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Rotating a Brush in Photoshop

Community Beginner ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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I did a search and see people have been asking for some easy way to rotate a custom brush in Photoshop similar to using the brackets to resize the brush. I have a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet. I can change the brush angle by tilting the pen, but as far as I can tell, I don't get to see the brush orientation on the screen before clicking...making it basically useless for my purposes. The current method of going to the brush shape box and rotating the circle and arrow is very slow especially if I need to rotate it a little with each stroke or impression.

Does anyone know of an add-on command or script that might help me out? Or, if I am missing a feature, please advise. I did a lot of google searches on this topic and didn't see a solution on other sites either. It looks like a feature in demand, but still missing in the current software.

M. Jackson

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LEGEND ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Go to the Brushes Palette. There, I can Rotate all that I want. There could be a keyboard shortcut, but I am not aware of it. Maybe others will fill in that blank for you. Still, you can Rotate from the nomograph, and also "squeeze" all you want.

Hope that helps, and good luck,

Hunt

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LEGEND ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Here's a look at the Brushes Palette, accessible from Window>Brushes, or F5:

PS_Brush_Palette.jpg

Good luck,

Hunt

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Guest
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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He already discounted that one!

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Yes, thanks for the screen grab. I know how to do that already. But it requires going back and forth to the box over and over to rotate a brush.

I spend most of the time with the Brush Presets turned on so I can pick from the various rough textured brushes (much larger than the tiny ones in the Brush Tips tab). In the example, I used the same brush over and over, but rotated it 15 additional times. I also know I can flip the brush on the horizontal or vertical axis, but still it is not quite as smooth as other features in PS. I'm hoping to find something that will let me rotate the brush at let's say 5 degree increments with a push of a key or button on my tablet. For my paintings, I am going back and forth to 20 or 30 textured brushes and rotating each of those over and over. In general, I usually only get to use the same brush two or three times in the same image as the viewer can pick up repeated patterns of brush strokes or splatters. Given my preference, it would be nice if Wacom tied into the PS control and let me rotate the dial to change the rotation instead of the size option when I choose that vairable.

Again, I am open to suggestions to help me achieve my desired results. Yes, I can rotate them but it is much more cumbersome than I would like. We can zoom with Control +/- and we can resize our brushes with Control [/], but no similar rotation commands I can find.

Thanks,

M. Jackson

rotatedbrush2.jpg

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LEGEND ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Well, if there was a keyboard shortcut, I would have expected John to know it.

There might be 3rd party utilities to do what you want, but I am unaware of them.

I use my stylus Tilt to do similar, coupled with pressure, and the Brush Dynamics to get me similar. That, or the Brushes Palette are all my "tricks" - sorry.

I'll watch to see if others have a solution for you.

Good luck,

Hunt

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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I should also add that I tried rotating the canvas using the Wacom tablet, but unfortunately, the brush orientation rotates with it. I could probably handle it if PS had a check box that stopped the brush from rotating with the canvas. It would be a little awkward at times, but easier than the current version of rotating the brush.

M. Jackson

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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For some of the spatter style brushes, letting it auto ramdomize is fine, but for the watercolor style strokes, I need to be certain of their angle before clicking. Photoshop's features continue to amaze me, but this is one of the speed bumps I'd like to solve. Judging from the posts I read on other forums, it is a feature request that has been around for a long time.

Thanks again,

M. Jackson

I'll leave this post unanswered for now in case someone does have a third party app or script. I don't know if I could make an action, and if I did, whether it would be functional. I'll try one soon.

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Valorous Hero ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Sorry but this is not possible via a script, a feature request is the best option.

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Hi Paul

Can you direct me to the right spot to request a new feature? This one would be worth it.

M. Jackson

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Valorous Hero ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Here would be best.

http://forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop/photoshop_feature_requests

There have been a few of us asking for scripting access to all brush features but have not yet been given access.

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Guest
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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I don't know of a shortcut but you might care to bookmark this magnum opus and take a look at you leisure

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Hi Peter,

I am usually just using the brush as a "rubber stamp", clicking only once, then moving to a new spot and clicking once again. The Direction control is assuming I am holding down the mouse or stylus and drawing or moving. I don't think that works for me.

I did go to the Feature Request forum as directed and added my request there.

I've tinkered with this a good part of the day.

Currently, the Wacom tablet has the option to resize the brush while spinning the ring one direction or the other. It would be a nice feature if they could let you press the Shift button on the tablet (the top one in the lower group) as you spin the ring to rotate the brush. Even better if the software/hardward let me pick the default of "either" size or rotate. If so, depending on the type of image I am working on at the time, I might opt to have Brush Rotate set as the default mode and use Brush Resize as the secondary option requiring the Shift button.

