one of the most powerful features of
Photoshop is the ability to create
custom brushes because you can create a
brush for literally any photo in
Photoshop and in this video I'm going to
show you how to create the custom fog
brush from clouds
hey guys and welcome to another
Photoshop tutorial this is rabi from
Retutstudio.com and today
you're gonna learn how to turn this
image into a custom fog brush to use it
on your compositing projects to
replicate fog and haze and create the
atmosphere into a scene so this is the
image that we are going to use to create
the custom brush and the first thing we
need to do is to extract this cloud from
the background and the easiest way for
this type of image is to use channels so
I'm going to unlock this layer and go to
channels and the way this works is you
need to choose the channel with the most
contrast in this case the red Channel
and what you need to do is duplicate it
by dragging it into this new layer icon
then hit ctrl L to bring levels and then
make the background darker by increasing
the shadows with the shadows and the
mid-tone sliders but I want you to pay
close attention to the edges of the
cloud if you add too much shadows it's
going to destroy the details on the
edges of the cloud and you can see that
better when I turn the preview on and
off
you
all right that's as far as we can go
without destroying the details of the
cloud but we can still use the overlay
brush technique to make the background
pure black and with that done I'm going
to click on RGB to go back to RGB mode
then I'm going to load the red channel
as a selection by holding ctrl and
clicking on the thumbnail now go back to
the layers tab and with the selection
active click on the new mask icon to
load this selection into the mask I'm
going to add a solid color underneath
this layer so I can see a little bit
better
the next thing is to desaturate the
image by clicking on ctrl shift u or by
going to image adjustment then
desaturate so now you can hold alt and
click on the layer mask thumbnail to see
the layer mask and as you can see the
background is not 100% black and if I
take the color dropper and take a sample
from here you can see that this area is
100% black but in here it's not pure
black so for that I'm going to take the
brush tool reduce the flow and then
change the blending mode to overlay
and with the black foreground I can
start painting the edges to mask the
background
you can see when I paint over the clouds
it is not affecting pure white I'm going
to reduce the flow a little bit more and
then I'm going to continue painting at
the edges at the same time being careful
not to remove too much from the shape of
the cloud
you
all right so now I can take the lasso
tool and make a selection around the
cloud
but we need the opposite of this
selection so I'm going to hit ctrl shift
I to invert the selection and now I'm
going to fill the selection with black
to hide everything except the cloud we
need
okay now in order to convert an image to
a brush in Photoshop you need your
object to be black on a white background
that's why we need to change the fill to
white and also invert the image by
heading on control I
I'm going to also crop
the image and you can access the crop
tool by hitting C on your keyboard
you
so now go to edit define brush preset
and you can see the preview over here
and you can you name your brush I'm
going to call it fog and once you do
that Photoshop will automatically switch
to the brush you just created
let me show you how the brush looks like
if I click once this is how it looks
like but if I start painting with it it
looks like this and this does not look
like fog at all so for that we are going
to modify some brush settings so so
let's load the brush settings panel and
the first thing we need to add is shape
dynamics and we will start by increasing
the size jitter and that will add
variations in brush size next we will
need to add angle jitter and that will
make the brush rotate as you paint
thing is to flip the brush on the X&Y
axis and now each time I click I will
have a different brush variation
next we will add some scattering and we
will increase the scatter just a little
bit to add some space between the
brushes and also make sure it is on both
axes
all right in terms of count I usually
leave it to one because it gives me more
control to build up the effect and the
last thing is transfer and you want to
increase the opacity and the flow jitter
and what will that do is make different
opacity levels in the brushstrokes you
can see that in the preview down in the
bottom and I'm going to make a stroke
with a brush to show you the difference
this is with the opacity jitter all the
way to zero and this is what all the way
to hundred and you can see the
difference there and the same applies
for the flow as well I usually keep them
both at 100% and also decrease the
opacity to 20% and the flow to 10% and
that will give me more control and it
will allow me to build up the effect and
create the clouds volume slowly you can
see now how it is starting to look like
fog when I keep painting on top and
that's the key to this effect you want
to start with a very low opacity and
flow and build up the effect all right
so once you're happy with the brush
settings you can actually save it as a
brush preset by clicking on the
hamburger menu in the brush settings
panel and choose new brush preset and
from here you can choose what to save
within the brush if you want to get your
brush size the tool setting or the color
it will even save the settings from the
options bar like the you Cassity and the
flow then you rename your brush and
click OK and it will be automatically
selected and added to the brush panel as
a new brush preset with the settings you
saved now I can delete the first brush
by right-clicking on it and select
delete brush I also created a couple of
brushes with slightly different settings
and different cloud types this one is a
little bit softer and now I'm going to
drag this brush inside the fog brushes
group and I'm going to also provide them
for you to download now let's put this
into action and see how we can use this
brush in some case scenarios so I have a
landscape photo here for demonstration
and let's say you want to add more fog
to it so we are going to take the fog
brush that we just
created then sample a color from the fog
and start painting make sure you are
using a low flow and we want to take
this nice and slow and gradually keep
adding fog
remember fog
and detail and you don't want to paint
with the same brush size and flow so I'm
going to make the brush size a little
bit smaller and then add smaller details
so at this point we have our foundation
now I can increase the flow just a
little bit and then take the brighter
color from the fog and start painting
more volume and detail and that will
make it much more realistic
you
now this is the before and after and as
you can see it looks very realistic just
like the fog from the image all right
now you have seen how much powerful this
technique is I hope you are seeing the
potential of what you can do with it and
use it on your own projects let me show
you what I also did with this fog brush
this is the project that I did for an
upcoming pro tutorial stay tuned for
that by the way if you want to learn
advanced compositing and retouching
techniques you can learn more by
visiting my website at Critias
studio.com and I used this exact brush
technique to create this gloomy scene
and add depth by creating multiple
layers of fog so I hope you have found
this tutorial helpful and if you did
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one thank you so much for watching and
I'll see you in the next video