Photoshop
Painting
Brush Panel
The Brush panel is used to define the physical characteristics of a brush and the stroke that it will paint on an image. It contains an extraordinary number of settings - more than you can see at first glance. It would be impossible to describe every option in the scope of this course but we'll cover the basics and let you experiment with other settings on your own if you wish to explore brushes further.
The Brush panel applies to more tools than just the Brush tool. It can be used with the Pencil, Mixer, Clone Stamp, Pattern Stamp, History, Art History, Eraser, Blur, Sharpen, Smudge, Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tools. To simplify these instructions, we'll focus on how the panel works using the Brush tool as an example.
Opening the Brush Panel
With the Brush tool selected, open the Brush panel in one of the following ways:
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Click on the Toggle Brush panel button
in the Tool Options bar.
- Press the F5 key.
- Go to Window > Brush.
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If the Brush panel icon is displayed in the icon dock, click it to expand the panel.
By default, the Brush panel is part of a panel group that includes the Brush Presets and Clone Source panels. You can see their tabs in the image to the right as well as their icons in the icon dock. (The top icon in the icon dock is for the Brush Presets panel.)
View a full-sized, labeled version of the Brush Panel.
The Brush Presets button appears at the top left of the panel. This is used to open the Brush Presets panel. In this particular case, the panel tab is right above the button so it looks redundant. Remember, though, that you can detach panels from groups and create custom workspaces so these two panels may not always be grouped together.
Panel Layout
The main body of the Brush panel can be broken down into three sections. (The brush stroke preview at the bottom was omitted here.)
The list of settings on the left side of the panel are divided into two categories: those that have additional options and those that don't. When you click on a setting in the "Settings with options" section, the right half of the panel will change to display the options applicable to that particular setting.
The settings without options cannot be clicked on and selected. They are simple check boxes.
Brush Stroke Preview
The window at the bottom of the panel has a black and white preview of what a brush stroke will look like with its current settings. As you make changes to the settings, the preview will update automatically to reflect the changes.
Brush Tip Shape
When this setting is selected, the window to the right of it displays brush presets. The currently selected brush will be highlighted with a dark border around its thumbnail. You can modify this brush or you can choose another preset - either from the window or by switching to the Brush Presets panel, selecting a new preset there, and then returning to the Brush panel.
Photoshop has two basic styles of brush tips: flat and bristle. Flat tips (standard brushes) were the only style available until bristle tips were introduced in CS5. Bristle brushes operate more like real artists' brushes. Their bristles can be set to different shapes, thicknesses, lengths, and so on.
The subset of brushes shown in the preset window above contain both types. Thumbnails that show a side view of a paintbrush tip are the bristle brushes. The rest are flat-tipped brushes.
Flat Tip Options
When Brush Tip Shape is selected in the settings list and a flat-tipped brush is selected in the thumbnail window (circled here in red), the options displayed below the thumbnail window pertain to flat brushes. A different set of options will appear for bristle brushes.
- Size
-
This option controls the diameter or size of the brush. You can use the slider control or type a value into the text box. This option is also applicable to bristle brushes. When you adjust the size of a preset brush shape, a circular arrow to the left of the text entry box becomes active. Clicking on this Restore to original size button will restore the brush's original size value.
- Flip X, Flip Y
- When enabled, these options will flip the brush tip along the X axis, Y axis, or both.
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We'll use a preset brush named "Ducks Not in a Row" to demonstrate this option. When painted as a stroke, this brush creates a row of ducks.
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The single ducks shown here were created with a single click of the Brush tool. The top left duck is the normal, default version with Flip X and Flip Y disabled. The remaining three show the effect of the flip options. When one or both of the flip options are enabled, the brush stroke preview window at the bottom of the panel will update to reflect the new setting.
- Angle
- The Angle option rotates the brush tip. Values between 180 and -180 (representing degrees) can be entered in the text box.
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There is a graphical display to the right of the Angle and Roundness options. Changes to their values will update the display. In addition, you can drag inside the display to dynamically change the values instead of typing them into the text boxes. To adjust the Angle setting, drag the horizontal arrow around the "dial".
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This diagram illustrates the location of the positive and negative Angle values on the display.
- Roundness
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A value of 100% yields a circular brush shape. Reducing the value creates an oval. A value of 0% will create a linear brush.
