Adobe Photoshop CC offers many technical features and possibilities. But to get our target group to paint digitally, we needed to create something with a soul, something unique beyond the technology and software.

In collaboration with the Munch Museum in Oslo, we digitized the over 100-year-old original paintbrushes of Norwegian master painter Edvard Munch, creator of the world-famous painting ’The Scream’. The fragile originals were transformed into an exclusive set of Photoshop brushes to inspire and engage a new generation of artists to paint like a master, using a piece of art history.

Working closely with the conservation experts at the Munch Museum, each original brush was photographed in 360 degrees using ultra-high-resolution cameras, documenting all angles and details to create an accurate three-dimensional representation. Further, Munch’s artistic style and brushwork were closely analyzed by experts from the Munch Museum, and combined with laboratory data about the brushes’ attributes, including physical properties such as flexibility and bristle type.

The process of turning the data and scans into Photoshop brushes was performed by Kyle T. Webster, regarded by many as the world’s foremost authority on Photoshop brushes. In collaboration with the museum experts, Kyle transformed all the data into digital representations of Munch’s brushes, capturing the exact shape and performance attributes of each brush.

The unique brush set for Photoshop was made available for free download and distributed globally via Adobe’s own social media channels, blogs and websites.

During the 4 month campaign period, June 2017 - September 2017, the brush kit was supported by a set of campaign units which all were designed to capture both the essence of Edvard Munch and Adobe Photoshop. Bridging analogue and digital. These units included a press release, campaign imagery, a campaign video, digital painting tutorials, a campaign site, live streamed digital painting workshop with a few of the world’s best digital artists, a digital painting competition, an influencer program, an exhibition at the Munch Museum in Oslo, e-DRs, social media posts and blog posts.

Adobe Creative Cloud is the world-leading producer of digital creative tools and the initiative of digitizing the original brushes of Edvard Munch enhances their brand vision of 'thought leadership in creativity’. The brush kit are the centerpiece in a one-of-a-kind campaign increasing active use in Photoshop CC as well as generating new subscribers.