How to Create Custom Photoshop Brushes on your iPad

As a digital artist, I have so many favorite brushes that I use in programs like Procreate and Photoshop. Chances are you do too. But the thought of creating my own brush didn’t occur to me until well into my professional career.

It started with editing existing brushes, and then creating brushes from fun textures I’d see around. I eventually learned that the process that I used to be intimidated by can actually be simple.

Together, we'll go through my process for creating custom Photoshop brushes using the free app, Adobe Capture.

All you need to get started is your iPad.

Ready? Let’s get creating!

What is Adobe Capture?

Adobe Capture is a free companion app for Adobe programs. Use it to identify fonts, create color palettes, brushes, and more.

Using only your device's camera, you can create assets you can import and apply in programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fresco.

It has been the secret to streamlining my brush-making process. Typically, you’d use a scanner or editing apps to capture your brush texture. Then you'd need to bring it into Photoshop to refine and edit your brush settings.

Using Adobe Capture means you only need your iPad or iPhone. Let's explore how to create the foundation for your Photoshop brush.

How to capture a texture or shape

Creating an interesting brush usually starts with an interesting texture, shape, or mark. Most of the time, I see something cool randomly and think that it’d make a good brush. Other times, I just make marks on a scrap piece of paper. I prefer to experiment with different traditional materials like pencils, pens, and markers, but this part of the process can also be done digitally.

No matter how you're sourcing your brush texture, it doesn't matter if you can't see it. Make sure you're taking a clear, well-lit photo of your texture. This will ensure that you get clear details and accurate colors. This is similar to my approach for creating Procreate brushes.

Once you have your texture, you can adjust your settings to your preference. Edits can be made in a separate app, but Adobe Capture includes all the editing tools, including built-in presets.

Don't have time to wait for inspiration to strike? Paperlike offers many free brushes for you to enjoy in Procreate right now. They were created by talented artists from Paperlike’s ambassador community.

How to turn your capture into a brush

To turn your capture into a brush, it helps to understand the editing tools and settings you have access to. There are six adjustments and two effects. These appear like selectable presets similar to what you’d see in Photoshop Express. You can select multiple to stack their effects. The intensity of these edits can be changed with the slider.

You also have the opportunity to remove light and dark values from your image. Select the ‘-’ icon and place your color chip on the color that you want to remove from your image. The slider adjusts the amount of color you're removing. I suggest you play around with this to help you break the image down into simpler forms or remove the image background.

Once you've adjusted your capture, you can tap the camera button to open the brush Edit menu.

Refining your brush

Now you’re ready to further refine your brush using the Edit menu. There are four tab sections: style, crop, settings, and refine.

The two styles of pixel brushes in Adobe Capture are Photoshop & Fresco brushes and Fresco Ribbon brushes. Photoshop & Fresco brushes are black-and-white only. Fresco Ribbon brushes can be either color or black-and-white. This creates a repeating pattern from your texture and lets you create a linear, mirrored, or stretched version of it.

In the crop tab, you can stretch and scale your sample image. The tail, body, and head of the brush can also be defined here, giving your brush a new look. I like that as you change your crop, your brush preview changes in real time. If you haven't already, this is where thinking about how you envision using your brush can be very helpful as you make edits to its properties. Will it be for sketching, inking, lettering, or creating large areas of texture? Your intentions will guide you as you work through each Edit tab.

You can also test your brush as you create it in the white space. Testing your brush throughout the process is key. Think of it like tasting a sauce recipe as you slowly add new ingredients!

Under the Settings tab, you’ll find your brush-defining options. These are mainly controlled by toggles or sliders. Here is where you’ll choose the default size for your brush, the angle, pressure settings, spacing, and jitter. The angle of your brush affects how it flows as you draw. You can have this set to directional, initial, or none.

The pressure settings can be set to affect the size and flow of your brush. Pressure sensitivity is important for achieving varied stroke sizes as you apply more pressure. As a lettering artist, I love using pressure-sensitive brushes for calligraphy and script. Spacing and jitter determine if your brush strokes will have gaps and how far your lines sit from the body of the stroke.

Refining is the last tab and lets you edit your brush texture value. You can use the slider just as you would on the initial capture screen. What you won't see here are the additional preset adjustments, so make sure you have all of those settings in place. If you try to go back, all of your current edits will be lost.

