Adjusting Brushes in Photoshop: size, shape, and effects
April 5, 2012 Tutorials
This is a very basic tutorial on adjusting your brushes in Photoshop. Although this is targeted to a basic, beginner's understanding of photoshop, it may still prove useful to those who may be experiencing issues with their brushes. Previous modifications made to the brush tool, such as spacing or scattering, can frequently go unnoticed and later cause issues in your editing process.
There are three basic adjustments for brushes that you should know: size, flow, and hardness. After covering these basic adjustments, we'll move on to modifications, including spacing, scatter, and size jitter. Knowing how to properly use and adjust your brush makes all the difference in photoshop. For example, isolating a subject with a fuzzy brush will make the subject appear obvious and fake. Crisp, accurate detail work with a hard, full-flow brush must be used instead. Similarly, adding glittery/magical effects to an image can easily be done using the brush tool, set to “scatter.” However, attempting to create this effect without changing your brush can look forced or blotchy. Keep it simple, easy, and clean! Develop an understanding relationship with your brush tool.
Adjusting size, flow, and hardness
Adjusting brush size in Photoshop:
SIZE can be adjusted with your bracket symbols in photoshop (smaller brush: [ ; larger brush: ] ) or manually in the top bar options. I prefer the brackets shortcut.
Adjusting brush flow in Photoshop:
FLOW can be adjusted in the top bar options of photoshop, or later, on the layer itself. I am constantly tweaking the flow for my brush so that I can keep doing detail work on my layer, rather than reducing the flow of my entire layer because my flow was too high.
Adjusting brush hardness in Photoshop
HARDNESS: the harder the brush, the more accurate and detailed your paint stroke. Hard brushes are great for refining an edge in order to isolate a subject or “clone out” an unwanted object. Using a fuzzy brush on detail work will smudge your entire piece. See the image for "adjusting size" to see the "hardness" adjustment slider (beneath size).
Modifiers
You can change the way a brush lands on your canvas through a few basic modifications. "Brush tip shape" (under “Brush” in your brushes palette) contains a variety of effects that will modify your brush.
Adjusting spacing in Photoshop:
SPACING: Similar to Scattering (below), spacing separates the brush points from one fluent stroke to multiple points of paint (while scattering randomly rearranges these spaced points while you paint). Always remember to restore your Spacing option to about 20% (or 0% depending on your brush) before moving on... Otherwise, when editing skin or painting elements, you’ll have these awful overlapping circles that resemble a fuzzy brush on your detail work. No bueno.
Adjusting scatter in Photoshop
SCATTER: Scattering is fun for adding a unique, whimsical effect to photographs or graphic designs. Always remember to restore your Scatter option to zero before moving on.
Adjusting size jitter in Photoshop
SIZE JITTER: works well with scattering, by adjusting the size of each randomized paint point in the scatter. Each paint point is a random size kept within the same size range of your selected brush. Always remember to restore your Size Jitter to zero before moving on.
Then, all of these modifications can be used on other brush tip shapes to create layered grass effects or bubbly bokeh layers. :)
Be patient, work with the proper brush, spend time on your detailing, and pay close attention to your brush settings; so often I've opened a new image to begin detail work, and my brush was set to 70% spacing, leaving my image blotchy and unprofessional. It took me a few minutes to figure out which setting was off, but those few moments of wasted time and effort can always be prevented.
There you have it! These modfiications and adjustments are very simple, but with focused effort and precision can make all the difference in your design.
Good luck!
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