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How to create a Photoshop line brush tutorial Beginner's Guide

By Andrew Buckle, Video Tutorial Creator / Designer

Updated : 2021

Learn how to create an intense line brush in Photoshop tutorial, create amazing line designs that can be used in countless ways in Photoshop

photoshop intense line brushes

  1. File / New Photoshop document for the line brush. Say 2000 x 2000 (so you can create a very large line brush - you can always scale the line brush docoument)

  2. Select the rectangle tool / lines in Photoshop

  3. set the color to black via the toolbox / set as shape layer

  4. Draw the rectangle from the top of the document to the bottom and create a thin rectangle - add this to the far left and then add another a few pixels away (leaving some white gap) perhaps with the same size of rectangle or slightly different.

  5. Repeat this over and over for about 1/4 of the document though you can do this all the way across the document - it is just quicker to just use 100 or so lines and repeat them.

You can create all kinds of intense Photoshop line brushes by combining rectangle / line designs and then repeating the lines over and over. You can also add transformations to the lines as well as vary the density of lines / paths. You can use combinations and transformations of those lines to create infinite variations of the lines. You can then define the intense line brush via the edit menu define brush command. This tutorial shows you how to create all kinds of intense lines using the rectangle / line paths in Photoshop.

Line layers and duplication of those groups of lines in Photoshop to create line brushes

create intense line brush in Photoshop multiple layers

  1. Select rectangle layers via the layers panel

  2. Layer menu

  3. Combine shapes

  4. Unite shapes

  5. Alt / option key and duplicate the combined shapes

  6. Move duplicated layer away from existing lines

You can create multiple lines with different widths. You can then combine them all into a single shape layer by going to the layer menu and combine shapes command and unite. Once united, you can then duplicate that set multiple times and fill the entire document or just create multiple copies of the line artwork for the line brush in Photoshop

Transform line layers - you can also increase or decrease the size of the lines in the line brush

line brushes and transformations in Photoshop

  1. Select a layer (made up of lines)

  2. Check the show transform controls is ON (top corner of Photoshop)

  3. Use the bounding box / transform controls to now stretch the lines to the right or left (making the lines bigger or smaller than before)

This can be repeated with all the layers or just one. Another option is to drag the layers on top of the others as well as transforming the line layers. You can also simply re-select all the layers and then go to the layer menu and use the combine shapes and create a new combination layer for all the lines and then transform that layer and duplicate.

Add variations to your new line brush

variation of line brushes in Photoshop

  1. Select the rectangle tool

  2. Apply lines in different locations and width

You can add all kinds of additional lines to the artwork to add some variation and randomness to the line brush.

 

How to define the intense line brush in Photoshop via the edit menu

define brush in Photoshop line design

  1. Flatten the layers

  2. edit menu

  3. define brush command

Now you have a super intense brush stroke for Adobe Photoshop (you can also export the result as a PNG file). You can now use the line brush in all the brush tools in Photoshop. You may also wish to rotate the document and then re-define the brush again (as you can then use the brush panel and brush tip shape and squeeze the line brush stroke)

Using Intense line brush in Photoshop

red and blue line intense brush in Photoshop

  1. Select the brush tool (use the rotated brush stroke in this example)

  2. Set color to black

  3. Apply line brush

  4. Set color to red

  5. Apply brush

  6. Set the color to blue

  7. Go to the brush panel and brush tip and squeeze the brush size vertically

  8. Apply brush

There are 1000s of other ways of using the line brush (as well as many 1000s of possible variations of the tool). You can also use the design with other tools such as the blur tool and clone tool