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Crumpled Paper Background for Animators (FREE!)

Download this free crumpled paper HD background video loop animation for free to put behind your animation.

Paper Loop Video Specs:

  • 1920 X 1080 HD format
  • Quicktime ProRes video format
  • Two second loop
  • 24 FPS for stop motion film-look animation

It is “animated on the twos” to give a stop-motion appearance. It is 24 frames per second with each frame of wrinkled paper lasting for two frames.

Tips:

  • For a less distracting background, add a layer of white at 50% opacity on top of the crumpled paper video layer
  • To make the paper animation look less like stop-motion double the speed and each paper image will only last for 1 frame.
  • To make your video appear to be drawn on the paper, put the wrinkled paper video loop on top of your artwork in your video editing app as a Multiply layer and it will affect any layers below it (try other layer type modes for different effcts)
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How To Convert Any Photoshop Brush to a Mixer Brush

Did you know that you can convert any Photoshop brush to a mixer/blender brush by holding down ctrl+alt on Windows or Cmd+Option and clicking on it? I show you how in less than 30 seconds in this Photoshop video tutorial.

Keep in mind that not all brushes will make ideal mixer brushes and you will almost certainly want to tweak it once you make it.

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How to Scale a Photoshop Art Surface Paper texture to 600dpi

A customer told me that she always works in 600 dpi and wanted to put her artwork into an Art Surface and make sure it remained at 600 dpi so I made this video for her, showing two different ways to do it. There’s a text summary below the video

Method 1
Change the dpi to 600 dpi with resampling off (unchecked) Then paste your 600 dpi image into it (into the green ‘Artwork’ layer)
Then you can use the crop tool to increase your canvas size to any size you need and the background will magically fill in the paper texture seamlessly.
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How To Fix Photoshop Brush Lag

If you find your brush lags as you draw with your stylus, there are (unfortunately) many possible reasons but here are some things to try

The very first thing to do is to turn off smoothing on your brush, if it’s on. This can make it appear as if your brush is lagging but that is just the effect of the smoothing function, slowing your line down to even it out any jitters you may have as you draw. High smoothing will slow down your strokes considerably

Reduce Smoothing to Reduce brush lag in Photoshop

If that doesn’t help, let’s explore some more settings in the preferences (Edit > Preferences >Performance)  that may help…
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How to Export Multiple Photoshop Brushes as a Single TPL (to Import into Artstudio Pro)

Q: Can I use GrutBrushes on an iPad Pro?
A: Yes!

I get this question almost every day now and while I don’t have any proper documentation for it yet, you can import GrutBrushes TPL files into both Artstudio Pro (I love this app!) and Adobe Sketch apps

You can import any of the GrutBrushes TPLs right now, but you probably don’t want to import them one at a time. So, in this super-quick video tutorial I show you how to export a batch of TPL brushes into one file all at once. That way you can just upload that single TPL containing all your favourite GrutBrushes to DropBox, iCloud or whatever you use to get files onto your iPad.

Once you have it in the cloud you can import it into Adobe Sketch or Artstudio Pro (shown below) Someday I hope to make a video tutorial showing the whole process, but until then, both apps do currently have information in their documentation on how to import Photoshop brushes so have a look around.

Importing Photoshop Brushes (TPL) into the Artstudip Pro app on the iPad Pro
Importing Photoshop Brushes (TPL) into the Artstudip Pro app on the iPad Pro

Here I am using the GrutBrushes pattern brushes on the iPad pro! Using GrutBrushes with the Apple Pencil is a dream.

GrutBrushes pattern brushes work in ArtStudio Pro and Adobe Sketch on Ipad ios
GrutBrushes can be imported into ArtStudio Pro and Adobe Sketch on th  iPad Pros

 

…and no, sorry, you can’t use these GrutBrushes in Procreate! It has it’s own wonderful brush format but it can’t import Photoshop brushes. UPDATE: Procreate GrutBrushes are now available! They are not the same as the Photoshop brushes but I think you’ll like them just as much

There are dozens of  apps that claim to be able to import Photoshop brushes but what most of them mean is that they can import the tip shape, but that’s just the most visible but probably the least important feature of a good digital brush.

GrutBrushes are all about the dynamics…HOW the brush behaves, not what it’s brush tip shape looks like.

Unless an app imports all the brush dynamics it’s really not importing the brush.

Adobe Sketch and Artstudio Pro are currently the only apps that can import GrutBrushes Photoshop brushes. If any new apps come along that claim to be able to import Photoshop brushes and all the brush dynamics please let me know, I’ll be the first to buy it and test it out.Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

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How to Make a Photoshop Brush/Eraser toggle switch on your Stylus

1. Open Tablet Properties
2. Change one of the buttons to ‘erase’

Now when you are in brush mode and you hold down that button on your stylus, your brush will temporarily turn into an eraser! Just release it to return to brush mode and keep painting.

The temporary eraser will have the same settings as the last eraser you used

BONUS TIP: To do this without changing your preferences, just press and HOLD the “e” key to erase temporarily. Keep holding the “e” key until you are done erasing, then when you lift your stylus and then release the “e” key your tool will switch back to the brush tool!

