Create a confetti brush in Photoshop

Updated in October 2017 for Adobe Photoshop CC.

Creating a custom confetti brush in Photoshop is fun and easy. These brushes are perfect if you want to add a bit of color to your designs. Follow this tutorial to learn how to make a confetti brush using the basic Photoshop brushes and how to create custom confetti brushes.

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How to create a simple confetti brush in Photoshop

Start by creating a new document. Set the background to transparent or create a new layer. Set the foreground and background colors to the colors you want.

Select the Brush tool (B) and chose a simple round brush. I’m using a 30px brush and the hardness is set to 100%.

Make sure the Brush tool is selected and open the Brush menu (Window > Brush or F5).

We are going to create a confetti brush by changing the settings.

Turn the brush stroke into a dotted line from the Brush Tip Shape. Increasing the Spacing to more than 100% will increase the space between dots.

Go to Shape Dynamics and change the Size Jitter. This will change the size of the dots. You can also change the Roundness Jitter to create oval shapes and the Angle Jitter to rotate them.

You might need to increase the Spacing again from Brush Tip Shape.

In order to create a confetti brush, you will have to change the Scattering. Make sure Both Axes is checked and move the Scatter slider.

I like to increase the Count to 4 (number of dots that will appear when you click on the canvas) and the Count Jitter to 20%.

Play with the options and sliders until you have the perfect confetti brush.

I like to see overlapping dots, but they would look better if we change their transparency. You can do that from Transfer. I usually increase the Flow Jitter to 30%. You can also change the Opacity.

The last step is to recolor the dots. You can do that by changing the Color Dynamics.

Make sure the foreground and background colors are set to the colors you want to use and that Apply to Tip is checked.

1. Changing the Foreground/Background Jitter will change the colors using the Foreground and Background colors
2. Change the Hues if you want to use more colors
3. Increase the Saturation if you want vibrant colors

How to create a custom confetti brush in Photoshop

I’m going to create a simple confetti brush from triangles and rectangles. You can draw the confetti using the pen tool or import your artwork from Illustrator.

It’s important to change the color of your confetti to black or different shades of gray. Otherwise, you won’t be able to create a brush.

To create a custom brush, go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and name your brush. You can use a single shape or multiple shapes like I did.

Now, select the Brush tool (B) and search for your custom brush. You might need to resize it if it’s too big.

Go to the Brush menu and change the setting like we did for the simple confetti brush.

If you have more than one shape use the following settings:

• change the Brush Tip Shape > Spacing to approx. 50%
• change the Shape Dynamics > Size Jitter to 10-20%
• change the Shape Dynamics > Angle Jitter to approx. 50%
• change the Scattering > Scatter to a small value (smaller than 100%)
• use the same settings for Transfer and Color Dynamics

Play with the settings until you have the perfect confetti brush. Remeber to keep the Spacing and Scatter to a small value.

Do you use confetti in your designs? Let me know if you have questions in the comments.