Use Brushes in Photoshop CS6
Edited by Freya, Amanda, Eng
You're watching VisiHow. In this video, I'm going to show you how you can use the brush tool in Photoshop CS6 in Windows 7. To begin, you should have Photoshop CS6 open, and then have either a new document or an existing document open. I've shown you how to do this in other tutorials. I have a new document here with a blank canvas. It's called "Untitled 1", as indicated by the tab on the left-hand side. Underneath this, we have a toolbar.
Steps
- 1Click on the paintbrush.Find the paintbrush icon in the toolbar that runs down the left-hand side of the program.
- 2Note that the options changed when we clicked on the paintbrush icon.Look along the top of the screen, beneath the navigation bar.
- 3Release and repeat as needed. We will draw a smiley face. We can see generally what the brush is able to produce on the settings it has.Click, hold, and drag on the canvas to draw.
- 4This brings up a menu with options and settings.Right-click anywhere on the canvas.
- 5This changes the size of the brush. As we pull the scroller, the numbers in the adjacent box are changing. We can also just click in that box and type a number.Move the scroller under "Size".
- 6Click off the options menu to close it.
- 7It makes quite a difference.Click and drag to test the new brush size.
- 8Let's edit the "Hardness".Right-click on the canvas again.
- 9We will set ours to "100%".Drag the slider under "Hardness" or click in the adjacent field and type a number.
- 10Now that the "Hardness" is high, the edges are no longer fuzzy.Click off the options menu and test the brush again.
- 11We will set our "Hardness" a bit lower.Right-click on the canvas once more.
- 12We generally keep to the few brushes along the top row. We use either a soft brush or a hard brush. We also have these interesting ones. There are quite a lot to choose from. We can scroll down to see more. When we click on one that has an effect, a little preview window will pop up on the left to illustrate the kind of brush tip it is.Click on an image to select a different brush style.
- 13With this one, we could maybe draw hair or something. The brush tips are quite interesting. They take some practice, but we can get really interesting effects with them.Click off the options menu and test a brush tip.
- 14Right-click on the canvas and select a new brush tip to test.
- 15This one is more like a pen.Click and drag on the canvas to try it out.
- 16Experiment.Continue choosing brush tips and testing them.
- 17Right-click to bring up the options menu again.
- 18Click on a textured brush tip.
- 19This will help us see the texture.Use the slider to make the brush tip bigger.
- 20We are clicking but not dragging, creating a sort of stamping effect. We could also add brushes to Photoshop, which we will show in another tutorial. When we do, they will be added to the bottom of the options menu that we access by right-clicking on the canvas when the brush tool is selected.Click or click and drag on the canvas to test the textured brush tip.
- 21Look at the options along the top that run beneath the navigation bar.
- 22Here, we can change the brush type.Click the downward-pointing arrow next to the icon of a paintbrush.
- 23It's the next icon over, moving from left to right. This opens the same menu that we have been opening by right-clicking on the canvas. We can change the nib or brush tip, as well as the size and hardness. We find the right-click method a little bit more practical when we're trying to do something.Click the downward-pointing arrow next to the icon of the brush tip.
- 24The default is "Normal". Click any mode in the dropdown menu to change it.Click on the dropdown menu next to the word "Mode".
- 25It will be the same color as the paint we've been using with the brush. Ours is black.Click the colored square at the bottom of the left-hand toolbar.
- 26We will choose red. This will allow us to continue experimenting, and our new lines will show up better.Click a different color.
- 27Right-click on the canvas and increase the size.
- 28We will try "Color Dodge".Click on the dropdown menu next to "Mode" and choose one to test.
- 29It can be quite interesting. Even though this is on the same layer, it's actually drawing behind what was already on the canvas.Click and drag on the canvas to test the brush with the selected tip, size, and hardness, in the mode selected.
- 30We will try "Vivid Light".Select a different mode.
- 31Depending on what we're going for, or what image we're using to edit or draw over, we can get some really fun effects using modes.Test the brush in the new mode.
- 32We would recommend becoming familiar with modes, which we have mentioned in some of our other tutorials as well. We can get some very interesting results by experimenting.Continue experimenting.
- 33I've just shown you how you can use the brush tool in Photoshop CS6 in Windows 7. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to add them to the section below, and we'll do our best to get back to you.This is a VisiHow video.
Video: Use Brushes in Photoshop CS6
If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.
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Categories : Software
Recent edits by: Amanda, Freya