- Hardness
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This option determines whether the brush will have a hard or soft edge. Values can range from 0% to 100%.
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These three sample brush strokes show various Hardness values.
- Spacing
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Spacing values are percentages that can range from 1% to 1000%.
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Brush strokes aren't actually continuous lines of paint. They are composed of individual "marks" made by the brush tip. Spacing sets the amount of space between the marks. With a low value, the brush marks appear so frequently that the stroke appears continuous. Higher values will create more spacing between brush marks, as shown here.
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The percentages are based on the Size value assigned to the brush. The brush in the top row was a 19 px brush and, with a Spacing value of 100%, the marks were set 19 pixels apart. The marks of the 38 px brush at the bottom are 38 pixels apart.
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There's a second option for adjusting Spacing: disable the Spacing check box. What this does is vary the amount of spacing based on the speed in which you move the cursor. In this example, the cursor was moved very slowly, starting on the left, and then accelerated as it moved to the right. The more quickly the cursor is moved, the more spacing is applied.
Bristle Tip Options
When Brush Tip Shape is selected in the settings list and a bristle brush is selected in the thumbnail window (circled here in red), the options displayed below the thumbnail window pertain to bristle brushes.
The Size and Spacing options for bristle tips work the same way they do for flat brushes.
- Shape
-
A variety of bristle tip shapes can be selected from this pop-up menu.
- Bristles
- This sets the density of the brush's bristles.
- Length
- Bristle lengths can vary from 1% to 500%.
- Thickness
- This setting determines whether individual bristles are coarse or fine.
- Stiffness
- This sets the amount of flexibility in the bristles. Softer bristles have lower values and can be harder to control but allow for more subtle brush work. Stiffer bristles are easier to control and have a bolder effect.
- Angle
- This option will vary the angle of the brush tip.
Bristle Brush Preview
Requirements
To take advantage of this feature, your computer must have a video card capable of supporting OpenGL and Photoshop's Performance preferences must have Enable OpenGL Drawing enabled. Once those requirements are met and a bristle brush tip has been selected in the Brush panel, the Bristle Brush Preview button will be available. This button can be used to toggle the preview on and off.
Static and Animated Appearance
The Bristle Brush Preview appears inside the image document, as shown here. The dashed line represents the painting surface. When you're not currently painting on the image, the brush is raised above the surface as it appears here.
Once you begin painting, the brush inside the preview becomes animated, showing the position of the bristles as you paint. Here is a screen shot of a brush stroke as it was being made, along with the Bristle Brush Preview as it appeared at the time.
Preview Window Controls
The Bristle Brush Preview has controls that let you move it, make it smaller, and close it. These controls appear when you move your cursor over the preview as shown here.
Dragging by the grabber handle will allow you to move the preview window to another location in the document window in case it's obscuring an area you want to work on.
Clicking on the double-headed arrow will minimize the preview window, as shown here. Clicking the same button again will maximize the window.
Finally, clicking on the Close button will remove the preview from the document window completely.
Common Terms and Controls
As you look through the brush settings, you'll notice a number of common terms and controls.
- Dynamics
- Dynamics indicates that certain brush attributes can be changed over the course of a single brush stroke. Examples of these attributes are a brush's size, shape, angle, paint colour, etc.
- Jitter
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Jitter determines the how much an attribute will vary during a brush stroke and how random those changes will be. For example, the Size Jitter setting will determine how extreme the size variations will be. In the examples shown here (with wide Spacing also applied), the Size Jitter was set to 0%, 50%, and 100%.
- Control menu
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Control menus usually appear in conjunction with Jitter settings, although not always. The menu shown here is a typical one but some have more options than this. The menu options determine the method you want to use to control dynamic variations, if any. Only the Fade option is available when the user is using a mouse or touchpad. Users of pressure-sensitive pens and tablets will be able to use all the options in the menu.
- There is a text entry box to the right of each Control menu. This is for entering the number of steps when Fade has been selected in the menu.
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Photoshop doesn't grey out unsupported options in the menu itself. It's only after you select an unsupported option from the Control menu that you'll see a warning graphic, as shown here. The brush stroke preview pane at the bottom of the panel will still show what the brush stroke would have looked like even though an unsupported option is currently selected.
