Customizing the Air Brush Tool

The Air Brush ( Figure 6.32 ) paints with a "spatter" pattern. You can adjust the size of the Air Brush's spray area, the size of the dots it sprays, and the speed at which it sprays them. Five Air Brush settings are available as presets. You can choose from the default presets, or replace any or all of them with custom presets.

Figure 6.32. The Air Brush tool.

To adjust the Air Brush spray pattern:

1. In the Paint Tool palette, select the Air Brush tool while holding down the mouse button, and choose Settings from the pop-up menu that appears.

   or

   Double-click the Air Brush tool.

   The Air Brush Settings dialog box opens ( Figure 6.33 ).

   Figure 6.33. Use the Air Brush Settings dialog box to adjust and preview the Air Brush tool's spray pattern.

   

2. Drag the Flow Rate slider to adjust the speed at which the Air Brush sprays.

3. Drag the Spray Area slider to change the diameter of the Air Brush spray (represented by a gray circle in the preview area).

4. Drag the Dot Size slider to adjust the size of the dots sprayed by the Air Brush (represented by a black circle in the preview area).

5. Choose a dot option ( Figure 6.34 ):

   Figure 6.34. The Air Brush can spray three different types of dots.

   

   • Uniform Spray makes dots of identical size.

   • Random Sizes randomly varies the size of dots sprayed.

   • Current Brush causes the Air Brush to spray in the shape that's currently selected for the Brush tool. (Yes, the Brush toolnot the Air Brush tool, which has no brush shapes .)

6. Click OK.

   The new Air Brush settings take effect.

To choose an Air Brush preset:

1. In the Paint Tool palette, select the Air Brush tool and hold down the mouse button.

   A pop-up menu appears ( Figure 6.35 ), listing the five presets.

   Figure 6.35. Click the Air Brush tool and hold down the mouse button to display the presets.

   

2. Choose a preset.

Tip

• Since the presets are listed only as Air Brush 1, Air Brush 2, and so on, there's no way to know what each one looks like. The only way to find out is to choose one, then open the Air Brush Settings dialog box and look at the preview. If you don't want to make any changes in the settings, you can click Cancel to exit the dialog box.

To create a custom preset:

1. In the Paint Tool palette, select the Air Brush tool and hold down the mouse button.

2. Select the preset that you want to replace.

3. Open the Air Brush pop-up menu again and choose Settings.

   or

   Double-click the Air Brush tool.

   The Air Brush Settings dialog box opens.

4. Change the Air Brush's Flow Rate, Spray Area, Dot Size, and Dot Options settings as desired.

5. Click OK.

   Your new settings are stored as a preset.