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2ManyImages
Participating Frequently
March 30, 2010
Question

Rotating a Brush in Photoshop

  • March 30, 2010
  • 3 replies
  • 33751 views

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

      This topic has been closed for replies.

      3 replies

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      NikkoKikko-mTVBuF
      Participant
      December 14, 2010

      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.

      2
      2ManyImagesAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      December 14, 2010

      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

      P
      PeterK__
      Participating Frequently
      March 30, 2010

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

        the_wine_snob
        the_wine_snob
        Inspiring
        March 30, 2010

        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

        the_wine_snob
        the_wine_snob
        Inspiring
        March 30, 2010

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

        Good luck,

        Hunt

          A
          Anonymous
          March 30, 2010

          He already discounted that one!

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