Importing and testing your brush

Once you’re satisfied with your changes and settings, export your brush and save it. Select the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen and save your brush to a library.

Your Creative Cloud Libraries are where you organize your creations. These will appear across all of your Adobe programs. Be strategic when naming your files and your libraries so that they’re easy to find in other programs. For example, all of my brushes are saved in a Brush Experiments library.

By default, your brush will be saved as an .ABR brush, the format used in Photoshop. Because Photoshop is such a popular program, other programs can read its brush type, including Procreate and Adobe Fresco. This means you have many opportunities to test and use your brush.

Make sure that all the settings and features you entered are behaving as you intended. Check your pressure settings, direction, and flow. If anything seems off, go back to Capture and make edits as needed. You can even share your file with other artists and peers to get their feedback.

Using your brush in Adobe Photoshop for iPad

Adobe Photoshop for iPad is the only Adobe program that doesn't have access to your brush files from your library. Because of this, you'll have to access your brushes differently.

Here's how to import your brushes into Adobe Photoshop for iPad:

1. Save your brush file to your Files app.
2. Open your brush panel and select +.
3. Select Import from files and open your brush file.
4. Scroll to find your brush name in the brush panel.

Alternatively, you can also open your Files app and select the brush files that you want to import. This will automatically open Adobe Photoshop for iPad and automatically import them into your brush library.

Using your brush in Procreate

Procreate is one of the most popular digital art apps for the iPad. That's why it's great to see brush compatibility for a legacy app like Adobe Photoshop. This gives you flexibility and the opportunity to get more out of the brushes you create.

Here's how to import your brushes into Procreate:

1. Save your brush file to your Files app.
2. Open your brush library and select +.
3. Select Import from files and open your brush file.
4. Scroll to find your brush name in the brush panel.

Like Adobe Photoshop for iPad, you can import your brushes into Procreate in different ways. You can also open your Files app and Procreate in a split-screen view. Then you can drag and drop your brush file to automatically import your brush into the program.

Using your brush in Adobe Fresco

This is the companion app to Adobe Photoshop. This makes using the brushes in Fresco seamless. You don’t have to save your brush file in a separate place, making it easy to access in Fresco.

Here's how to import your brushes into Adobe Fresco:

1. Save your brush from Adobe Capture into a library.
2. Open the brush panel and scroll to Library brushes.
3. Select the name of your brush library.

You can still import your brush from the Files app if you save it there to use in other apps. Like with Photoshop and Procreate, you can import your brush from the Files app using the Import from files option.

How I make a texture and use it

I started my latest brush creation from a photo I took of a pink coneflower. From there, I imported it directly into Adobe Capture. My intention with this brush was to create a rough, textured inker, and I felt the fuzzy interior of this flower could look interesting.

It's important to note that just by looking at the flower, I didn't know exactly what the final brush would look like. This is just me being open to inspiration in the moment!

When I went into Capture, I reduced the detail in my image to just the main texture in the center of the flower. I liked the potential the flower's natural texture gave the brush. Even though I didn't get rid of all the dark values because I wanted to keep enough detail in the center, I knew I could crop the image in the next step.

Once I was done adjusting my values, I used the Crop tab to zoom in on the image and isolate the brush detail to the center of the flower.

The different Styles in Adobe Capture provide a foundation for your brush settings. I scrolled to the third option because I liked the way the texture looked along the edges of the brush stroke. Under the Settings tab, I reduced Scatter and Spacing to 0% to ensure the brush had an even color throughout.

I also didn't enable any pressure settings because I wanted this brush to be a monoweight that I could use for creating outlines or monoline, textured lettering. Reducing the Jitter size and Flow finished off my brush-making process, giving me the texture and blending I wanted in my final brush.

Wrap up

Now that you know the ins and outs of brush making using Adobe Capture, what brush will you create?

This process, using the Adobe Capture app, has removed much of the friction from creating brushes for my favorite apps. For the first time in my professional career, I’m finding more and more reasons to create my own brushes. And the more I've learned about the way the brushes work in these apps, the more empowered I feel to continue editing and creating my own.

Part of what also makes creating on my iPad easier is the Paperlike accessories I use. The friction from my Paperlike screen protector helps me test my brushes in a way that feels natural and precise. Explore the drawing collection, crafted for digital artists to help us get the most out of our tools.