How to Create a Kiss Brush in Photoshop

A custom kiss brush starts with an actual physical kiss, lipstick pressed onto paper and scanned or photographed, then cleaned up and converted into a black-on-white shape Photoshop can turn into a reusable brush. This tutorial covers selecting the best kiss from a scanned sheet, cleaning it up with the Clone Stamp tool, converting it to black on white with Desaturate and Levels, defining it as a brush preset, and applying that brush with color sampling and scattering.

Capturing and Scanning a Physical Kiss

Pressing lipstick-covered lips onto a piece of paper a few times, then scanning or photographing that paper, provides the raw material to turn into a brush.

1. Apply Lipstick and Kiss a Piece of Paper

   Apply lipstick and press several kisses onto a plain piece of paper to have multiple options to choose from.

2. Scan or Photograph the Paper

   Scan the paper, or take a photo with a phone or camera, to bring the kisses into digital form.

Selecting and Isolating the Best Kiss

Circling the cleanest kiss with the Lasso tool and duplicating it to its own layer isolates just that one shape to work with.

3. Choose the Best Kiss

   Review the scanned kisses and pick the one with the cleanest, most well-defined shape.

4. Circle It With the Lasso Tool

   Use the Lasso tool to draw a rough circle around the chosen kiss.

5. Duplicate the Selection to a New Layer

   Press Cmd/Ctrl+J to duplicate the selected kiss onto its own layer.

6. Rotate for the Best Orientation

   Press Cmd/Ctrl+T and rotate the kiss shape to whatever orientation looks best.

Cleaning Up the Kiss’s Edges With the Clone Stamp Tool

The Clone Stamp tool, rather than the Healing Brush, removes small blemishes and stray marks around the kiss’s edge without introducing an unwanted blur.

7. Try the Healing Brush First

   Attempt to clean small spots around the kiss’s edge with the Healing Brush tool.

8. Switch to the Clone Stamp Tool

   Undo if the Healing Brush blurs the edge, and switch to the Clone Stamp tool instead, which makes a direct copy of the sampled area without blurring.

9. Clean Up the Kiss’s Edge

   Sample nearby clean areas and paint over any remaining spots or imperfections around the kiss’s outline.

Why the Clone Stamp Tool Beats the Healing Brush for This Edge

The Healing Brush blends sampled texture with the surrounding area, which can soften and blur a sharp, detailed edge like the outline of a kiss. The Clone Stamp tool instead pastes an exact, unblended copy of whatever is sampled, keeping the kiss’s edge crisp and well-defined rather than fuzzy.

Converting the Kiss to Black on a White Background

Desaturating the kiss and then using Levels to push it toward pure black on a pure white background creates the tonal contrast Photoshop requires to read a shape as a custom brush.

10. Duplicate the Layer to a New Document

    Right-click the cleaned-up kiss layer, choose Duplicate Layer, and send it to a new document.

11. Desaturate the Layer

    Go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate to remove all color from the kiss.

12. Adjust Levels for Strong Contrast

    Press Cmd/Ctrl+L, set the white point on the paper background, and darken the midpoint so the kiss reads as solid black.

13. Add a White Solid Color Layer Underneath

    Add a Solid Color adjustment layer filled with white and position it beneath the kiss layer.

Masking Away Remaining Paper Texture

Painting black on a layer mask around the kiss’s outer edges removes leftover flecks of paper texture that would otherwise show up in the finished brush.

14. Add a Layer Mask to the Kiss Layer

    Click the layer mask button on the kiss layer.

15. Paint Black Around the Edges

    Use a regular soft-edged brush to paint black on the mask around any stray paper texture visible near the kiss’s edges.

Why Removing Paper Texture Matters Before Defining the Brush

Any leftover flecks or texture from the scanned paper would get baked directly into the brush shape, showing up as unwanted specks every single time the brush is used. Masking those areas away beforehand ensures the finished brush paints a clean kiss shape and nothing else.

Cropping and Defining the Custom Brush

Cropping tightly around the cleaned-up kiss and running Define Brush Preset turns the black shape into a reusable Photoshop brush.

16. Crop Tightly Around the Kiss

    Use the Crop tool to crop closely around the finished black-on-white kiss shape.

17. Define the Brush Preset

    Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset, name the brush, such as “Kiss,” and confirm.

Why the Brush Behaves Like Any Other Regular Brush

Once a custom brush is defined from an image, Photoshop treats it exactly the same as any built-in brush, with full access to color, opacity, flow, and every brush setting. That means a custom kiss brush can be sampled to any color, scattered randomly, or resized just as freely as a standard round brush, rather than being limited to whatever it looked like at the moment it was created.

Applying and Customizing the Kiss Brush

Selecting the new brush, sampling a color directly from a photo, and adding scattering and size jitter turns the plain brush into a flexible, colorful tool for painting kisses across an image.

18. Select the New Kiss Brush

    Choose the Brush tool and select the newly created kiss brush from the brush picker.

19. Set Flow and Opacity to 100%

    Raise both Flow and Opacity to 100% to see the kiss shapes at full strength.

20. Sample a Color From the Image

    Hold Alt/Option and click on a color in the photo, such as actual lipstick color, to paint kisses in that exact shade.

21. Add Scattering and Size Jitter for Variation

    Go to Window > Brush, enable Scattering for randomized placement, adjust Spacing to control density, and raise Size Jitter for varied kiss sizes.

More Free Photoshop Tutorials

To build on the custom brush techniques used here, check out these free tutorials:

• How to Select Subjects and Refine Edges in Photoshop
• Three Ways to Use Blend If in Photoshop
• Curves vs Levels in Photoshop: What the Difference Actually Is

Why This Approach Works

Converting the kiss to solid black on pure white with Desaturate and Levels is what gives Photoshop the clean tonal contrast it needs to correctly interpret the shape as a brush tip. Choosing the Clone Stamp tool over the Healing Brush for edge cleanup is what preserves the kiss’s crisp, detailed outline instead of letting it soften into a blur. Once defined, treating the kiss like any other regular brush, with color sampling, scattering, and size jitter, is what makes it just as flexible and customizable as a stock Photoshop brush despite being made from a physical object.

Final Thoughts

This exact same black-on-white, desaturate-and-levels process works for turning literally any photographed object or mark into a custom Photoshop brush, not just a kiss. Once the brush exists, it behaves like any other, ready to be resized, recolored, or scattered across any image.

Related Tutorials

• Light Effect in Photoshop: 4 Easy Steps, No Brushes Needed
• Layer Masks in Photoshop: 4 Easy Ways to Paint One
• Generative Fill vs Clone Stamp: 3 Easy Tools Compared