I know you can flip the stylus over and erase, but why interrupt your flow when you can just press on a button?

BONUS TIP 2: Digital artist SyntheticGeek added this great tip for Wacom tablet users:

“I add Keystroke Modifiers to my Wacom Stylus buttons so I can more quickly use ANY brush preset as an eraser. One button to change it to a “Clear” GrutBrush and one to change it back. “Alt + Shift + R” will change it to a Clear (erasing) GrutBrush and “Alt + Shift + M” will take it back to “Multiply”.

NOTE; Not all GrutBrushes’ painting opacities are set to Multiply as their default, some are set to Normal, which would be “Alt + Shift + N”. (for Mac users Alt = “Option”). You can always just tap the brush preset again in the GrutBrushes Tool Panel. That way, you don’t have to wonder if its default was Normal, Multiply or Whatever. “

How to make a custom button that turns your Photoshop brush into an eraser
How to make a custom button that turns your Photoshop brush into an eraser

 

You could adapt it to any tablet or hardware that allows custom keyboard commands to be programmed to a button

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Adobe update breaks brush-to-eraser-tool hack Here’s a workaround

UPDATE 2020:  Simplest method of all…while painting, hold down the TILDE key: ` (usually at the top left of your keyboard while you are painting and your brush will turn into an eraser, with all the same properties, as long as you hold it down)

If, like me, you loved being able to select any tool (usually the eraser) and then pick from your most recent brushes to convert a paint brush to an eraser, or a mixer brush, or a smudge tool with all dynamic setting intact you can’t do this anymore with the latest Photoshop update (v 19) You can still use the clear mode trick to convert your brush to an eraser which I go over in the aboce video inclusing the keyboard shortcuts.

The keyboard shortcut I use in the video are
Normal Mode:
WIN: Shift+Alt+N
MAC: Shift+Alt+N)

Clear Mode (eraser mode)
WIN: Shift+Alt+R
MAC: Shift+Option+R

You can find the full list of brush mode keyboard shortcuts on the Adobe website here It’s a long list so search the page for “Use for blending modes”Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

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Getting The Most out of Your Photoshop Brushes – Exploring The Low Pressure Range

http://grutbrushes.wistia.com/medias/lpubpnx945?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=1020

Sometimes people ask me which brush I used to do the shading in this painting and when I tell them it’s the ‘Ocean Liner‘ brush they usually don’t believe me and I really don’t blame them because this is the stroke most people get when they use the ocean liner brush:

Brush stroke with average pressure applied
Photoshop Brush stroke with average pressure applied

The fact is that most Photoshop brushes have a wide range of looks that you can get simply by varying the pressure of your stylus and sometimes you can find some of the most interesting effects at the very low end of the pressure scale.

By charging the brush size slightly from 20 to 45 pixels and stroking ever so lightly, and lifting my stylus between strokes (this part is important!) I can begin to build up this nice texture.

[baslider name=”lowstyluspressure”]

Now I probably wouldn’t set out to create this with this brush but the point is to not accept your brushes at face value. Experiment and investigate how they behave at the very lowest stylus pressure ranges and you may discover that they, like you, have hidden talents.

 

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Impasto Painting in Photoshop – Quick Tips 01

Here are a few quick tips to get you going with the Photoshop Impasto brushes

I will be doing a series of tutorials on how to use the GrutBrushes Photoshop Impasto brushes but this short video above shows a few brief tips.

To summarise:
– Vary your stylus pressure and use short strokes for a more organic look
– Use a flatter Photoshop brush to block in large areas
– Press softly on your stylus to blend or soften texture
– Push harder when you want more texture
– Use alt/option to pick colours from your painting

Brush Strokes and animated previews

Photoshop Impasto painting with GrutBrushes
Photoshop Impasto painting with GrutBrushes


Impasto Brushes from Impastos 01

(Mouseover or tap the icons below to watch the Photoshop brushes drawing ‘live’!)



'Gravel Plough' Photoshop Impasto brush
‘Gravel Plough’ Photoshop Impasto brush


'Granite Sack' Photoshop Impasto brush

‘Granite Sack’ Photoshop Impasto brush


'Horse Main' Photoshop Impasto paint

‘Horse Main’ Photoshop Impasto brush


'Imp Giganto' Photoshop Impasto paint

‘Imp Giganto’ Photoshop Impasto brush


'Gypsum Slate' Photoshop Impasto brush

‘Gypsum Slate’ Photoshop Impasto brush




'Venal Weasel' Photoshop Impasto oil paint

‘Venal Weasel’ Photoshop Impasto oil brush


'Venal Weasel' Photoshop Impasto oil paint

‘Venal Weasel’ Photoshop Impasto oil brush


'Cliff Quarry' Photoshop Impasto oil paint

‘Cliff Quarry’ Photoshop Impasto oil brush


'Tenor Wake' Photoshop Impasto oil paint

”Tenor Wake’ Photoshop Impasto oil brush


'Jee Beach' Photoshop Impasto oil paint

‘Jee Beach’ Photoshop Impasto oil brush


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