Painting Tools

Paint Shop Pro provides several tools that you can use for painting. The painting tools, which are available on the Tool Palette, can be used only on raster layers; the drawing tools, which are also available on the Tool Palette, can be used on either raster or vector layers. We’ll look at several of the most important features of the tools.

Paintbrush

The paintbrush is useful for painting freehand, much as you would with a regular paintbrush. You simply select the Paintbrush tool and click and drag the cursor while holding a mouse button. If you want to apply the current foreground and stroke style, you use the left mouse button. The right button applies the background and fill style. Releasing either button ends your current painting. If you would like to create straight lines, you should hold down the Shift key and click the beginning point. Then, move to where you would like the line to end and click again. Figure 15.12 displays the differences between freehand drawing and holding with a mouse and holding down the Shift key to draw straight lines.

Figure 15.12 Painting freehand with the mouse.

Eraser

You can use the eraser to remove colors from an image, replacing them with the background color or transparency. Although you should be careful when using the eraser, you can easily restore a mistake by pressing Ctrl+Z or selecting Undo from the Edit menu.

Airbrush

The airbrush works in much the same way as the standard Paintbrush tool, but instead of a solid color, it simulates an airbrush or spray can. You can use it to draw freehand or, by holding the Shift key, you can force it to draw straight lines. Figure 15.13 displays a sample of painting comparing the standard paintbrush and the airbrush.

Figure 15.13 The airbrush works similarly to the standard paintbrush.