Creating your own custom brushes in Photoshop may sound difficult. The good news is it’s actually as simple as turning an image grayscale and exporting it as a brush.
Anything can be turned into a brush, but one of the most useful brushes a photographer, designer, or artist can own is a cloud brush.
Learning how to make a cloud brush in Photoshop will save you time, and give you the creative freedom to create your own dynamic and dramatic landscapes.
In this cloud brush Photoshop tutorial, we will be creating four different brushes, let’s get started!
How to Make a Cloud Brush in Photoshop Using an Image
Step 1: Import a Photo of a Cloud
Let’s start by creating a custom cloud brush Photoshop preset from an already existing photo.
Open a new large Document in Photoshop, ensuring it has a black background.
Drag and drop an image of a cloud on a darker blue sky onto the canvas. Any cloud type and sky color will work, as long as the clouds have a significant amount of contrast from the background.
Step 2: Turn the Cloud Grayscale
Next, create a white-to-black Gradient Map adjustment layer above the Clouds layer.
We want the clouds to appear black and the sky to appear white. When creating a brush, the portion of the image that is black will determine the shape of the brush. Everything that is white will appear transparent.
Step 3: Adjust Brightness and Contrast
Now, create a Levels adjustment layer above the Gradient Map adjustment layer. We want to increase the contrast of the image, turning the clouds a deeper black and the sky a whiter white.
Balance the contrast so that the clouds are black, but still have noticeable detail, and the sky appears almost solid white.
My exact settings were 0 Black,1.43 Gray, and 158 White. However, these settings will change from image to image.
Step 4: Mask Away the Leftover Background
You’ll likely still have some leftover darkness in the sky. Go back to the Cloud layer and add a Layer Mask.
Use a soft, round, black brush to mask away any leftover dark spots in the sky. Be careful not to leave any harsh edges or sudden changes in colors. I suggest masking out the edges of the canvas, even if there is no noticeable darkness, just to be safe.
Also, mask out any areas of the cloud that you don’t want to appear on the brush.
Step 5: Save and Export the Brush
Crop any excess canvas using the Crop tool, if necessary.
Now go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and name your new brush.
If you only want a single, solid cloud brush, you’re done. However, if you want a brush you can use more dynamically, then we will need to adjust the brush settings. In this cloud brush Photoshop guide, we will be creating two static cloud brushes and two dynamic brushes.
Below is our brush with no settings applied.
Step 6: Edit the Brush Settings
Open up a new, black canvas to test your brush on, and open the Window > Brush Settings panel.
Brush settings can be changed to create a variety of different looks and effects. However, these settings are a good, jumping-off point for most cloud effect brushes. Input the following brush settings.
Brush Tip Shape
Spacing: 125%
Shape Dynamics
Size Jitter: 50% Roundness Jitter: 50%
Scattering
Scatter: 15% Count: 2
Dual Brush
Mode: Multiply Choose your custom cloud brush from the Brush options
Size: 5000% Spacing: 196% Scatter: 0% Count: 1
Transfer
Opacity Jitter: 100%
Step 7: Save the New Settings
Finally, save these settings as a New Brush by clicking the icon of a Square and Plus Sign located in the bottom, right-hand corner of the Brush Settings panel. Below is our brush with the settings applied.
How to Make a Cloud Brush in Photoshop using a Default Brush
Step 1: Paint a Basic Soft Shape
Painting your own cloud brush is just as easy, and you can create as simple, or as detailed, of a shape as you need. You don’t even need a tablet.
First, create a New Canvas that is at least 2000px by 2000px. You can go up to 5000px before reaching Photoshop’s brush size limit.
Select a default soft, round Brush, and change its Hardness to 65%. Bring the Flow down to 1%.
Next, using circular motions, paint in soft blobs of black onto the white canvas. Slowly build up color, creating interesting but soft shapes within the cloud. How much detail you give the cloud is ultimately up to you. The cloud below was made using a mouse.
Use a soft, round Eraser brush to adjust the shape of the cloud, and make sure there are no harsh edges. This includes making sure none of the color bleeds off of the canvas.
Step 2: Adjust the Brightness and Contrast
You can adjust the shape of the cloud even further using Levels.
Increase or decrease the contrast depending on how thick you want your cloud to appear. Increasing the contrast will also make the edges of the cloud harder and more defined. Try not to create too solid or dark of a shape. It’s always best to create a brush you can build transparency up with, as opposed to a brush that is overly opaque.
The Levels settings I used to lighten my cloud were as follows: 0 White, 1.30 Gray, and 252 Black.
Step 3: Save and Export the Brush
Just like before, crop any excess canvas using the Crop tool. Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and name your new brush. I suggest naming your brush by whether or not it’s static. Ie. “Cloud Static” or “Cloud Dynamic.”
Step 4: Edit the Brush Settings
Create a new, black canvas that you can test your brush on and open the Window > Brush Settings pane, and input the following brush settings.
