Brush Tutorial - Stroke a Path

This is a tutorial on a few fun things you can do with the brush tool. Mainly the goal is to learn how to Stroke a Path.


1. Select the Brush Tool (B) and set your brush size to about 25 px and the hardness to 100%. The color doesn't matter.



2. Find the Toggle Brush Panel icon in the upper left corner of the Photoshop screen.



3. In the Brush Panel, set the Spacing to about 150%



4. Open a blank canvas in Photoshop. (I'm using 600 x 600 pixels at 72 dpi) Click anywhere on the canvas to create one dot. Then hold down Shift and click somewhere on the opposite side of the canvas. You should get a perfect spaced line of dots.



5. Now try the same thing again with your spacing set at about 80%. This time before you even click the first time, hold down Shift and click and drag across the canvas. This is a very cool trick for creating a peek of scallop underneath a layer.



and used on a layout (under the orange strip in the middle):



6. Now the cool thing is, that you can do this with any shape brush and any spacing! Here are a few other examples. Create a small square and then rotate it 45°. The brush it across the page. Or a donut shape. Or a tiny rectangle for a dashed line.



7. Now, what if you don't have a square brush or a donut shaped brush? You can create your own brush out of just about any shape.

7a. Use the shape tool (U) and create a square. (hold Shift down while dragging the rectangle shape and you'll get a perfect square)
7b. Right click on the layer containing the square shape you just created (right click on the layer name, probably Shape 1 or Shape 2, etc.) and click on Rasterize Layer.​

7c. Hold down CTRL and click on miniature window of the same layer. This will put marching ants around your square shape.
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7d. Then on the top edge of your Photoshop window, click Edit, Define Brush Preset. You can name it anything you want and click OK. You've just created your own brush that you can use for the technique above.​

 

Now we are going to get REALLY crazy and fun! This is one of my all time favorite tricks with Photoshop. We are going to learn a technique called Stroking a Path. This is where you use a brush and space it evenly all around a path (or shape). Are you ready? We are going to start simple and stroke a path around a square shape.

8. Create a new blank canvas. I'm using 600 x 600 pixels at 72 dpi again. Now using the Shape Tool (U) create a large square that fills ¾ of your canvas.



9. Here comes the tricky/magical part. Hold CTRL and click on the big square shape layer. (the one that fills ¾ of your new canvas). This will put marching ants around the big square shape. Next click on the PATHS tab, (near the LAYERS tab):



10. On the PATHS tab, near the bottom, click on the Make Work Path from Selection icon:



11. Now we are going to stroke a path. Switch back to the LAYERS tab and create a new layer above the big square shape layer.



12. Select the Brush Tool (B) and let's use a round brush at 25 px, 100% hardness again. Let's set our spacing to around 80% again so the circles will overlap. Now switch back to the PATHS tab again. Hold down ALT and click on the Stroke Path with Brush icon:



13. A pop up will appear. Make sure the tool is set to Brush and then click okay.



Now you will have an evenly spaced set of circles around your square shape!




Here is an example of how I used this technique on a layout (on the edge of the cork paper):

 

More fun examples:







and some free hand fun (which clearly shows why I'm not a designer):

 

You're welcome girls! I'd love to see any pages you use this fun technique on!