Using Photoshop Brushes - The Basics |
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To use photoshop brushes,
you must first select one of the brush based tools
from the tools menu. There are quite a selection
to choose from but for this tutorial we will concentrate
on just using the airbrush tool 
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Select the airbrush from the tools menu and then
select a photoshop brush to use. You can load downloaded
Photoshop brush sets from the Internet more details
on loading brushes can be found here.
Once you have selected a brush to use, there are
a number of settings you can alter to produce different
effects. |
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One good way to keep full
control over the image is to use photoshop layers,
these give great control over an image.
To create a new layer click on the small icon at
the bottom of the layers palate (figure 1) then
click on the new layer, this selects it for use.
Once you have spayed an image with a photoshop brush
you can alter the opacity of the image by reducing
the number in the opacity settings (figure 2). this
is handy if the created image is too dark or if
you want to overlay the image on top of another
image. |
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Here is an example using
a set of photoshop brushes
showing what happens when you change the opacity
settings on a layer, as you can see the smaller
the number the more faded the image becomes.
Another good reason for using photoshop layers is
that if you mess up a layer you can delete it and
the rest of the image is still ok. And another tip
is to duplicate
a layer and then turn its visibility to off
so its safe then work on the other layer, if you
make a mistake on one of them up delete it and turn
on the safe version and try again. |
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 Another way to control
the use of the photoshop brush is to alter the settings
of the brush itself. In photoshop 5.5 the brush
options are displayed in a floating palate, to access
this double click quickly on the tool you want to
view the options on. Again there are quite a few
settings to choose from but the main one is the
pressure of the brush.  This is how the brush options
are displayed in photoshop 6. Now
we have covered some of the basics select a brush, add
a new layer to the document, select it and press the mouse
button, the longer you press the mouse button the stronger
the image will become. Another technique to try is spraying
e.g. white over the dark colours and build up layers,
you can also change the opacity of the layers to add a
transparent effect to the image.
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