How to Create a Sakura Petals Brush in Photoshop – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

Final product image — What You’ll Be Creating

In today’s tutorial, we will be learning how to create a sakura petals brush in Photoshop. With this brush, you’ll be able to create a quick and easy falling sakura petals photo effect with just one image and a few clicks!

Need rose petals instead of cherry blossoms? No problem! You can use this same technique to create any flower petal brush in Photoshop.

What You Will Learn in This Adobe Photoshop Brush Tutorial

How to create a sakura petals brush in Photoshop
How to change brush settings in Photoshop
How to paint sakura petals falling in Photoshop
How to save brush settings in Photoshop
How to create depth of field in Photoshop

Follow along with us over on the Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel:

What You’ll Need

To complete this project, you will need the following resources:

Find more resources on Envato Elements!

1. How to Create a Sakura Petal Brush in Photoshop

Step 1

First, open up a photo containing a cherry blossom petal, and extract the petal using your preferred method.

The Object Selection Tool worked great for me!

Step 2

Next, Control-Click the cherry blossom, or its layer mask if you have one, to make an exact selection.

Hit the Crop tool to crop the canvas down to size.

Step 3

Create a white Color Fill layer below the petal.

Turn the petal grayscale with a black and white Gradient Map adjustment layer, checking the Reverse box in the Gradient Map’s Properties panel.

Right-click > Flatten Image and then go to Edit > Define Brush Preset.

Don’t worry about naming your brush just yet!

2. How to Set Brush Settings in Photoshop

Step 1

Now, let’s fiddle with our brush’s settings, starting with setting the Spacing to 1000%.

Next, let’s tweak our Shape Dynamics with a Size Jitter of 50%, Angle Jitter of 100%, and a Roundness Jitter of 100%.

Step 2

Then for our Scattering, let’s do a Scatter of 1000%.

The Scattering will change as you paint, so feel free to lower it as needed!

You can also increase the Count to 2 or 3 to paint more than one petal at a time.

Step 3

Now, let’s set our Color Dynamics to Foreground/Background Jitter: 40%, Hue Jitter: 2%, Saturation Jitter: 2%, and Brightness Jitter: 4%.

You can also turn Color Dynamics and off as needed while you paint!

Save these settings and name your new brush by clicking the square icon in the bottom-right corner of the Brush Settings panel.

3. How to Create Sakura Petals Falling in Photoshop

Step 1

Finally, let’s put our new petal brush to good use and place our sakura petals falling! Open up your image, like this Woman Next to Sakura Tree that I’ll be playing with, and create a new layer, calling it “Medium Petals”!

Let’s select a color from the lightest point of the flower for our foreground color, and then from a darker point for our background color, using the Eye Dropper tool.

Set the Size of your brush so that the largest petal you paint will only be as big as the largest petal that’s in focus in your photo.

Now, click and drag your brush across the image!

Add a very slight Gaussian Blur if the petals are too sharp compared to the rest of the image.

Step 2

Next, let’s create some background petals by lowering the size of our brush slightly, creating a new layer named “background” and then painting all over.

Don’t be afraid to create and paint on multiple different layers!

Erase any smaller petals that overlap on top of your model.

If your subject’s background is heavily out of focus like mine, then add a Gaussian Blur, so that the petals appear out of focus as well!

Finally, I like to lower the background petals’ Opacity down to 70%.

Step 3

Finish things up by creating two new layers over all your other petal layers and the subject. Name these layers “Large” and “Extra Large.”

And, you guessed it, paint large and extra-large petals on both of these layers! These petals will be our foreground petals and will help give any image a quick dose of depth.

Blur both layers using Filter > Blur Gallery > Field Blur.

Don’t be shy with the blur! The exact number will depend on the size of your image.

paint and blur foreground sakura petals falling

That’s It!

And that’s all there is to creating a sakura brush in Photoshop and creating a quick and easy effect of sakura petals falling! The best part is that this will work for creating any kind of flower petal brush in Photoshop, including leaves and rose petals. Or you can just create multiple different petal brushes using different petals from the same image for an even more realistic and varied effect! The possibilities are endless.

How to Create sakura petals brush photoshop

Need Even More?

50 Sakura Light Lightroom Presets

Spring your photos into life with these light and airy Lightroom presets! Instantly transform your photos with beautiful bright looks inspired by sakura and cherry blossoms. A perfect match for your newly created sakura petal Photoshop brushes.

Blooming Sakura Cherry Blossom Background

One of the countless other sakura and cherry blossom tree images that can be found on Envato Elements, this Blooming Sakura Cherry Blossom Background can be used to create dozens of different sakura petal Photoshop brushes, as well as creating the perfect backdrop for a cherry blossom inspired photo composite!

10 Watercolor Sakura Flower Illustration Graphics

These ten watercolor sakura flower illustration graphics combine the sweet nature of sakura petals with the soft colors of watercolor, and they fit together perfectly! Mix these with your new sakura petal Photoshop brushes to truly make these blossoms your own.

Cherry Blossom Font

Cherry Blossom is a clean, bouncy font that makes a perfect pair with the light and airy colors of sakura flowers. It’s ideal for wedding limitations, baby shower announcements, or any design you want to have a cheerful and fun feel, while still appearing natural and organic!

Pink Floral – Sakura Watercolor Set

This Pink Floral Sakura Watercolor set offers you more than just light peaks, as it incorporates tons of greens and whites for a more realistic look—all without losing any of the fun character that watercolor illustrations always have. The best part? They are all repeatable patterns!

Looking to learn more? Why not check out the following tutorials: