Lesson #7 - Brushes and their Uses
 
 
This is Lesson #7 named "Brushes and their Uses".  Officially Brushes are called Brush Tips, but users have shortened it to Brushes and even the software manufacturer calls them brushes now.  They are actually ways of creating texture to your painting and can be used like a stamp.  But first lets discuss the Paint Brush Tool  itself, It is located on the left side Tool bar and looks, well, like a paint brush!!
 
Open a raster image 200 x 200, 200 dpi with a white background.  Uncheck the transparent box and the color box should change to white, if your color box is another color then click inside and change it to white.  Go to the Paint Brush Tool and look at the options we have in the Tool Menu.  There are two automatic shapes, the square and the circle, but we also have some custom brush tips in the drop down menu. 
 
 The makers of PSP supply you with a few custom brushes but we can add more, again I must warn that if you load too many brushes it will slow the program down.  I suggest adding only the brushes you will use on a regular basis. 
 
Lets start with one of the automatic shapes, the square.  Looking at our Tool Menu change the settings to match these below, remember your program may look slightly different but the settings will be the same. 
 
  Size 100, hardness 100%, step 32, Density 100%, Opacity 100% and Blend Mode = Normal.  Choose the color Red for this exercise and click inside our new image, you should now have an image like this.
  OK, you just painted a square!  Go to EDIT / UNDO PAINT BRUSH and this time lets use the Circle with the same settings.  it should look like this. 
 
  Great!  Now lets see what happens when we change some of the settings. Undo the previous brush. Keeping the Circle lets just change the size to 150.  Here's what you get!
 
  50 pixels make a big difference no?! Undo the last brush and lower the size back to 100.  Ok this time lets change the Hardness to 50%  and we get something like this.
Our circle is the same size as before but now it has a softer halo around it.  OK undo this one, and set the hardness back to 100%.  This time we are going to set the density to 50% and here is the results.
Now we have a circle with some of the pixels removed.  It creates a softer image.  Lets undo this and set the density back to 100%.  This time we are going to change the thickness to 50% and here is what we get.
 This skews the circle into more of an ellipse.  Ok, lets undo that and reset the thickness back to 100%.  Next lets try Opacity, set that back to 50% and here is the results.
 This lets some of the background through, making the circle semitransparent.  Undo that.  In the next test we are going to see how the brush works.  Choose another color for the background color.  I now have red as the foreground and green as the background color.  Set the size down to 10 pixels, click inside the image, and holding the left mouse button down draw a line, now hold the right button down and draw again, keep alternating between right and left buttons and you get something like this.
  Pretty neat huh?  The step settings control the drag of our painting.  Set your step to 92 then try the same exercise again.  See what happens to our brush?
Each stroke now looks more like an individual stroke.
Play with the settings until you get yourself familiar with what they can do and how they may change the image you are trying to create. 
 
***TIP***  If you want to draw straight lines click where you want the line to begin and holding the shift button down click where you want the line to end.  You now have a straight line! 
 
Now lets discuss custom brushes.  Custom Brushes can be used to create texture in your images.  For example I am using this custom brush to create a marble effect in my background.
 
This the brush   this is the effect.
 
Brushes can also give you a pattern to your image.  This one was used like a stamp. 
 
this is the brush   this is the pattern, I also used a small circle in the pattern. 
 
Brushes can add subtle imaging to your creations and give you a 3D effect.
 
  Here I took the butterfly image and made it into a custom brush, added the original image over it with a drop shadow.  Makes it look like it is standing out even more.  You can make any image into a brush.  Take a favorite tube or use this butterfly tube here and open in PSP.  Go to FILE / EXPORT / CUSTOM BRUSH in the next window you will be given options to save this image. Give it a title and add information to it if you are planning on sharing this brush it is a good idea to put your name on it, just so everyone knows where it came from.
 
 
 This particular image of the butterfly came from a clip art CD of permission free images, I colorized it (we will discuss in a later lesson) resized it and saved it as a custom brush.  Once you have clicked ok, you will now be able to find this brush in your drop down menu. 
 
Some of you may have a problem seeing your images in the brush menu this is because you haven't given the folder it is saved in as an option for viewing.  In the custom brush drop down menu you will see an icon that looks like a group of files   called "File Locations"  This gives you the option of choosing where the program looks for certain files, in this case Custom Brushes.  As you can see there is already a location pointing to your Program Files.  We need to add another, your custom brushes are saved in another folder, "My Documents / My PSP Files / Brushes".  We now need to add this location, so click on Add and browse to your files located in "My Documents" there you will find another folder called "My PSP Files" and in that folder is another called "Brushes" click on the "Brushes" folder to add to our locations.  Now close the window.  You may be able to see your new brush right away, but most of you will have to close the program down and restart it. 
 
 
We can do this for other things as well, gradients, patterns, even tubes.  I keep separate folders for types of brushes and have the program point to those locations while I am using them, then remove the location afterwards.  I find this much more efficient than waiting for the program to located and load all my brushes, especially when you have hundreds of them. 
 
One other tip when using brushes, clicking on the same spot with a brush will produce a darker image, as the brush creates the same image over and over again. 
 
In this lesson you learned:
 
All of the instructions in this lesson work for PSP 9 as well as X and XI.
 
In our next lesson we will be learning about the Selection Tools.
 
Have Fun!
 
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