Basic Brush function in Photoshop

Brush property can be use for any other tool that requires painting on the effects or selection such as painting dodge and burn effects or painting quick mask selection.

Selecting Brush – Photoshop is shipped with many predefined brushes, you can find them under the brush selection menu. Select the set you want and you will be asked to Replace or Append. Replace will hide the current brushes and replace it with the new set. Append will add the brush on to your current selection.

Under this menu you can also select different viewing mode, try them out and see what fits your taste best.

Select Brush by clicking on the brush icon on your tool box or use the shortcut B

You can use paint in different blending mode but I recommend doing it on a blank layer and using the layer blending mode so that you will get a chance to change it later.

Opacity can be changed by typing in a number, sliding the slider or pressing the number keys. A lower number will make your paint transparent. The example below shows 100% opacity than 50 and 25 percent.

Flow is how fast and how transparent the paint is released as you drag your mouse across. You will see a very obvious spacing if you are using a brush with hard edge, a small Flow percentage works best with a soft edge brush. It gives a more realistic paint brush effect than using the Opacity setting. The example shows 30% flow using soft edge and hard edge brush.

Airbrush will only be visible on soft edged brushes. It simulates airbrush painting, as you hold your mouse in the same location the paint will build up into a bigger blob. The example below shows two different location where I stopped my brush and the paints builds up into thicker paint.

You can also set physical dynamics on your brush to simulate real world brush or creating custom randomized effects. Play with the settings under Brush Dynamics with the shortcut F5 or pressing the Dynamic icon.

I will discuss brush dynamics and creating your custom brush in a separate entry.

I hope you enjoy this tutorial, please leave a comment below for feedback.

This is part of my tutorial set. Please visit the TUTORIAL PAGE for a list of all the tutorials.