How to Make Your Own Brush Tip in Paint Shop Pro

With Paint Shop Pro custom brush tips, you can "paint" with any image you fancy. Instead of drawing a circle with a plain old line, say, use that cute little rose image you have. Voila! A circle of roses. Brush tips can substitute for picture tubes when creating simple designs. (This eHow applies to Paint Shop Pro 5.0 and above.)

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Computers
• Paint Shop Pro
• Paint Shop Pro

1. Start Paint Shop Pro. Open the image that will serve as the brush tip.

2. Choose the Magic Wand tool from the toolbar.

3. For images on a solid background, click on the background and select Invert from the Selections menu.

4. For solid images, click on the image itself to select it.

5. For other images, use the Freehand Selection tool from the toolbar (it resembles a lasso). Draw around the image to be used.

6. Select the Paintbrush tool from the toolbar.

7. In the Controls box, choose Brush Tip. Click on the box containing an image of a paintbrush with a small arrow above and select Custom.

8. In the Custom Brush dialog box, click Create. A new brush tip will be added to the existing tips.

9. Open a new image and "paint" using the brush tip.

Tips & Warnings

• Change the color of the brush tip using the Foreground Color box on the right side of the screen.
• Change the fill of the brush tip by clicking on the Tool Controls tab in the Controls box. Select a texture from the Paper Texture pull-down menu.
• Obtain permission before using any licensed or copyrighted clip art, even to create a brush tip.
• Do not use images from another Web page without permission from the owner of the site.

[karileighk]

on 6/23/2009 I have done this! :) *5

[Orchid]

on 9/23/2008 I have done everything to the letter on the instructions but I can only have brushes which are 255x255 and no larger, so I have to resize the original picture. Is there a way of creating the brush and maintaining the size? Otherwise there's not much point!