Creating custom alphas in ZBrush

• find a texture you want to use and download it
• open photoshop
• pixels- between 512 & 1k
• square canvas
• open the image you downloaded
• paste it into your canvas
• move around the image to find the best part that you want to use
• crop your image
• Ctrl+A image -> crop
• create a new layer above the image
• gradient tool 
• in toolbar choose the circular gradient
• click on the gradient in the toolbar to find the presets for the tool
• basics -> white to nothing
• cursor in the center, click and drag to create the gradient
• holding shift lets you move the gradient around
• this creates the soft edge on the alphas
• duplicate the gradient until the center is darker and larger
• the blackest part of the image is what will stay
• select all of the gradient layers
• flatten them
• merge layers
• select your image 
• image -> attributes -> gradient ramp
• this allows you to continue editing the attributes of the image
• if there is too much information
• filter -> blur more
• this takes some of the edges off of the image
• ctrl on thumbnail to select the gradient
• ctrl+shift+ I to invert the mask
• select your image and delete, clearing anything other than what you have selected
• make the background black
• save as PSD if you still want to save the layers
• image-> mode-> grayscale
• Zbrush does not use layers
• file -> save as -> *.PSD
• to import
• in ZBrush 
• left toolbar-> alpha -> import, find your PSD
• this ONLY SAVES IT IN YOUR SESSION
• in file explorer
• find your "Zalphas" folder and put it in there
• THIS SAVES IT ACROSS SESSIONS