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[ 73 ]Create a Custom Particle Brush
Let’s do a couple of exercises to help you think
differently when it comes to using brushes and
layer styles. These are finishing effects I use
often, and once you follow through these steps,
not only will you have a better understanding
of custom brushes, but you’ll also have a cool
particle brush you can use right away.
Step One: Start by creating a new 1000x1000
pixel document at 100 ppi.
Step Two: Press D to set the Foreground/
Background colors to their default black/white,
and then go to the Filter menu, to Noise, and
choose Add Noise. Set the amount to 400%,
Distribution to Gaussian, and check on Mono-
chromatic. Click OK.
Step Three: Go under the Filter menu to Blur
and choose Gaussian Blur. Set the Radius to
3 Pixels and click OK.
Step Four: Now open Levels by pressing
Command-L (PC: Ctrl-L). Push the highlight and
shadow sliders below the histogram toward the
center to where they almost touch. The closer
they get, the more contrast you’ll see in the
noise in the image. Here you can see that push-
ing the sliders to the right of center spaces out
the particles even more. Click OK when you get
the amount you like.
Step Three