USING THE PAINTING TOOLS

The Painting tools in the toolbox are used to paint pixels in the canvas. You can paint in an empty canvas and onto existing image layers. Using the Options bar, choose a brush size and adjust the hardness of the brush edge.

• Brush (B): Paint into your picture using this tool (see Figure 3.6). Adjust the Flow and Opacity settings in the Options bar to weaken or strengthen the effect of the brush. Select different brush styles from the Brushes palette. Hold down the Shift key and click in parts of your image to create straight, connected strokes.

  Figure 3.6. The Brush, Pencil, and Color Replacement tools.

  

  
  

• Pencil (B): Draw pencil strokes in your image with this tool. Similar to the Brush tool, the Pencil tool maintains a hard edge and has no flow adjustments. Hold down the Shift key and click in parts of your image to create straight, connected strokes.

  The History Brush cannot paint back portions of an image after you close and reopen the image file.

  
  

• Color Replacement (B): Select a foreground color and replace colors by painting in the canvas with this new-to-CS2 tool. Colors similar to where the crosshairs are positioned are replaced with the foreground color. Adjust the Tolerance levels and Limits in the Options bar.

• History Brush (Y): This tool paints back the portions of your image to the selected history state in the history palette (see Figure 3.7).

  Figure 3.7. The History Brush tools.

  

  
  

• Art History Brush (Y): Use this tool to paint your image back to any selected history state using one of ten paint styles that you can select from the Options bar. Adjust the brush size and shape, tolerance, and mode for different artistic effects.

• Gradient (G): Select this tool (shown in Figure 3.8) and click and drag in your image to create a gradient ramp across the canvas or selection area. In the Options bar, select from five gradient types and choose from several premade gradient libraries, or create your own custom gradient color ramp.

  Figure 3.8. The Gradient and Paint Bucket tools.

  

  
  

• Paint Bucket (G): Use this tool to click and fill areas of your image with the foreground color. Adjust the Tolerance level in the Options bar to fill more or fewer adjacent pixels of similar color with the Paint Bucket tool. In the Options bar, if the Contiguous check box is disabled, even nonadjacent pixels of similar color are filled.