Question: How to use painting tools In Photoshop?
Answer:
Painting/Drawing Tools
with the Zoom Tool active for a quick way to zoom to actual pixels or fit to screen.
The small icon along the top is the actual color swap button, what you hit to switch between the two. Alternately (and preferably), you can hit x to do the same thing. To change the color on the swapper palettes, either select the boxes directly with a single
to enter the pallet, or use the eyedrop tool, which will change the active color box to whatever color it happens to suck up.
Answer:
Painting/Drawing Tools
- Brush Tool – Wot you paint with.
- Pencil Tool – Almost exactly like the brush tool, but it seems...I dunno...more precise somehow. Falloff on the brushes seems more subtle when using the pencil tool.
- Color Replacement Tool – Normalizes the color of your picture to whatever color is selected in your color swapper. Like say you have a blue section you want to paint red, but still keep your shading, and variation of colors. You'll use this tool to do just that. I honestly don't think I've never found a use for this tool. Your mileage may vary.
- Mixer Brush Tool – Takes the color on your swapper, and blurbs it in with the pixels you're painting on. Like painting with wet oils. Good for smearing stuff.
Stamp Tools
- Clone Tool – Alt-click to select a point of reference, and lets you paint that reference elsewhere on your picture. A very very very VERY handy tool for texturing. Use it with a soft brush, and you can blend and add variance to a lot of stuff.
- Pattern Tool – Lets you select a pattern from the pattern palette, then paint it in. Good for something, I'm sure. For what, I have no idea.
History Brushes
- History Brush – Say you did a lot of work on your texture or photo, but you don't like one specific change in one specific area. Use the History Brush to paint in that specific area to go back to earlier changes without affecting all your changes. If you've ever seen a photo that's mostly in black and white, but has a color subject, this is the tool they used to achieve that effect. Now you know.
- Art History Brush – Same as History, but I believe only applied to changes made with brushes, pencil, and maybe the paintbucket. I don't think I've ever used this tool even a single time, so I can't claim to know exactly what it does.
Eraser Tools
- Eraser Tool – Self explanatory. Erases what you paint over, and leaves a trail of whatever your subcolor is on your color swapper.
- Background Eraser – Same as the eraser, but it cuts through the image, and leaves a swatch down to the layer below.
- Magic Eraser Tool – Like the eraser mixed with the magic wand. If you need to delete large swaths of colors, then this is your tool.
Paintbucket/Gradient Tool
- Paintbucket – Everyone knows what this is. Dumps color all over your picture. Fills along a limited range of colors if you've got the tolerace set tight, or whole areas if it's loose.
- Gradient Tool – This tool is easy to understand, hard to explain. You select a gradient pattern, and draw out a line of whatever length. PS will apply the gradient to the length of the line you drew. Good for painting some shadows, or adding curvature to a flat object.
Sharpen/Blur/Smudge
- Sharpen – Like applying the sharpen filter to whereever you paint. The more you paint, the more you sharpen. Good for bringing out details and highlights on specific areas. Use in moderation.
- Blur – Like applying the blur filter to whever you paint. The more you paint, the more you blur. Good for blending harsh edges together. As with sharpen, you want to use this in moderation.
- Smudge – Takes the pixels whereever you paint, and pushes them into each other. Think of it as sorta like pushing your finger through a wet painting.
Dodge/Burn/Sponge
"Art" tools. They most definitely have their purposes, though I try to keep myself from using them too much, because they're destructive. They don't work on blank layers, can't sample the layer below. You'll have to use them directly on your image to get an effect.- Dodge – Lightens where you paint. Why they call it dodge, I have no idea. Good for painting highlights directly onto your texture
- Burn – Opposite of dodge. Darkens where you paint. Good for painting shadows.
- Sponge - Desaturates where you paint. The more you paint, the more color you subtract.
Pen Tools
Think of these as a small selection of vector tools from Adobe Illustrator. These are good defining a mask to make fine selections. If you find yourself wanting to cut a blade or tuft of grass away from a source photo for an alpha, these tools can help you along with the process.- Pen Tool – Lets you define edges with Bezier Curves.
- Freeform Pen Tool – Same as the Pen Tool, but you don't draw point to point. You just draw, and it makes a vector.
- Add Anchor Point – For the Pen Tool. If you need another curve point in there, use this
- Subtract Anchor Point – Deletes an anchor point if you don't need it.
- Convert Point Tool - Adds an extra manipulator handle, so you can have more Bezier on your curves.
Text Tools
You need to type words on your texture? Want to type horizontal or vertical? Add a text mask? Then these are the tools for you!Vector Editor
Tools that allow you to select the shapes drawn with the pen tool in their entirety, or reedit the anchors at a later point.- Path Selection - Selects the entire path. A path, in this instance, being a standalone object drawn with the pen tool.
- Direct Selection - Allows you to select and reedit an anchor point on one of your paths.
Marquee Fills
MS Paint in Photoshop. You get a bunch of shapes, you draw them, and they either make a line drawing of varying thickness, or a solid shape.Grab/Rotate Canvas
Grab is good for freeform navigation through your picture while zoomed in. Just click and drag to move about. It's the default left-click application when you're using a pen tablet. Rotate Canvas lets you...wait for it,,,rotate your canvas around. If you find yourself wanting to paint something, but find it more comfortable to paint in a certain angle, then use this to...wait for it...rotate your canvas around.Zoom Tool
ZOOOOOOM! Want to get up close to do some tight editing? ZOOOOOOOM! Want to move out so you can see your picture in it's entirety? ZOOOOOOOOM! Remember to
with the Zoom Tool active for a quick way to zoom to actual pixels or fit to screen.
Color Swapper
Allows you to pick two colors to quickly swap between. The overlapping topmost box is your active color, what you'll paint when you use a brush tool, fill when you use the paintbucket, ect. The box behind it doubles as your quick secondary color, and the background color of a basic, nonlayered object. For instance, if you had red set to the secondary color, and used the eraser tool on a background layer, the swath it'd leave behind would be red.The small icon along the top is the actual color swap button, what you hit to switch between the two. Alternately (and preferably), you can hit x to do the same thing. To change the color on the swapper palettes, either select the boxes directly with a single
to enter the pallet, or use the eyedrop tool, which will change the active color box to whatever color it happens to suck up.
