Making Fractal Brushes Rating Options

[Adrasteia]

Making Fractal Brushes
By Adrasteia
Skill Level : Easy

Note: Some of the images used to guide you through this tutorial are rather large and dont quite fit the screen so you may have to scoll a bit.

Have you seen those fractal images on the internet and wondered how they were done? Strange lines and fuzzy images swirling around to make space nebulas and amazing abstract works? Well its really not that hard!

You just need a fractal making program and photoshop and your there.
I use Apophysis 2.0 amongst others. However, i feel this is one of the easier fractal making programs out there for those who are starting out. You can find it here http://www.apophysis.org/downloads.html . For this tutorial i will be using this program.

Here is a preview of the brushes i have created with Apophysis 2.0 and an example of how fractals can be used to create some very unique art.


1. Opening Apophysis 2.0

I will not be going into detail on the various ways Apophysis 2.0 can be used but will be focusing on getting a fractal image to work with. So open Apophysis. On the left you will see a list of Apophysis images. By clicking on one you can preview the image in the window given. Scroll through these until you find one you feel suits your purposes. I chose this one:


2. Rendering

Now you have selected your image go to FLAME>RENDER TO DISK

This will bring up the following box:

Here you can choose how large you want your fractal to be. Should you want it wallpaper size change the WIDTH and HEIGHT to 1024x768. I have kept the settings given on mine but feel free to enter whatever size you want.

Once you've done this click RENDER and wait for the image to render.

Choose and render more images if you wish but i will now go onto turning your image into a brush. This process -for me - is different from that described in my previous tutorial Making Brush Sets

3. Open Photoshop

Open photoshop, find your rendered image and open it. If you didnt select a different save destination for your render try looking under Apophysis 2.0 in your Prgram Files and you should see it listed there.

The actual fractal needs to stand out....there is a lot of clutter around the image and fractals for the most part need to be crisp and clear. Some fractals are large "blobs" that look really good when combined with others. Apophysis 2.0 if you look closely has some more "blob-like" renders compared to the strange squiggles i am currently rendering. You may wish to render a collection of both, and the techniques listed below will work for either.

4. Brightness / Contrast

Have your image selected and go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST


Adjust the settings until the more prominent areas of your fractal are showing. These will become the brush. I set the brightness all the way to the left to get this:

Click OK and go back to your image.

5. Magic Wand

Select the magic wand. If you dont see this icon where it should be (as in my image) right click on the image on its place and you should get a small drop down menu which contains the magic wand too....this feature is present on most buttons so dont think your missing some buttons! (preview is given below)

6. Channels

Click on channels whilst stil having selected the magic wand. Whilst holding CTRL+SHIFT click on the top channels layer. You will gradually see parts of your fractal being selected....the more you click the more will be selected. Those selected areas will be present on your final brush.


7. Copy Selection

Whilst still on the CHANNELS tab press CTRL+C to copy....this will copy the areas you have selected. Click back to LAYERS (located next to CHANNELS)

8. New Layer

Now that you are back in the LAYER tab press CTRL+SHIFT+N to create a new layer,. You can also go to LAYER>NEW>LAYER to do this. Do not deselect your fractal...lines should still be flashing around the area you selected.
Click OK to make the new layer.


9. Pasting

Select (by clicking with your mouse) the new layer. This should make it blue if not already selected for you. Now press CTRL+V to paste what you previously copied(your fractal) onto this new layer.

At first it may seem like nothing happened. So deselect teh BACKGROUND layer. Your can do this by clicking the eye icon to the left of the layer....This is shown above, in the area that is highlighted the "eye" appears where the red dot is.
Click the EYE

You should still be on the new layer (highlighted blue) . If not click back onto this layer.

10. Hue/Saturation

When making brushes you will need to be able to see it - the colors that have been copied over now are too faint to be of any real use.
Press CTRL+U or go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>HUE/SATURATION


This box will appear. Click the COLORIZE option so that you can see the changes you will make. Take the LIGHTNESS bar all the way to left so that your fractal becomes black.


11. Save Selection

To blur some of the edges around your brush (sharp edges where a brush comes to an end can be annoying when making your final image) select teh MARQUEE TOOL. You can choose by right clicking the button whether you want to make the area you will select around your fractal rectangular or eliptical. I chose rectangular for this image.

Select the area. Now click the SAVE SELECTION icon, or go to SELECT> SAVE SELECTION


12. Inverse

Go to SELECT>INVERSE (the shortcut command doesnt select the outer area so avoid this)

This will select the outer border of your image.

13. Feathering

Feathering the image is what will blur the edges for you.
You can right click within the area you have selected, go to SELECT>FEATHER or press ALT+CTRL+D to select this feature.


14. Feather Radius

The following box will pop up when you select FEATHER. I set the radius to 40. Click OKMaking Brushes

This will make the edges should you have a rectangular selection round. Dont worry about this.

Now that you have selected FEATHER press DELETE to blue the edges...press this as much as you want, i usually only use it three times at the most. You will see the edge blur and vanish as you do this.
If at any point you feel you have deleted too much press CTRL+Z to undo your action, and CTRL+ALT+Z if you want to go back more than one action.

Press CTRL+D to deselect all the lines when you are happy with the outcome.

15. Your Brush

What you are looking at is now your brush. It will look better when not on a transparent background in your work.
Save your image at this point so you don't lose it.
At this point you will need to set the image as a brush, save your brushes and create a .abr file. This process is fully outlined in Making Brushes
-you will need to skip ahead to Step 8 "Saving brush set" if you are unfamiliar with how to save your brushes.

Have fun with your fractals and exploring Aphophysis 2.0 and dont forget to show us your work....and maybe share your brushes with others!

Used this tutorial? Show us your work or ask for assistance

[Josh]

Awesome tutorial, easy to follow!

[Sp3culuM]

A bit of a lengthy post, but good tutorial! I personally wondered how they were made, so thanks