own Grunge Brushes in Adobe Photoshop

What You'll Be Creating

It's a fairly easy feat to create custom sets of grunge brushes in Adobe Photoshop once you have a couple of techniques down. The main ideas are to have a textured source and to play around with filters that manipulate the look of sketched-out lines and doodles. Join me below in creating a custom set of brushes, ready for painting with, using three sources of texture: scanned paper and objects, a stock photo, and manipulated doodles within Photoshop itself.

1. Scanned Texture: Preparing the Watercolor Paper

Step 1

You can download the watercolor paper by hitting the Download Attachment button to the right of this tutorial, or scan textured paper of your own. The texture of the paper is subtle, so I'm going to start by manipulating the Levels (Control-L). Enter 0.12 in the middle box under Input Levels to bring out the texture. 

Step 2

Altering the levels has brought out the yellow tone of the paper. Bring it down by simply Desaturating (Shift-Control-U) the image under Image > Adjustments.

Step 3

Under Image > Adjustments > Threshold, move the slider to the right, bringing the Threshold level to 231. Under File, choose Save As (Shift-Control-S) and save the file as a .psd.

2. Scanned Texture: Applying the Watercolor Texture

Step 1

Create a New Document (72dpi if you need a brush for web-based media, or 300dpi if you'd like to create larger, print-based media). Create a New Layer (Control-N) to begin making custom brushes.
Using the Brush Tool (B), choose a default, soft brush from the Brush panel. Brush out a small pattern or design, something similar to what's seen below (unless you have a specific shape you'd like your brush to be, of course).

Step 2

This is where the watercolor paper from the previous section comes in handy. Go to Filter > Distort > Displace. In this case, we'll use the default settings. The dialog box that pops up will also prompt you to load a .psd file. Use the watercolor texture file created in Section 1.

Step 3

Further manipulate your layer by going to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and input the settings of your choice. In my case, I chose 29.55%, Gaussian, and kept it as Monochromatic.

Step 4

Grab the Magic Wand Tool (W) and select the negative space around the little brush design you've been creating. Select Inverse (Shift-Control-I) and go to Edit > Define Brush Preset in order to name and save your new custom brush in the Brush panel.

Step 5

Play with your new brush! Change the settings within the Brush panel. Play with the Size, Angle, Noise, and Shape Dynamics to further customize your brush, and save an additional copy within the panel itself.

3. Scanned Texture: Crochet Toy

Step 1

In an effort to experiment with various scanned textures, I used the toy I made for this Craft & DIY tutorial and squished it in my scanner for the sake of art! You can download the scan I used by hitting the Download Attachment button to the right of this tutorial, or scan knit, crochet, or lace pieces of your own (toys, scarves, gloves, etc.).
We'll repeat some of the steps from the previous two sections by doing the following:

1. Sketch out a shape or quick design with a default brush (note the hardness of this brush is higher than the one used in Section 2).
2. Save the crochet texture as a .psd file.
3. Apply the Displace filter with the newly created crochet .psd file. Again, I used the default settings to create what is seen below.

Step 2

For the sake of grungy style and experimentation, let's apply the Displace filter a few more times. I changed the Horizontal Scale settings within the effect to 25, selected Stretch to Fit, and selected Repeat Edge Pixels. Hit Control-F a few times to repeat the same filter. Once the brush is to your liking, select it and go to Edit > Define Brush Preset to name and save your second custom brush in the Brush panel.

Step 3

Once again, play around with your fresh new brush.

4. Photo Texture: Using a Stock Photo, Part One

Step 1

Our texture for this section is a stock photo of dry dirt, which can be purchased here on Photodune. We're going to create two types of brushes with the stock photo. The first method is the same process as done previously:

1. Open the stock photo and save it as a .psd file.
2. Using a default brush, scribble out a shape, lines, or whatever you'd like your brush to be.
3. Load the stock texture through the Displace filter. This time I set the Horizontal Scale at 25 and the Vertical Scale at 30.
4. Select and save your brush.

Step 2

Once more, play around with your new brush. Alter the angle jitter in Shape Dynamics within the Brush panel, apply additional noise, or change its Flow and Opacity.

5. Photo Texture: Using a Stock Photo, Part Two

Step 1

This method creates a brush that's more like a texture block. Open the stock image purchased in Section 4. Adjust the Levels by setting the White Input Level to 147 and the Gray Input Level at 0.10. Then, go to Image > Adjustments > Threshold and set the level to 110 or so.

Step 2

Select the positive image left from the previous step and save it as a new brush.

Step 3

As we've done for each brush created within this tutorial, experiment with your new brush on a New Layer or within a New Document. Save any additional edits you make to the brush within the Brush panel (if you like them, of course).

6. Creating Grunge Brushes From Scratch 

Step 1

Finally, we're at the best part (in my opinion) of this tutorial: creating grungy brushes from scratch! Start as you've done with the other brush styles: drawing blobs, lines, and doodles with a default brush, using the Brush Tool. Apply the Add Noise filter to 155.68%.

Step 2

Distort your brush splatter shape further by going to Filter > Distort > Ripple at 797% (or whatever takes your fancy). Continue changing the look of the brushed-out blob shape by applying a new effect, using Filter > Pixelate > Facet.

Step 3

Let's get the shape that's sort of looking like a weird world map in my document further distorted by going to Filter > Stylize > Wind and selecting Blast and From the Right in the dialogue box that pops up. Hit OK and let's take our final steps in creating a custom grunge brush.

Step 4

Create a New Document and choose a brush that has a real scatter-like quality to it. In my case, I chose Flat Fan High Bristle Count, which has been a default brush since Adobe Photoshop CS5. Take some time to brush out a texture with it all over your document and Save As a .psd file.

Step 5

Use the .psd file created in Step 4 of this section to Displace the design we've been working on during this final section. Once again, I've applied it a few times with the Horizontal Scale set to 25 and Vertical Scale set to 30.

Step 6

Note the change in the look of the brush when Displace has been applied once versus three times. When satisfied with the look of your brush, Select it and go to Edit > Define Brush Preset to save it in the Brush panel.

Fantastic Work, You're Done!

With three texture sources and a couple of techniques in distorting brush strokes, you've created a small set of grunge brushes. Push them further with various brush shapes, texture resources, and different colors to be used when painting or editing photos.

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