YAR!

So I have an image that I need duplicated randomly all over the place. Figgerd a custom brush would be the way to go, rather than copy/paste/rotate it 900 times.

However, it (naturally) takes on the foreground color when I paint... and I want it to use the color of the original sampled image.

Doable?

So you want to make a color brush?

Yar...

I'd do it in Painter, using the Image Hose/Nozzle/Whatever. :shrug:

yarp, win!

Working on images of feces, again?

No, but that's a GREAT idea! thanks!

So how did you do it? I would have used the symbol sprayer in illustrator, myself.

Is that similar to the hose / nozzle in Painter, etc.?

Very. Except it works with symbols. The symbol spinner, scruncher, styler, stainer, shifter & screener are a pretty cool set to work with if you're doing stuff like a flock of birds or a swarm of flies, say.

Sounds hot. How's it work with raster images?

illustrator works with raster images fine. You just open the psd with "convert layers to objects" & it will preserve your transparencies. Any object can be a symbol, you just drag it into the symbol pane.

so it's kinda like Flash now? Update one and the whole thing changes?

No, the symbol palette is more like a swatch palette.

Anyway, here's an example of flies made into a brush in illustrator, with transparency preserved. I adjusted the size, spacing, and rotation using the other symbol painting tools.

All that done with a single stroke of the mouse?

one fell swoop

More like 5 once I had it in illustrator, but yeah. The main trick is to mask your image in photoshop properly so you get varying transparencies.

In photoshop I took my fly image, made a copy, converted it to black & white, filled the body & head in black, and saved that whole thing as a fill. I went back to the original image and created a new mask, applied the fill I had created, and applied the mask - voila, a fly with varying transparency with no bg.

Saved as psd, opened in illustrator with layers to objects, dragged the fly into the symbols palette. From there it was only a few mousetrokes to what you see before you.

here's a step-by-step, starting in photoshop:

A pretty easy & fast effect if you know a few tricks. This would have taken me about 5 or so minutes for the whole process.

Ari - do you know if you can randomize the size and rotation of the symbols when defining the symbol sprayer? Or is that reserved only for art brushes?

(and thanks for the tips - I have never used that tool)

To some extent - just double click the sprayer icon in the toolbar and switch the parameters you want randomized to "user defined" from "average". A bit less control than using all the symbol tools one by one but a lot faster, for sure.

I think the "size" option only works if you use a tablet, based on stylus pressure, though.

Please to be makings those images currently available!

I missed this the first time, would also like to know how to do it. Thank you!

I thought I did on the first page?

Your step by step still has the images linked to the closed flickr account.

Ah, they're still showing up in my cache.

FIXED (?)