Multi-color brush in Photoshop?

Maybe this isn't possible... I've searched and come up empty handed. Maybe I'm going about it the wrong way but ...

Something I've been toying with lately is by starting my clothing with a couple paths. With those paths, I can cut away some fabric (so, say, the bottom of a shirt can be jagged or curvy or something) and then I can reuse that path and stroke a brush along the same path, so I have a neat brush effect (like trim) that follows exactly the bottom of the shirt. (being a little fancy, I can take that brush stroke in its own layer, and incorporate it into the alpha channel so, say, the fabric is see-through, but the brush (trim) is solid, but I digress)

But.... All brushes I've seen are a single color (or grayscale I suppose). How can I take an image with varying colors, make a brush out of it, stroke that brush along the path, but still retain all the original image's color detail? If I define a brush with an image, it seemingly makes it grayscale.

I could maybe just paste that image many times and just eyeball it along the path, but that seems not only tedious but wouldn't line up to the path like a brush stroke would. (I'm no artist, have no graphics tablet, and need things as automated as possible )

Thanks!

Dunno when it was added (and so whether you'll have it or not) but in CS2 you just pick pattern stamp from the dropdown in the stroke path dialogue.

Oh, and there's a texture setting for brushes in the brushes pallet, then you can use a paintbrush for the stroke.

Don't ask me how to create patterns though, it's something I've never been able to remember.

EDIT: Okay, it's Edit>Define Pattern. Aren't help files wonderful?

Well, that does add a pattern that has the color detail, but the pattern is the same as if I did a fill or something. Maybe I'm not explaining it well...

Take, for example, a picture of a piece of jewelry. Shiny gold metal, a red gem in the center, things like that. I want that picture, that piece of jewelry, to repeat along a path, over and over, as if it were a brush, but one that retains all the color detail of the original picture of the piece of jewelry.

If I make a pattern of that jewelry, it won't line up properly along that path, but just be repeating over and over.. I can fill or use a texture brush or something along that path, but it'll just reveal that texture which surely won't be curved along a path.

(so far as I understand it)

(thank you for replying though, there may be more digging I can do with other tools, rather than just the brush, as I stroke the path, with a glance though, this isn't what I'm after)

Painter has an "image hose" brush that does this, although I'm not sure if it's possible to use paths with it. I don't know how to do this in Photoshop; if I dig anything up I'll post again.

Sorry I wasn't more help. I've never heard of anything that does that in Photoshop, it's something I'd expect there to be a plugin for somewhere though. From your example it sounds like more than just a multicoloured brush that you want too.

Well, I called it a multicolored brush because, it seems, if a brush could retain the color of the original image the brush is made from, it would work just fine. Instead, brushes use the foreground color (well some color if another is selected) and just the shape of the image.

I guess what gets me is that it doesn't ~seem to be too difficult. I just want to repeat an image along a path... Sure would make for some nice and easy clothing though.

Thanks though for replying.

And thanks, Nailati, for replying, though, I don't have Painter.. And I guess it does need to be along a path.

I could, I suppose, just eyeball it like I originally said and just try to get it along the path, maybe moving a layer until it looks close enough. I had recently made a skirt and shirt, though, that used a brush along the same path as I used to select the 'fabric' and the result was quite nice.. I had a little pattern that moved exactly the same as the fabric I cut out, and I was able to use that same path for the alpha texture. (to be a little more verbose, I made a silk skirt and shirt, that had the fabric see-through, but sort of a belt or trim that went along the line of the fabric that was opaque.. the effect was quite nice, though, the trim was very simple as it was just a single-colored brush)

Trouble with using it as a brush is that it wouldn't deform the image, it'd just lay it on as is. Have you got Illustrator? I was just thinking; that might have what you want.

Could Photoshop's clone stamp help here?

Still doesn't deform the image unfortunately.

Multicolored brushes are something I'm interested in too: does the pattern stamp/clone stamp (different thing from the Pattern Maker filter, Breah) have all the same controlls as the paintbrush does (like Size, Direction, jitter, spacing, etc)? I'd check myself if I had access to Photoshop from where I am.

Yup.

Hi Everyone! AJ's answer, while correct, is a touch misleading.

Yeah, the Pattern Stamp Tool has all those controls, but they adjust the size/direction etc. of the stamp only; not the pattern. The pattern is fixed, and nothing can be done about that. You can't even rotate patterns using a Pattern Layer; you have to rasterize them first. (You can rotate the layer, but the pattern remains exactly the way it was.)

You can get the Pattern Stamp Tool to stroke a path very easily, by selecting it before you cick the "Stroke Path" icon in the Paths palette, or by holding down Option/alt when you click that icon, and choosing it from the drop-down. But it will still behave like filling an area.

I'm afraid that what Breah is looking for can't be done in Photoshop, as such.

You can do multicolored brushes, that jitter between foreground and background color, or hue, or saturation, and so on; but that's not what you're after, right, Breah?

I'm not aware of any plug-ins that do this, either.

Painter does a fantastic job of it, and you can do the same thing in Illustrator, but not Photoshop. Not yet, anyway. Hopefully, they'll implement it soon.

There is a Painter's Essentials program, which you can download from Corel for less than $70 US, that has the Pattern Brush. But I'm not sure that it has "Paint on a Path," which the full version has. (You have to move the brush yourself, but since it sticks to the path, that's not a problem.) You can download the demo, though, and see.

It's possible, depending on how much money you are making from selling the clothing, that it would pay for itself pretty quickly.

Or you could try using the Warp filter in PS CS2, if that happens to be your version. It would do it, but it would also be really easy to distort the images while you wrap them. The advantage, though, if you got it right is that if you use it with a Smart Object, you only have to do it once per path. The next time, you could just swap the image in the Smart Object, and the warping would be done instantly.

But yeah, if you can afford it, I'd get Painter 9. It has all kinds of other things that make clothing design a lot nicer, too; especially if you make your own fabrics.

Thanks for the reply And, the color jitter isn't what I was after, correct. At least I know now to stop hunting. haha

And ... I'm not making any money at clothing, it's just a hobby right now. Buying a paint program isn't quite in the picture at the moment. But I'm getting better at it, and getting a neat little procedure down as to how to make things and it's fun to play around with... Someday maybe..