meanwhile, the brush tool presets are accessible via the Tool preset picker menu shown in Figure 2.įigure 1 The brush tool Options bar showing the Brush Preset Picker list.įigure 2 The brush tool Options bar showing the Brush tool Preset Picker list. You can open the Brush panel by clicking on the panel icon to the right of the brush settings menu in the brush tool preset picker list. The Flow control determines how ‘fast’ the brush tool applies paint to the image. If you stop moving the cursor, the airbrush painting continues to spread out until the opacity level you set is reached (just like in real life). As you click with the mouse or press down with the stylus, the brush tool responds like an airbrush. The airbrush mode button (second from the end in the brush tool Options bar) can be used to make the brush tool mimic the effect of an airbrush, producing a spray of paint. You can adjust the size and relative hardness using the sliders or the shortcut methods described below.įor more information about the bristle tip brushes, please refer to Chapter 1. These allow you to select hard or soft brushes, either with or without pressure-linked controls for size or opacity. You will note that there are just six standard round brush presets: soft round/hard round, soft round pressure size/hard round pressure size and soft round opacity and hard round opacity. The brush tool can be used with a range of brush sizes from a single hard edged pixel up to a large, 5,000 pixel wide soft edged brush (Figure 1). If you have a graphic tablet as your input device (which I highly recommend) the stylus pressure sensitivity options will become active in the Brush panel and these can offer fine control over some of the tool response characteristics. For example, they can all make use of blending modes and adjustable opacity settings. There are some common options available for these tools. The painting tools are all grouped below the selection and move tools.

Square brush in photoshop