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The Brushes Menu

Before discussing specific brushes, take a brief look at the Brushes menu, which you can pull down from the Tool Options bar after you select a tool that uses brush shapes. To open it, click the downward-pointing arrow next to the field that shows the current brush shape. Although each tool has its own set of options, the Brush menu (shown in Figure 7.2) works with most of the art tools, from the Brush to the Clone Stamp tool. (The Pencil's brushes are different, and the Paint Bucket and Gradient tool don't use brushes.) It gives you the capability to select any of Photoshop's preset brush shapes.

Just click to select one of the preset brush shapes. The size and shape you see in the box are the size and shape of the brush. The only exceptions are the brushes with numbers beneath, which indicate the diameter of the brush in pixels. You can use the slider to change the size of the brush without changing any of its other characteristics. A brush can be up to 999 pixels wide. Remember, clicking a brush shape doesn't select a brush tool. You have to do that in the toolbox or by typing a letter shortcut. The Brush menu just influences the shape of the tool you select.

Photoshop comes with many kinds of brushes. You can install the additional brush sets by using the pop-up menu on the Brushes palette. To view the brush shapes by name or by the shape of the stroke they make, use the pop-up menu.

Brushes Palette

The Brushes palette is shown in Figure 7.3. It's usually docked in the Tool Options bar's palette well, but if you prefer to have it accessible elsewhere on the screen, you can do so. Open the Brushes palette by first selecting any painting tool and then clicking the preferences button on the Options bar, or by choosing WindowBrushes. The Brushes palette can then be dragged to a convenient spot on the screen or "docked" by dragging its tab back to the palette well. After it's been docked, it will stay there until you remove it.

The left column displays a list of brush attributes, from tip shapes to dynamics. Clicking each of these items opens a different pane on the right side of the palette. (Shown in the figure is the Brush Tip Shape pane.) With this palette, you can select the qualities of each brush you alter or develop from scratch. Here you can select the diameter, hardness, spacing, angle, and roundness of the brushes.

The first two brush attributes to consider are the size and shape. Adjust the diameter with the slider, and drag the brush tip proxy to the appropriate angle and roundness.

Next, set the hardness. The harder a brush is (closer to 100%), the more defined the edges of paint will be. A brush with a setting of around 20% has a much more diaphanous or translucent appearance. The next option is for spacing.

By selecting the Spacing check box, you can set a standard spacing of paint, no matter how fast you drag the mouse. Anything around 25% should give you a very smooth line of paint. If the Spacing check box is left unselected, the speed of your mouse movements determines the spacing of discrete drops of paint. If you move more slowly, paint appears in a continuous line. If you move the mouse more quickly, dabs of paint appear with spaces between them. As you increase the percentage (either by dragging the slider or entering a number into the box), the spaces increase. You can even see the differences as you move the spacing slider (see Figure 7.4).

Play around with these settings. With a little experimenting, you can end up with a brush that behaves just as a real brush doespainting thicker and thinner depending on the angle and speed of your stroke.

To make adjustments, you can enter values in the fields provided, drag the sliders, or click and manipulate the graphic proxy in the Brush Tip Shape section of the Brushes palette.

When you find a brush you are comfortable with, save it. Choose New Brush Preset from the Brushes palette menu. Use the Brush Name dialog box to give it a name, and the brush will be available to you from then on (see Figure 7.5). If you create an assortment of brushes, you can save them as a group. There's a pop-up menu on the right side of the Brushes palette. (Look for the right-pointing triangle.) Choose Save Brushes to save a brush set.

Using the Opacity Slider

The single most important control in the Tool Options bar is the slider that sets the opacity. Click and hold the right-pointing arrow next to the Opacity field to enable the slider. A low setting applies a thin layer of paintnearly transparent. The closer you come to 100%, the more concentrated the color is. Figure 7.6 contains some examples of different opacities. I've drawn lines on top of the gradient with both a soft and hard brush, and changed the percentage of opacity for each set of lines. See this figure in color in the color plate section.

Brush Options

In addition to the brush shape options, Photoshop also gives you some options for brush behavior. Unfortunately, unless you have a pressure-sensitive graphics tablet, you won't be able to enjoy the full effects of these options. The brush behavior options are accessed as check boxes, in the list on the left side of the Brushes palette. Click the name of the action, such as Scattering, to reach the sliders to adjust it. After you've made the adjustments, use the check box to turn the effect on or off.

Using the Wet Edges Setting

Wet Edges creates a sort of watercolor effect when you paint. Figure 7.7 shows an example of the same brush and paint with Wet Edges on and off. Paint builds up at the edges of your brush, and, as long as you are holding the mouse down and painting, the paint stays "wet." In other words, you can paint over your previous strokes without building up additional layers of color. If, however, you release the mouse button and begin to paint again, you will be adding a new layer of paint, which creates an entirely new effect. Notice the overlapped strokes in the figure.

Setting Brush Dynamics

If you use a graphics tablet and stylus, you can get the same sort of fade-out effect that you'd get in the real world by easing off the pressure on a brush or pencil. You have five options for each of these settings: Off, Fade, Pen Pressure, Pen Tilt, and Stylus Wheel. Figure 7.8 shows the Color Dynamics pane of the Brushes palette and some sample strokes with the dynamics on.