Choose your custom cloud brush from the Brush options
Size: 1536 Spacing: 50% Scatter: 0% Count:? 1
Transfer
Opacity Jitter: 100%
Step 5: Save the New Settings
You can save these settings as a New Brush by clicking the icon of a Square and Plus Sign located in the bottom right-hand corner of the Brush Settings panel.
If you switch brushes before saving, the settings will be lost, and you’ll have to reset them the next time you select the brush. I recommend saving multiple brushes with different settings, so you have a variety of different cloud effects ready to go.
Below is our brush with the settings applied.
How to Use a Cloud Brush in Photoshop
Step 1: Import a Photo of a Sky
In Photoshop, import the image you’d like to place the clouds onto. I’ll be using an image of a plain blue sky. However, these brushes can be used to add more clouds to an already cloudy sky or used to create fog and other cloud-like atmospheres.?
Step 2: How to Use Static Brushes
Select one of your new, custom cloud brushes. You’ll have four: two static and two dynamic brushes.
To use the static brushes, simply select the brush, set the color you’d like your cloud to be, create a new layer, and stamp the brush onto the newly created layer.
Step 3: How to Use Dynamic Brushes
Dynamic brushes are meant to be used in a more flowing or dragging motion with either a mouse or drawing tablet.
Adjust both the Opacity and Flow of the Brush to set how thick the clouds look.
Below is our image brush, set to 100% flow and 100% Opacity.
The hand-painted brush is best used set to a lower Flow or Opacity. Below, the Brush was set to 80% Opacity and 5% Flow. Those settings will allow you to build the cloud up slowly and create interesting shapes with different levels of opacity.
Outro
That is how to make a cloud brush in Photoshop! The ability to create your own brushes, whether it is from an existing image or from a hand-drawn design, is one of Photoshop’s most powerful features. You can even make multiple, different cloud brushes from the same image just by switching up and experimenting with the Brush Settings.
There is no limit to the number of brushes you can make, so why not make a whole set, and never have to deal with a dull, cloudless sky again
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About Abbey
Abbey Esparza is a mixed media artist whose composites are all based on photographs that undergo an intense treatment to transform them into the surreal, unusual, and macabre. She typically creates surreal themes, but is experienced in all different kinds of styles and genres, including child-friendly fantasy! She works with The Glorious Company, a content-marketing agency
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That again was no use: he but got another smile and a friendly look of the sort he no longer wanted. I said I thought I could gallop if Harry could, and in a few minutes we were up with the ambulance. It had stopped. There were several men about it, including Sergeant Jim and Kendall, which two had come from Quinn, and having just been in the ambulance, at Ferry's side, were now remounting, both of them openly in tears. "Hello, Kendall." We have this great advantage in dealing with Plato—that his philosophical writings have come down to us entire, while the thinkers who preceded him are known only through fragments and second-hand reports. Nor is the difference merely accidental. Plato was the creator of speculative literature, properly so called: he was the first and also the greatest artist that ever clothed abstract thought in language of appropriate majesty and splendour; and it is probably to their beauty of form that we owe the preservation of his writings. Rather unfortunately, however, along with the genuine works of the master, a certain number of pieces have been handed down to us under his name, of which some are almost universally admitted to be spurious, while the authenticity of others is a question on which the best scholars are still divided. In the absence of any very cogent external evidence, an immense amount of industry and learning has been expended on this subject, and the arguments employed on both sides sometimes make us doubt whether the reasoning powers of philologists are better developed than, according to Plato, were those of mathematicians in his time. The176 two extreme positions are occupied by Grote, who accepts the whole Alexandrian canon, and Krohn, who admits nothing but the Republic;115 while much more serious critics, such as Schaarschmidt, reject along with a mass of worthless compositions several Dialogues almost equal in interest and importance to those whose authenticity has never been doubted. The great historian of Greece seems to have been rather undiscriminating both in his scepticism and in his belief; and the exclusive importance which he attributed to contemporary testimony, or to what passed for such with him, may have unduly biassed his judgment in both directions. As it happens, the authority of the canon is much weaker than Grote imagined; but even granting his extreme contention, our view of Plato’s philosophy would not be seriously affected by it, for the pieces which are rejected by all other critics have no speculative importance whatever. The case would be far different were we to agree with those who impugn the genuineness of the Parmenides, the Sophist, the Statesman, the Philêbus, and the Laws; for these compositions mark a new departure in Platonism amounting to a complete transformation of its fundamental principles, which indeed is one of the reasons why their authenticity has been denied. Apart, however, from the numerous evidences of Platonic authorship furnished by the Dialogues themselves, as well as by the indirect references to them in Aristotle’s writings, it seems utterly incredible that a thinker scarcely, if at all, inferior to the master himself—as the supposed imitator must assuredly have been—should have consented to let his reasonings pass current under a false name, and that, too, the name of one whose teaching he in some respects controverted; while there is a further difficulty in assuming that his existence