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How to Create a Scratches Photoshop Brush

Grunge furnishings like textures and scratches can be used to create backgrounds, distress text, or simply to add a subtle texture to an element in a pattern. 1 of the easiest ways to add together texture and scratches is through the utilise of Photoshop brushes. In this tutorial, we'll show how you can create a custom scratched surface brush that will be highly useful in your ain blueprint work.

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Creating a Scratches Photoshop Brush – Getting Started

The first matter we will need is a photo of a scratched surface. Some type of scratched metal or plastic surface tin work very well. For the tutorial, I will be using something that only about everyone will take effectually the firm, a cutting board. I'll exist using a photograph of a scarlet plastic cut board that has all kinds of marks and scratches from knives. The surface is perfect for getting a good grungy result. If you lot're looking for a surface to use, a cutting board or a scratched pan from the kitchen will commonly piece of work quite nicely. Otherwise, you tin can find an old plastic or metal surface and crude it up yourself to create something that tin be photographed.

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Here is the photograph of my cutting board that will be used for this tutorial.

Original photo of scratched surface

Image Adjustments

In lodge to create our castor, nosotros will need to make a few simple adjustments to the photo. First, we'll desaturate it to remove the colour (Photoshop brushes are created without colour anyway, so it is easiest to preview the image in the aforementioned mode that the brush will be created). Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate and it should look like this:

Desaturated image

The next thing we'll do is invert the photo to reverse the light and dark areas. Go to Image > Adjustments > Invert and information technology should expect like this:

Inverted Image

Side by side, nosotros're going to adjust the levels to brand the photograph darker. Go to Paradigm > Adjustments > Levels.

Adjusting the levels in Photoshop

The specific adjustments needed in this footstep volition vary from i photo to the adjacent, but the goal is to create a darker image that still has sufficient contrast between the background and the scratches. For my epitome, I'one thousand moving the black and gray levels (left and centre) further to the right.

Levels settings after the adjustment

The result is a darker prototype that looks like this:

Preview of the darker image

Here is a view at 100%:

Closeup of the textured image

Now, we'll brand another pocket-sized adjustment with the help of the sharpen filter. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen. The issue will be a slightly sharper epitome:

Preview of the image after it is sharpened

Creating the Brush

The photo that I am using is 4000 pixels past 3000 pixels, your prototype will vary depending on your camera and settings. I recommend setting your camera to the highest megapixel setting that it offers. You lot tin can always reduce the size of your photo, but increasing the size will outcome in a poor-quality image. Photoshop allows brushes to be up to 2500 pixels by 2500 pixels. I'm going to create a new file that is 2000 pixels by 2000 pixels that volition be used for the brush. Then, I'll copy my epitome and paste it into this new file. I'll lose the part of the image that is on the edges of the photo, but in this case, my photograph is sharper in the center.

Here is my prototype (click on the image to run across it in full size):

The image that will be used to create the brush

To create the brush, get to Edit > Define Castor Preset and give your brush a name.

Naming the Photoshop brush

That'south it! You now have a custom brush that yous tin use any time you want to use scratches in your pattern.