Brushes

The first Photoshop tutorial in the How to Start section introduces brushes; this one goes into the Brushes palette in more detail.

• Open image number 1 from the Samples-Starting folder and we'll use it to try out the brushes.

• Select the Brush Tool by pressing B.

• Press D to set foreground and background to default of black over white.

• As well as the range of default brushes, extras sets can be loaded.
Click on the small arrow in the top right corner and drop down to Square Brushes.
OK will replace the existing brushes with the new choice.
Append will add the new choice to the existing brushes. Click Append.
Square brushes are very useful for getting into sharp corners, both as a Brush and an Eraser.
They come in set sizes and at 100% hardness; size can be changed but hardness cannot.

• With Brush Presets selected, the pop-up menu gives a choice of display options.The cursor becomes dynamic in that when it is hovered over a brush icon, the effect of the brush is displayed in the preview area.

• The size, hardness and shape of a preset brush can be changed, but the change only be temporary. The next time that preset is used, it will revert to its original state. Brushes can be permanently customized by creating a new preset (described below).

• Click on the small arrow again and select Calligraphic Brushes. Click Append.

• The angle and shape of the oval brush can be changed by adjusting the anchor points in box A.
The shape can be very round or much slimmer like an italic pen.

• The other choices in the pop-up menu offer a large range of brush designs.

• The other brush libraries which can be loaded produce chalk, scatter and spray effects. There are also various assorted designs like stars, snow flakes and squiggles.

• If the Brushes palettes becomes too full and confusing, a fresh start can be made in the pop-up menu, choose Reset Brushes.

• In the Brushes palette, choose brush 19 in the top row.
With the Diameter slider, increase its size to 35.
With the Hardness slider, reduce its hardness to 70%.

• Click on the Shape Dynamics name.
The options available for each item listed appear on the right.
Under Control, with Fade, the brush stroke will progressively disappear to nothing.

The other options under Control work with a pressure-sensitve stylus pen and tablet.

Jitter percentage affects the randomness of applying of the settings.

The settings chosen can be locked by clicking on the small padlock.

• The best way to understand Shape Dynamics, Scattering and Texture is to turn them on sliders and controls.


Tip
The square brackets [ ] will increase and decrease the size of the brush. Shift + [ will increase the hardness of the brush. Shift + ] will reduce the hardness of the brush.


• A brush can be loaded with a texture.
Click on the Texture name and choose a pattern from the pop-up palette.

• Size is changed with the Scale slider.

• Texture Each Tip will render the effect on each tip as it is painted.
At 100%, the low points of the texture receive no paint, making the pattern stronger.
0% gives all points in the texture an equal amount of paint, making the pattern its weakest.

• Dual Brush will use two brush tips at once.
Click on Brush Tip Shapes and choose brush size 35 with 0% hardness.
Click on Dual Brush and choose a Spatter brush of 24 pixels.

The other sliders all have an effect also.

• Color dynamics controls the colour changes of a brush stroke.

• With Purity set to -100% colour will be fully desaturated, therefore no colour.
100% is fully saturated colour.

• Foreground/Background Jitter the higher the number, the greater the difference between the foreground and background colours.
Control allows further variations, especially with a pressure-sensitve pen.

• Hue, Saturation and Brightness are all controlled by their own sliders - the higher the numbers, the stronger the result.

• Other dynamics gives controls of the Opacity and Flow, which is how much colour is applied with the stroke. A lower Flow setting gives a smoother stroke.

Jitter controls the randomness of the function.
With 0% there is no change over the stroke.
With 100% the function will be applied with maximum randomness.

• Ticks in the boxes will turn on the options peviously set
without having to bring up the sliders.

• Noise works best on a brush with very soft edges.

• Wet Edges gives a watercolour effect.

• The Airbrush option, like the Airbrush Tool, will build up colour when pressure is held on one area.

• Smoothing smooths a stroke and takes out a bit of wobble, especially with a stylus pen.

• Protect Texture. Any texture already set will be applied with all brushes.
This way, the same texture can be applied to the whole image regardless of what brush is being used.



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