Getting the most from the brush tool

The Brushes palette includes a variety of preset brush tips with different sizes, shapes, and densities. The Brushes palette and tool options bar for the brush tool also include a complex variety of settings that you can use with your selected brush. This flexibility gives you a powerful set of combinations that challenges you to use brushes in imaginative new ways.

One of the useful properties of brushes is that you can select different blending modes and opacity settings as you paint on a single layer. These settings are independent of each other and of any blending modes or opacity settings that you apply to the entire layer.

For color illustrations of brush blending modes, see figure 8-2 of the color section.

Another enhancement in Photoshop 7.0 is that you can do more with the custom brush shapes that you create and save. You can now assign different sizes and other properties to your custom brushes and even change them on the fly like any other brush.

Painting with a specialty brush

Among the preset brushes are several that paint in preshaped units, so that a single stroke paints a series of stars, leaves, or blades of grass. You’ll use one of the grass-shaped brushes to create a hillside for your image landscape.

1.	In the Layers palette, select the Tree layer set and click the New Layer button (). Double-click Layer 1, and type Grass to rename the layer.
2.	In the toolbox, select the brush tool (), and then scroll down the Brushes palette and select the Dune Grass brush shape. To reduce the amount of scrolling needed in the Brushes palette, open the Brushes palette menu and choose Small Thumbnail (the display shown in the illustration below step 3). You can confirm your brush choice by letting the pointer hover over the thumbnail until a pop-up appears, identifying the brush by name. If you prefer to see the brush descriptions as you scroll, you can still reduce your scrolling by choosing Small List on the Brushes palette menu.
3.	Above the sample displayed at the bottom of the Brushes palette, drag the Master Diameter slider or type to change the value to 60 pixels.
4.	In the Color palette, select a pale yellow color, such as R=230, G=235, B=171.
5.	If necessary, adjust the size and magnification of the image window so that you can see the entire image. Then drag the brush tool in a gently waving line from the center of the left side of the image to the lower right corner. (Refer to the 08End.psd file as a guide.)
6.	Continue dragging the brush tool across the lower left area of the image to fill in the hillside of grass. Do not try to fill the area with solid color, but leave a little bit of the sky showing through so that you can still see most of the individual blades of grass.
7.	In the Color palette, select a light olive-green color, such as R=186, G=196, B=93.
8.	In the tool options bar, select Multiply in the Mode pop-up menu, and change the Opacity value to 50%.
9.	Resume painting over the same area of your image, building up color until you are satisfied with the results. If you make a mistake or want to start over, select a previous state in the History palette, and start again from that state. Notice that when you first start painting the olive color, the results are relatively faint. As you continue to drag the brush over the same areas, the color you add multiplies itself by the underlying pixel colors, producing increasingly darker shades of green. This process effectively demonstrates the way the Multiply blending mode works.
10.	Choose File > Save.

Creating new color swatches for the umbrella image

Now you’ll use traditional painting techniques and brushes to complete more painting layers that have been started for you, and which together become an umbrella.

1.	In the Layers palette, click the eye-icon box for the Umbrella layer set to make those layers visible in the image window. Then click the arrow to expand the layer set, so that five layers appear within that set, only some of which are visible.
2.	Click to set an eye icon () for the Wet_Lt blue layer. A series of brush strokes have been laid down for you, so that the color and shape are developing definition.
3.	Click to set an eye icon for the Wet_Dk blue layer. Seven of the ten segments of the umbrella have been painted with additional color, but the three segments on the left side of the umbrella have not. Before you begin painting, you’ll define two new color swatches that you’ll use for this task.
4.	Drag the Swatches palette tab out of the Color palette group so that it becomes a stand-alone palette. Move the Swatches palette so that it is near the Color palette and you can see both palettes completely.
5.	In the Color palette, select a medium blue color, such as R=150, G=193, B=219.
6.	Move the pointer into the blank (gray) area to the right or below the last swatch in the bottom row of the Swatches palette. When the pointer appears as a paint bucket icon (), click to add the medium blue color to the collection of swatches.
7.	In the Color Swatch Name dialog box, click OK to accept the default name.
8.	Define a darker blue color in the Colors palette, such as R=132, G=143, B=199, and add that color to the Swatches palette, using the technique you just learned.

Adding brush libraries to the Brushes palette

The brushes available to you go beyond the default set. You’ll add a new brush library to the brush presets in the Brushes palette, and select settings for one of those brushes.

Creating form and dimension with wet media brushes

Before you begin painting, you’ll load one of the alpha channels that has been prepared for you. You’ll use three different prepared alpha channels to restrict your painting to each of the three segments you’re going to paint, so you don’t have to worry about getting paint in other areas of the image or painting out the ribs of the umbrella.

