Working with brushes

Working with brushes is an important part of using the painting and editing tools. The brush you select determines many characteristics of the resulting stroke. Photoshop and ImageReady provide a variety of preset brushes to fill a wide range of uses. In Photoshop, you can also create custom brushes using the Brushes palette.

Using the Brushes palette (Photoshop)

The Brushes palette lets you select preset brushes and design custom brushes.

Brushes palette with Brush Tip Shape options displayed

Displaying the Brushes palette Choose Window > Brushes, or click the palette

button on the right side of the options bar for the painting tools, erasing tools, toning tools, and focus tools.

Displaying options in the Brushes palette Select an item name on the left side of the palette. The available options for the selected item appear on the right side of the palette.

Click the checkbox to the left of the item name to enable or disable the item without viewing its options.

Selecting preset brushes

The Brush pop-up palette in the options bar for the painting and editing tools lets you view, select, and load preset brushes. In Photoshop, you can also use the Brushes palette to view, select, and load preset brushes.

To display the Brush pop-up palette:

1Select a painting tool or editing tool.

2Click the brush sample in the options bar.

To select a preset brush:

1 Click a brush in the Brush pop-up palette or Brushes palette.

Note: If you are using the Brushes palette, be sure that Brush Presets on the left side palette is selected to view the loaded presets.

2(Photoshop) Specify a Master Diameter for the brush by dragging the slider or entering a value. If the brush has a dual tip, both the primary and dual brush tips are scaled. (See “Creating dual brushes (Photoshop)” on page 236.)

3(Photoshop) Click Use Sample Size to use the original diameter of the brush tip. This option is available only if the brush tip shape is based on a sample.

To change how preset brushes are displayed (Photoshop):

Choose a display option from the Brush pop-up palette menu or Brushes palette menu:

•Text Only to view the brushes as a list.

•Small or Large Thumbnail to view the brushes as thumbnails.

•Small or Large List to view the brushes as a list with thumbnails.

•Stroke Thumbnail to view a sample brush stroke with each brush thumbnail.

To dynamically preview brush strokes in the Brushes palette, position the pointer over a brush until the tool tip appears, then move the pointer over different brushes. The

preview area at the bottom of the palette will display sample brush strokes.

To load a library of preset brushes:

Choose one of the following from the Brush pop-up palette menu or Brushes palette menu:

•Load Brushes to add a library to the current list. Select the library file you want to use, and click Load.

•Replace Brushes to replace the current list with a different library. Select the library file you want to use, and click Load.

•A library file (displayed at the bottom of the palette menu). Click OK to replace the current list, or click Append to append the current list.

Note: You can also use the Preset Manager to load and reset brush libraries. For more information, see “Managing libraries with the Preset Manager (Photoshop)” on page 54.

To return to the default library of preset brushes:

Choose Reset Brushes from the Brush pop-up palette menu or Brushes palette menu. You can either replace the current list or append the default library to the current list.

Customizing brush tips (Photoshop)

A brush stroke is made up of many individual brush marks. The brush tip you select determines the shape, diameter, and other characteristics of a brush mark. You can customize brush tips by editing their options and create new brush tip shapes by sampling pixels in an image.

Pear painted with custom brush shown in inset

To create a new brush tip shape:

1 Use the rectangle marquee with Feather set to 0 px to select part of an image to use as a custom brush.

The brush shape can be up to 2500 pixels by 2500 pixels in size. To be most effective, the shape should appear on a solid white background. If you want to define a brush with soft edges, select pixels with gray values. (Colored brush shapes appear as gray values.)

2Choose Edit > Define Brush.

3Name the brush, and click OK.

To set brush tip shape options:

1In the Brushes palette, select Brush Tip Shape on the left side of the palette.

2Select the brush tip you want to customize, and set one or more of the following options:

Diameter Controls the size of the brush. Enter a value in pixels or drag the slider.

Brush strokes with different diameter values

Use Sample Size Resets the brush to its original diameter. This option is only available if the brush tip shape was created by sampling pixels in an image.