- Locking and Unlocking Settings
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Beside each of the brush settings is a lock icon. To preserve the attributes of a setting when another preset brush is selected, click on the icon. It will now look like this: 
. Clicking a locked icon will return it to the unlocked state: 
.
Shape Dynamics
These options will vary (jitter) the size, angle, and roundness of the brush tip as you paint. Each of those options has it own set of controls which we've indicated here with the red braces.
Some options, such as the Minimum Diameter slider, for instance, are greyed out until the option it's associated with (e.g., Size Jitter) is set to a value greater than 0%. The Tilt Scale control is only available when a tablet user selects Pen Tilt from the Control menu.
For the examples shown here, a semi-transparent preset called "Scattered Leaves" was used but most of the settings were removed to start with. The first row shows how it looked with just a Spacing value of 25%. Size Jitter was added next and then Angle Jitter.
Scattering
Scattering distributes the brush marks randomly. When Both Axes is enabled, the marks will be scattered in any direction. When it is disabled, they will only scatter in a direction that is perpendicular to the brush stroke. The Count option distributes the specified number of marks to each spacing interval and Count Jitter will apply some variation to that amount.
We started where we left off with the scattered leaves brush and added three of the Scattering settings to them.
Texture
The Texture setting uses the light and dark values from patterns to give a textured appearance to paint strokes. Patterns are selected by clicking on the pattern picker thumbnail. They will extend seamlessly over the entire paint stroke unless Texture Each Tip is enabled. Then the pattern will be applied to each brush mark individually, resulting in a denser pattern. The Invert option will reverse the dark and light values of the pattern. The Mode settings will determine how the pattern values will interact with the paint colour. You may have to experiment with those settings a bit. The pattern might not be visible when some are used, depending on the combination of pattern and paint colour. The Depth option will determine how pronounced the texture effect will be.
A large, round, flat brush was used to create these textured paint strokes.
Dual Brush
After you have selected a brush initially, you can use the Dual Brush settings to select a second brush and paint with both brushes at the same time. This is an option that definitely requires some experimentation with brush combinations and options from the Mode menu. Spacing and Scatter will create a more diffuse effect and Count will intensify it.
The bristle brushes are not available with this option.
Colour Dynamics
Colour Dynamics are used to apply colour variations over the course of a paint stroke.
The effects of the various settings can best be understood by looking at these examples. All of the settings were applied separately except for the last one where Hue Jitter and Purity were combined.
Foreground/Background used the original green foreground colour and mixed the blue colour that was set as the background colour in the Toolbox.
Hue Jitter pulls in colours from across the spectrum.
Saturation Jitter variations can include greys if the percentage value is high enough. The same is true for the Brightness Jitter option.
Positive Purity values will increase colour saturation while negative values will decrease it.
All of these options were set to their maximum values to demonstrate their effects. More subtle variations will be achieved with lower percentage values.
Transfer
There are four separate options in the Transfer settings panel:
- Opacity Jitter
- Flow Jitter
- Wetness Jitter
- Mix Jitter
Each option is discussed separately below.
Opacity Jitter
This option varies the opacity of the brush stroke. The top example was our base starting point with 25% Spacing applied. In the second example, with no Control option set and maximum jitter, the opacity varied greatly for each brush mark.
The Fade option was selected from the Control menu and set to 35 steps in the last two examples and there's a more orderly progression to the fade. With Opacity Jitter set to a small value of 10% there are still noticeable transitions in the fade. Setting it to 0% creates a smooth fade.
Note: The opacity generated by the jitter setting will never exceed the Opacity value specified in the Tool Options bar.
Flow Jitter
This setting varies the flow of the paint and the maximum amount won't exceed the Flow value set in the Tool Options bar.
Wetness Jitter
This option is only available when the Mixer Brush is selected. It will create variations in the Mixer Brush's Wet setting.
Mix Jitter
This option is only available when the Mixer Brush is selected. It will vary the ratio between paint that is applied and paint that is picked up from the canvas, both of which are determined by the brush's Mix setting.
Noise
This applies a random scattering of pixels that are visible in the softer areas of the paint stroke. It's more noticeable with large, soft brushes, as shown here.
Wet Edges
When this option is enabled, the effect is like watercolour painting. The opacity is reduced in areas where pressure from the brush bristles would be the greatest and there is a slight build-up of paint along the borders of the stroke.