1.	In the Layers palette, select the Wet_Dk blue layer.
2.	Choose Select > Load Selection.
3.	In the Load Selection dialog box, select Alpha 1 from the Channel pop-up menu, and then click OK. In the image window, a selection border appears around the lower of the three umbrella panels that you’ll paint. If you find the selection border distracting, you can hide it by pressing Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+H (Mac OS). Even though the marquee is not visible, your painting is still restricted to the area within it. To make the selection border visible again, use the same keyboard shortcut.
4.	Starting near the center of the umbrella, paint with short, downward strokes to build up a subtle shading, concentrating on the areas next to the umbrella spokes. As you work, you can experiment with different brush sizes and opacity settings to create varied texture and shadows.
5.	In the Swatches palette, select the darker blue swatch that you created earlier, and continue to paint until that section of the umbrella coordinates nicely with the panels of the umbrella that are already painted.
6.	Choose Select > Deselect. Then choose Select >Load Selection and select the Alpha 2 Channel in the pop-up menu. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to shade in the second of the three umbrella sections.
7.	Repeat step 6, but this time select the Alpha 3 Channel and paint the third umbrella section.
8.	When you finish painting, click the arrow to collapse the Umbrella layer set in the Layers palette, drag the Swatches palette back into the Color palette layer group, and then choose File > Save.

Saving a customized preset brush

Now you’ll create and save a brush based on an existing preset, and use it in your painting.

1.	In the Layers palette, select the Umbrella layer set, if necessary, and then click the New Layer button () at the bottom of the palette. Double-click the new layer and type Leaves to name the layer.
2.	With the brush tool selected in the toolbox, scroll through the Brushes palette and select the Scattered Maple Leaves brush.
3.	On the left side of the Brushes palette, click the words Shape Dynamics to display the Shape Dynamics options on the right side of the palette. Enter the following settings, noticing how the stroke sample at the bottom of the palette changes each time you change a setting: In the Control pop-up menu near the top of the palette, select Fade, and then type 50 as the Fade value. In Roundness Jitter, drag the slider or type to set the value at 40%.
4.	Again on the left side of the Brushes palette, click the word Scattering and drag the sliders or type on the right side of the palette to change the following settings: For Scatter, set the value at 265%. For Count, set the value at 1.
5.	In the upper left corner of the Brushes palette, click the Brush Presets to display the list of brushes again. Then drag the Master Diameter slider or type 65 pixels.
6.	At the bottom of the Brushes palette, click the New Brush button (), and then type Leaves 65 as the brush name and click OK. The new brush appears at the bottom of the list of brushes in the palette.

Painting from the image onto a created border

In the final artwork, a white border surrounds the painting, and leaves appear to fly outside the edges of the picture and onto the border area. To create that effect, your first step is to create the border.

1.	In the toolbox, make sure that the background color is white. Then choose Image > Canvas Size.
2.	In the Canvas Size dialog box, type 580 as the Width and select pixels from the units pop-up menu. Then type 440 as the Height and set those units also to pixels, and click OK.
3.	On the Color palette, select a dark, warm yellow, such as R=185, G=141, B=59. This will be the base color for the autumn leaves you’ll add. You’re now ready to start painting your leaves. Make sure that your Leaves 65 brush is still selected in the Brushes palette and that the tool options bar shows Normal as the Mode option and Opacity at 100%.
4.	Drag the Leaves 65 brush in a gentle arc from the tips of the tree branches to the right, letting the stroke wander into the top border and onto the border on the right side. Refer to the 08End.psd file as a guide.
5.	If you are not satisfied with the result, choose Edit > Undo, and try again. Because brush Scatter settings are designed to create random patterns, each brush stroke produces slightly different results. It may take several tries before you get a pattern that you like. Remember that you can use either the Undo command or the History palette to backtrack through these attempts. To save some results of the painting as potential candidates, use the History palette to take a snapshot of the image and then revert to an earlier state. Try painting again from that state to see if you can improve on your results. By taking snapshots of a series of attempts, you can compare them and select the one you like best as the basis for the remaining work in this lesson.
6.	When you get the results you want, choose File > Save.

Creating a custom brush

Now that you’ve tried out the maple-leaf and dune-grass brush shapes, you may be wondering about other similar brushes you could use in your work. With Photoshop 7.0, you can create and save brushes in any shape you choose, even using other photographs as the basis of your custom brush shapes. You can then set options for the brush.

Painting with a custom brush

You’re going to use your custom flower brush to paint a design on the fabric of the umbrella. To prevent yourself from accidentally painting the other parts of the image, you’ll use another alpha channel, in the same way that you used alpha channels when you painted the shadings into the umbrella earlier in this lesson.

1.	In the Layers palette, click the Umbrella layer set to make it active, and then click the arrow to expand it so that you can see the five layers nested in that set.
2.	Click the New Layer button () at the bottom of the Layers palette. Double-click the new layer, which appears at the top of the Umbrella layer set layers, and type Flowers to name the layer.
3.	Drag the Flowers layer down in the Layers palette so that it is between the Frame layer and the Wet_Dk blue layer.
4.	Choose Select > Load Selection, and then select the Alpha 4 option from the pop-up menu in the Load Selection dialog box, and click OK. This alpha channel selects the entire umbrella shape. Remember that you can hide the selection marquee using Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+H (Mac OS) if you prefer not to be distracted by the movement in the marquee.
5.	Make sure that the brush tool is still selected in the toolbox and that the Flower brush is still selected in the Brushes palette.
6.	In the Color palette or Swatches palette, select a bright red color.
7.	Using a series of short brush strokes, paint flowers onto the surface of the umbrella, creating a random pattern of fairly uniform density. Continue painting until you are satisfied with the result.
8.	In the Layers palette, keep the Flowers layer selected and select Multiply from the blending mode pop-up menu. Then set the Opacity value for the layer to 70%.
9.	Choose File > Save.