could pass unnoticed at a period marked by intense literary and philosophical activity. Readers who177 wish for fuller information on the subject will find in Zeller’s pages a careful and lucid digest of the whole controversy leading to a moderately conservative conclusion. Others will doubtless be content to accept Prof. Jowett’s verdict, that ‘on the whole not a sixteenth part of the writings which pass under the name of Plato, if we exclude the works rejected by the ancients themselves, can be fairly doubted by those who are willing to allow that a considerable change and growth may have taken place in his philosophy.’116 To which we may add that the Platonic dialogues, whether the work of one or more hands, and however widely differing among themselves, together represent a single phase of thought, and are appropriately studied as a connected series. Before entering on our task, one more difficulty remains to be noticed. Plato, although the greatest master of prose composition that ever lived, and for his time a remarkably voluminous author, cherished a strong dislike for books, and even affected to regret that the art of writing had ever been invented. A man, he said, might amuse himself by putting down his ideas on paper, and might even find written178 memoranda useful for private reference, but the only instruction worth speaking of was conveyed by oral communication, which made it possible for objections unforeseen by the teacher to be freely urged and answered.117 Such had been the method of Socrates, and such was doubtless the practice of Plato himself whenever it was possible for him to set forth his philosophy by word of mouth. It has been supposed, for this reason, that the great writer did not take his own books in earnest, and wished them to be regarded as no more than the elegant recreations of a leisure hour, while his deeper and more serious thoughts were reserved for lectures and conversations, of which, beyond a few allusions in Aristotle, every record has perished. That such, however, was not the case, may be easily shown. In the first place it is evident, from the extreme pains taken by Plato to throw his philosophical expositions into conversational form, that he did not despair of providing a literary substitute for spoken dialogue. Secondly, it is a strong confirmation of this theory that Aristotle, a personal friend and pupil of Plato during many years, should so frequently refer to the Dialogues as authoritative evidences of his master’s opinions on the most important topics. And, lastly, if it can be shown that the documents in question do actually embody a comprehensive and connected view of life and of the world, we shall feel satisfied that the oral teaching of Plato, had it been preserved, would not modify in any material degree the impression conveyed by his written compositions. breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five The bargaining was interminable, something in this manner:— Then follows a long discussion in Hindi with the bystanders, who always escort a foreigner in a mob, ending in the question— There was a bright I. D. blanket spread on the ground a little way back from the fire, and she threw herself down upon it. All that was picturesque in his memories of history flashed back to Cairness, as he took his place beside Landor on the log and looked at her. Boadicea might have sat so in the depths of the Icenean forests, in the light of the torches of the Druids. So the Babylonian queen might have rested in the midst of her victorious armies, or she of Palmyra, after the lion hunt in the deserts of Syria. Her eyes, red lighted beneath the shadowing lashes, met his. Then she glanced away into the blackness of the pine forest, and calling her dog to lie down beside her, stroked its silky red head. The retreat was made, and the men found themselves again in the morning on the bleak, black heath of Drummossie, hungry and worn out, yet in expectation of a battle. There was yet time to do the only wise thing—retreat into the mountains, and depend upon a guerilla warfare, in which they would have the decided advantage. Lord George Murray now earnestly proposed this, but in vain. Sir Thomas Sheridan and other officers from France grew outrageous at that proposal, contending that they could easily beat the English, as they had done at Prestonpans and Falkirk—forgetting that the Highlanders then were full of vigour and spirit. Unfortunately, Charles listened to this foolish reasoning, and the fatal die was cast. "They said they were going for our breakfast," said Harry. "And I hope it's true, for I'm hungrier'n a rip-saw. But I could put off breakfast for awhile, if they'd only bring us our guns. I hope they'll be nice Springfield rifles that'll kill a man at a mile." "Dod durn it," blubbered Pete, "I ain't cryin' bekase Pm skeered. I'm cryin' bekase I'm afeared you'll lose me. I know durned well you'll lose me yit, with all this foolin' around." He came nearly every night. If she was not at the gate he would whistle a few bars of "Rio Bay," and she would steal out as soon as she could do so without rousing suspicion. Boarzell became theirs, their accomplice in some subtle, beautiful way. There was a little hollow on the western slope where they would crouch together and sniff the apricot scent of the gorse, which was ever afterwards to be the remembrancer of their love, and watch the farmhouse lights at Castweasel gleam and gutter beside Ramstile woods. "Yes, De Boteler," continued the lady, "I will write to him, and try to soothe his humour. You think it a humiliation—I would humble myself to the meanest serf that tills your land, could I learn the fate of my child. The abbot may have power to draw from this monk what he would conceal from us; I will at least make the experiment." The lady then, though much against De Boteler's wish, penned an epistle to the abbot, in which concession and apologies were made, and a strong invitation conveyed, that he would honour Sudley castle by his presence. The parchment was then folded, and dispatched to the abbot. "A very pretty method, truly! 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