Working With Paint Options

PAINTBRUSHES

If you look at Adobe Photoshop tool box on the left side of the design window, you will find two brushes in the third row, an airbrush on the left and a regular paintbrush on the right. For soft-edged strokes try using the airbrush tool on the left, and choose the box on the right for a more regular paintbrush effect. Yes it takes practice and some getting use to, but look what was created just having fun one day. Click on the painting, "Vail Highlands," to see how I turned it into a poster, a figurative painting, and a business card. This is the power of computer graphics.

Notice that as you choose a brush tool the pallet in the upper right corner of the screen changes giving you tool specific options. In this pallet box is a list arrow to the right of "normal". Here there are all sorts of options to play with that effect how the brush acts or interacts with other colors and designs on the page. In this box you can also change the pressure, the fade out rate, and the transparency of your airbrush strokes. Play with these settings and switch to the regular paintbrush and see what different options are available there.

The other pallet box that is directly involved with the paintbrush is the middle pallet. Here you can choose color swatches and brush sizes and types. It takes some getting use to before you become fluid with these tools, so don't give up too easy. Play around with some of the effects you can create using other tools in your tool box. I've listed a few below using definitions as given in "Adobe Photoshop 5.0, Classroom in a Book," (color plate 1-1: Toolbox Overview).

OTHER EFFECT TOOLS

The Eraser Tool erases pixels and restores parts of an image to a previously saved state.

The Pencil Tool draws hard edged strokes.

The Pattern Stamp Tool paints with the selection as a pattern.

The Blur Tool blurs hard edges in an image.

The Smudge Tool smudges data in an image.

The Dodge Tool lightens areas in an image.

The Pen Tool lets you draw smooth-edged paths.

The Type Tool creates type on an image.

The Linear Gradient Tool creates a straight-line blend between colors.

The Paint bucket tool fills similarly colored areas with the foreground color.

The Zoom Tool magnifies and reduces the view of an image.