Airbrush
This duplicates the function of the button located on the Tool Options bar for the tools that support the Airbrush capability. If this option isn't enabled in the Tool Options bar, enabling it in the Brush panel will simultaneously enable it in the Tool Options bar and vice versa.
Smoothing
The purpose of Smoothing is to smooth the curves of brush strokes. It is most effective when used with a stylus.
Protect Texture
This setting will apply the current texture at its current scale to all preset brushes that have textures. When you're using multiple brushes in the same document, this will provide a consistent texture, no matter which brush you're using.
Panel Menu
There is a button on the top right of the panel to access commands pertaining to the panel.
- New Brush Preset
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Choosing this command will create a duplicate of the currently selected brush and prompt you to assign a name to it. It will be added to the presets and you can customize it as you like. This is the same as using the Create New Brush button
at the bottom of the panel.
- Clear Brush Controls
- This will remove all options set for the selected brush except for its shape attributes. This includes any of the default settings stored in the preset; for example, Scattering. Only the Brush Tip Shape settings will remain.
- Reset All Locked Settings
- Locked settings will be unlocked and their checkboxes will be disabled.
- Copy Texture to Other Tools
- When you've set up a texture for the current tool, you can choose this command to copy the texture and its scale to all other tools that support textures.
Preset Manager Button
The one button at the bottom of the panel we haven't mentioned is the Preset Manager button. This will open the Preset Manager which we'll be talking about very soon.
Brush Panel Summary
- The Brush panel is used to customize the Brush tool and many other tools as well as the stroke that is painted on the image.
- Settings listed on the left side of the Brush panel above the horizontal divider can be clicked on to reveal related options that are displayed on the right.
- The panel contains a brush stroke preview pane with a black and white view of the stroke that will be produced with the current settings.
- Brushes have either flat tips or bristle tips. Each type has its own options.
- A flat-tip brush has options for setting its Size (diameter), Flip X and Flip Y, Angle, Roundness, Hardness, and Spacing.
- A bristle-tip brush has options for setting its Size (diameter), Shape, Bristles (density), bristle Length, bristle Thickness, bristle Stiffness, Angle, and Spacing.
- Each brush stroke is formed by individual brush "marks". The Spacing option sets the distance between each mark.
- The Bristle Brush Preview can be displayed in the image to provide a dynamic, animated view of a bristle brush as you're painting.
- Brush dynamics are settings that will cause the paint stroke to change as it's being applied.
- Jitter is a random variation that can be applied to certain brush or paint attributes such as size, shape, angle, paint colour, etc.
- Settings listed on the left side of the Brush panel can be locked and unlocked.
- Shape Dynamics varies the size, angle, and roundness of the brush tip while painting.
- Scattering randomizes the placement and number of brush marks.
- The Texture setting uses patterns to add a textured look to a brush stroke.
- The Dual Brush setting lets you paint with two flat brushes simultaneously.
- Colour Dynamics varies the colour attributes of a paint stroke such as its hue, saturation, brightness and purity.
- Opacity Jitter and Flow Jitter will vary the opacity and flow of the paint stroke. The variations that are generated will not exceed the values set for these same attributes in the Tool Options bar.
- Noise applies random speckling to soft areas of a brush stroke.
- Paint strokes with Wet Edges enabled will be thin (partially transparent) where the brush pressure is the greatest and the paint that is displaced will appear thicker along the edges of the stroke.
- The Airbrush checkbox duplicates the Airbrush button in the Tool Options bar. Both will enable or disable the airbrush capability.
- Smoothing is primarily useful for smoothing the curves of brush strokes drawn with a pen and tablet.
- Protect Texture will assign the current texture and its scale value to all other brushes.
- Brush presets can be created and modified by using the New Brush Preset command in the panel menu or clicking on the Create New Brush button at the bottom of the panel.
- The panel menu's Clear Brush Controls command removes all settings for the current brush except for its shape attributes.
- The panel menu's Reset All Locked Settings option will unlock all settings and disable them for the current brush.
- A texture being used with the current brush can be copied to other tools that support textures by selecting the Copy Texture to Other Tools command from the panel menu.
- The Preset Manager button at the bottom of the Brush panel will open the Preset Manager.
Brush Panel Keyboard Shortcuts:
- Open Brush panel: F5
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