Work with the Pencil 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 pencil tool in Photoshop CS6 in Windows 7. To begin, you should have Photoshop CS6 open. Either create a new document, or open an existing one. We've demonstrated how to do that in other tutorials. I've already got a document open. It's just one layer, which is white.
Steps
- 1It can be found in the toolbar that runs vertically down the left-hand side of the program. The icon looks like a pencil or a brush, depending on what has previously been selected.Right-click on the drawing tool icon.
- 2Click on "Pencil Tool" in the menu that opens.
- 3Here, we can set a color. We have already set ours to red.Click on the left square in the icon that looks like a set of two overlapping squares in the bottom left corner.
- 4It's very freehand.Click and drag on the image to draw with the pencil tool.
- 5Right-click anywhere on the canvas to bring up an options menu.
- 6This will change the size of the brush.Click and drag the slider under "Size" or type a number in the field next to "Size".
- 7We made ours very large.Test the new size by clicking or clicking and dragging on the canvas.
- 8We will make our brush smaller now.Right-click on the canvas again to bring up the options menu.
- 9A lower number will create lighter edges. The effect may also depend on which type of pencil nib is selected.Click and drag the slider under "Hardness" or type a number in the adjacent box.
- 10Click on the left square icon in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
- 11We are going to change it to green.Change the color.
- 12We have a lot of different possible ends or tips to our pencil available. The "Hardness" setting will edit these slightly.Right-click on the canvas to open the options pop-up window.
- 13Scroll down to see even more pencil tip options.
- 14Not every option shows a preview. There are angled tips and fluffy tips, and so on. These are also available for use with the brush tool.Click on one to see a preview window pop up on the left.
- 15Using the tip with the pencil instead of the brush can give a slightly different effect. It's quite interesting. It takes some practice, but we can get really interesting effects from these.Click and drag on the canvas to test a pencil tip.
- 16Click in the bottom left to change the color as needed. We recommend exploring and playing around.Continue right-clicking, clicking on a tip, and clicking and dragging on the canvas to test it.
- 17There is a navigation bar that runs horizontally along the very top. Beneath that, there is a horizontal bar of buttons. The second button from the left has a downward-pointing arrow just to the right of it.Look at the top of the screen.
- 18This is an alternative way to access the same options menu that we have been working with, which we have been opening by right-clicking on our image. We find the right-click a little bit more practical when we're trying to work quickly.Click the arrow next to that button.
- 19It's in that same horizontal bar running beneath the navigation bar along the top of the program. The default setting is "Normal". Modes are very interesting, and we've mentioned this a few times in other videos. We can get really interesting effects depending on how we use them and what image we're working with.Mouse over to "Mode".
- 20Click on the mode that is set to open a dropdown menu.
- 21Sometimes, it won't really do anything. Other times, it will be quite interesting.Click on any mode to switch to that mode.
- 22Again, we recommend playing around and seeing what happens.Test a mode by clicking and dragging on the canvas.
- 23When a mode looks interesting, right-click on the canvas to bring up the options.
- 24Here, we will make our tip bigger so that we can see the effect created by the mode we're working with better. We are currently using the mode "Exclusion".Adjust the options.
- 25This one is very interesting.Test the combination by clicking and dragging on the canvas.
- 26Click on whichever mode is set and click to select "Normal" at any time to stop experimenting with modes.
- 27This is directly to the right of "Modes".Click on the dropdown arrow next to "Opacity".
- 28Click and drag on the slider that appears to change the opacity.
- 29We lessened the opacity, to 23%, so it's now more transparent.Click and drag on the canvas to test the opacity.
- 30This is an alternate way to change the opacity.Click in the box next to "Opacity" and type.
- 31We recommend leaving them alone. They adjust pressure and distance, but we would just leave them alone for now.Look at the rest of the options in this bar.
- 32I've just shown you how you can use the pencil 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: Work with the Pencil 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
