How Do You Use Photoshop Brushes on Adobe Photoshop Cs3?
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Brushes are fun to use and seem to be infinitely customizable. The basic options for brushes are easy to locate and use for beginners. Those with more Photoshop experience may want to create their own brush presets, or even use graphical brushes as a design tool. This article walks through the options available with the Brush tool as selected from the Tool menu.
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Instructions
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Choose the Brush from the Tool menu, which should be the eighth option from the top. If the Tool menu is not visible, select Tools from the Window menu.
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Double-click the top square of the two squares at the bottom of the Tool menu to choose the brush color. Drag the scale to select a hue. Choose a saturation and brightness level by clicking anywhere in the large color field.
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Click the down-pointing arrow next to the word Brush in the options bar at the top of the screen. Select the Master Diameter scale to choose the width of the brushstroke, or enter a pixel amount. Choose the Hardness of the brush in the same manner. This controls the amount of fuzziness desired at the stroke edges.
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Choose a brush preset from this same pop-up box, if desired. Scroll through available options, which may include brushes of specific shapes or graphic images. Click the arrow within a circle in the upper-right corner to load different sets of brushes that you may have downloaded. Click the square in the upper right corner to create a new brush preset from your current selection.
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Select Normal in the mode column if you wish to make a simple line drawing. The remaining options are helpful in creating effects when applying the brushes to other images. For example, selecting Difference for the mode and setting the brush color to white will invert the image colors and values wherever the brush travels.
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Click the arrow next to the Opacity amount to select the percentage with the scale or exact value. The lower the number, the lighter the hue will appear. When using an opacity of less than 100 percent, strokes that cross over a previous mark will appear darker in their intersection.
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Choose the Fill amount from its box in the same manner as Opacity. Fill controls the frequency of mark-making. This is exemplified by using a low fill percentage with a brush of 100 percent hardness; more of the singular marks of the brush will be visible.
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Select Brushes from the Window menu at the top of the screen. The pop-up box allows you to customize individual brushes with many options. Clicking Brush Presets brings up the Presets in your copy of Photoshop CS3. Mousing over any one of these will reveal its individual characteristics off to the left. Within these options, you can add a texture to a brush, control whether the stroke will begin opaque and end transparent, or whether individual marks will be scattered or in a line. These options can be customized, previewed in the box at the bottom, saved, or turned off by un-clicking the checkbox next to the option.
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References
- "Photoshop CS3 For Windows and Macintosh", Elaine Weinmann, Peter Lourekas, 2007
Resources
- Photo Credit grunge splats brushes set 2 (with paths) image by Tristano Ajmone from Fotolia.com
