Part V: Using Your Virtual Paintbrush

Chapter List

Chapter 12: Painting 101

Chapter 13: Coloring Inside the Lines

Chapter 14: Changing History and Erasing Pixels

In this part . . .

In real life, a paintbrush is a fairly static tool. Dip it in paint and drag it across the canvas and you see a line. The line may vary in width and length depending on how much paint you dab onto the brush and how hard you press, but your options are limited. In Photoshop, on the other hand, a single tool is capable of literally hundreds of variations. In Chapter 12, you find out how to change the size of the brush tip, the angle of the brush, the translucency of the paint, and the way colors mix. Also, you find out how to combine two brushes, a new Photoshop cs feature, to create a dual brush tip that paints with the shape of the combined brushes.

If you have large areas to fill or want to create a special effect, a brush may not be the tool of choice. Chapter 13 moves on to filling areas with colors, patterns, and color blends called gradients. Find out how to use the Bucket tool to fill with a single color and then for more color, how to use the Gradient tool to create broad color blends. Next, you find out how to stroke a line of color using a selection as the guide.

Chapter 14 takes you back to the future. The History palette records every action you perform as a history state. Although the Undo command removes only one action, you can use the History palette to remove up to 100 previous actions. Just click a previous history state to remove all the actions after that state. And what’s more, you can paint using history states. If you want to return to a previous history state in a portion of your image, just use the handy History Brush tool to paint your image back to the past.