The “Brush”

The first thing I want to tell you is that, there is a difference between the “brush” tool and the “Brush” option.
Not only does the “brush” tool uses the “Brush”, but it is also used by the other tools such as the “Pencil”, “Quick retouch brush”, “Healing Brush”, “Clone Stamp”, “Blur”, “Eraser” and a number of other.
So, with any tool that offers this option, you can change the diameter (1) and hardness (2) by the downward-pointing arrow button.

New since Photoshop CS4, is the keyboard shortcut Alt – right click – drag.
So you click the Alt key on your keyboard while you click and drag left or right, with the right mouse button. This gives an example of the live-size and the hardness of the brush tip again.

New in Photoshop CS5 is, when you do the same, but drag the mouse pointer over or under, you can see the hardness of the brush edge change.

I think I already told you this, but it’s just that you know it. It makes life a lot easier.

By default, a thumbnail display of the different brushes is displayed in the brush category (3).
You can change this by clicking on the right pointing arrow (4) and choosing a different view from the drop-down menu. For example, the “Stroke Thumbnail”. This view gives you an excellent example of what to expect when you begin drawing with the brush.

In this drop-down menu, you will indeed find all the categories (5) installed with different brushes.

What I also say is, when the diameter is set to 70 pixels for example, the diameter of the line drawn is not always 70 pixels.
This is only true when the hardness is set to 100%.
You can see the example on the left.
The diameter of the two lines is set to the same value, but the hardness of the two lines is different.

What I also say is, if you want to draw vertical or horizontal line, hold the shift key on your keyboard while you click and drag.

The Brush tool vs. Pencil

The difference between the “brush” tool and the “Pencil” tool is that, the edge is harder when you draw a line with the pencil than when you draw with the Paintbrush tool.The color for the pencil or the brush is done by the foreground color which you can change in the tool bar, the “Color” panel of “Windows” menu and selecting a color from the panel or by selecting the dropper in the toolbar and clicking a color in the picture.

The color that you draw is always the foreground color set in the tool bar.
To quickly set the black / white in the tool bar, click the letter D on your keyboard.
To quickly change the background color with the foreground color, click the letter X on your keyboard.

The “Brushes” panel

We have already seen a number of options for the brush, but there are a lot more. And when I say a lot more, I really mean a lot more.
Open the “Brushes” panel and you’ll see what I mean.
On the left we find the different categories (1), each with their own options. Select a category and the various options for the selected category appear in the middle of the dialog box, where the different types of brushes are shown now (2).
As in every new version of Photoshop, there are some new brushes added in the CS5 version too (a). When you click this, you will see a standard window, where the type of the pen is shown (B). This is new in CS5.
Some like this, others find this irritating. I am in the later group. You can hide it by moving the mouse pointer over the window and click on the x-icon.
If you want to show it later again, click the icon at the bottom left of the window “Brush” (C).It is impossible to discuss all of these options, but you must try these when you have a lot of time. But this is actually quite logical.

Thus, the “Shape Dynamics” has something to do with the shape of the brush for sure, and the option “Spread” has something to do with the spread between the different forms.
Though it all seems complicated, but when you do this with patience, this will all be easy.

By clicking on the downward pointing arrow in the upper right corner of the dialog (3), you’ll also find another brush category.

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