The other option that makes sense to me would be to use the comma and period keys while in the Brush tool. Clicking one would rotate the brush 5 degrees one direction and the other would rotate the brush 5 degrees the other direction from its current angle. Holding down the Shift button would rotate each by 25 or -25 degrees. Also, using the X and Y commands while in the Brush tool could flip its orientation without going to the menus.

M. Jackson

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 31, 2010 Mar 31, 2010

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2ManyImages wrote:

Hi Peter,

I am usually just using the brush as a "rubber stamp", clicking only once, then moving to a new spot and clicking once again. The Direction control is assuming I am holding down the mouse or stylus and drawing or moving. I don't think that works for me.


Then all you have to do is a short click-swipe, with your brush set to a large spacing to avoid more than one instance of the brush pattern being drawn. You'll easily get one stamp of the brush in whatever direction you stroke with your stylus.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 11, 2010 Apr 11, 2010

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About the time I asked this question on this forum, I sent an email to Wacom about any possible feature the Intuos 4 might have to rotate a brush. I received this response about a week later:

"What you are looking for is the 6D Art Pen. This pen has enhanced barrel rotation so as you rotate the pen it rotates the brush on the screen (worst with most non round brushes). "

I am now curious if anyone here has one of these pens and if you are able to see the rotation of the brush image on the screen as you rotate the stylus as described above?

Thanks again,

M. Jackson

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New Here ,
Jul 02, 2010 Jul 02, 2010

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I do own an Art Pen and yes, the feature works as it should in that it rotates the brush shape in tandem with the barrel rotation of the pen, the brush preview often referred to as "ghost" however remains stationary. That makes it pretty hard to see, what direction one is painting in, especially since the intuos' art pens tips are thinner than those of the cintiq. I guess you cannot expect much from an accessory that only costs you 100 bucks.

There is another thread about this ghost issue at: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2773979#2773979 but there are not many reactions to it.

Chris Cox (of Adobe) had this to say about the issue: Changing the cursor is another matter entirely.
We'll have to see if the OS cursor APIs can keep up now (they used  to be too slow). http://forums.adobe.com/message/1660893#1660893

What is worth mentioning is, that rotation with preview DOES work if you use one of the new bristle brushes, which makes me think that the API is well up to the task of handling the workload.

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Enthusiast ,
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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Picture 1.jpg

Try this. The angle orients itself to the direction of your stroke. Edit: adjusting the jitter % will throw in some randomness to the orientation.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 13, 2010 Dec 13, 2010

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I'm replying kinda late here ... and  obviously no one has come with the right solution for you,

I think I have one that may work for you .

It's called Autohotkey, it's a program for automating things on your computer and it makes little wonders once you learn how to use it.

I use it for many stuff and it really saves me ton of time.

For your particular needs , you can create a script that activates when you press a shortcut,or rotate the mouse scroll etc.,

then it moves the mouse to rotation field of the brushes palette, clicks there and presses the Down/Up key (or Shift+Up/Down for bigger steps)

and then you can restore the original mouse position. So for you it won't be even noticeable how the mouse goes,clicks and returns.

It's kinda kool 🙂

I have something similar that I use when I retouch in PS .

I have made my mouse scroll increase/decrease the brush size by  1px  , so a quick rotation of the mouse scroll can change it by up to 10-12 px.

Also by holding the Shift key while rotating the scroll, does that in bigger steps.

I have also made scrolling back and forth in history very ease by Ctrl+Mouse scroll.

( I know  in CS4/CS5 you can change brush size with Alt+right click, still I like my script better because it's more precise)

There's something even better you can do. I'm just working on a new script to use my Logitech G25 racing wheel pedals to control the brush size,

because I bought Intuos4 Medium and I'm missing my mouse scroll wheel too much.

So with the pedals the more you press the faster the brush size inreases/decreases. It's really good and you can program them to do different things when different modifiers are being pressed. Of course you are not limited only to pedals you can use joysticks and all other input devices that the Autohotkey program can register.

I think Adobe should give us more control of how to automate all this things in the future and not to resort to 3rd party solutions like this.

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 13, 2010 Dec 13, 2010

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LATEST

NikkoKikko

I have a Wacom Intuos 4 which is great for resizing my brushes. I even bought their ART PEN, hoping it would recognize the rotation of the Art Pen in my fingers, but Photoshop only does that in the special set of brushes near the top of the list (bristle brushes?). Of course, on those brushes, it also recognizes the angle of the pen.

I am not much of a script writer, so I am not sure if the utility would do me any good.  If I understand it right, the utility you mentioned will go directly to the brush rotation tool of the brush, where you rotate the brush with a spin of the mouse's wheel. This might be a welcome "workaround" for some, but the game plan would be to get Adobe to recognize the spin of the Art Pen. People have been asking for this for a long time, and apparently Corel Painter can do it now. I have Painter, but just hate to have to learn a new program to get a few basic features that should be here by now!

M. Jackson

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