Jio-Derako on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/jio-derako/art/Photoshop-Brush-Settings-Tutorial-283264009Jio-Derako

Deviation Actions

Jio-Derako's avatar

Photoshop Brush Settings Tutorial

By
Published:
25.8K Views

Description

Hello there, everyone!

In what will hopefully be a first of many tutorials and resources, I'd like to cover some techniques I've picked up using Photoshop CS (this should apply to all versions of Photoshop, but some differences may pop up).
Today, we'll be going over some creative use of brush settings and presets; there is a nigh-endless potential using default brush shapes, simply by modifying some settings. Having a solid grasp on your brushes is key, digitally as much as traditionally!

For starters, let's go over the various settings you can change, and explain a bit what each one does. From there, I'll cover some of the brushes I use regularly.

Before we even get to that, let's open up the Brush Settings dialog. When the Brush tool is active, you'll find the settings right next to the brush tip selection menu, on the top bar. Even easier, you can press the F5 key to open the dialog directly. (this very same dialog is also used for the Eraser, Smudge, and other such tools.)
On the left of the dialog, you'll find a list of areas you can edit; anything that's unchecked isn't in use currently. Starting from the top:
:bulletred: Brush Tip Shape. Here, you can select the brush shape, and below that, you'll find settings for brush size, angle, roundness, hardness (which affects how fuzzy the brush is), and spacing (which controls how often the brush shape replicates itself in a single stroke).
:bulletred: Shape Dynamics. In here, you'll find dynamics that affect the shape of the brush (what a surprise). Size Jitter changes the size of the brush randomly, based on how high the slider is; at 0%, the brush is always the same size. The Control: drop-down allows you to change the size control; Pen Pressure allows you to change the size of the brush based on how hard you press on your digitizer tablet (assuming you have one). Fade will cause the brush to "fade" in size as you go; you can adjust how far it'll go before it fades completely, quite handy if you need to draw tapered strokes with a mouse. Pen Tilt and Stylus Wheel will let you control the size based on those factors, if your digitizer tablet supports tilt, or has a stylus wheel.
Just like with Size, the Angle and Roundness of your brush can also be controlled, using the very same settings.
:bulletred: Scattering. In here, you can affect how much the brush "scatters", causing the brush tip to randomly deviate from the stroke. You can control this just like with the Shape Dynamics; raising the slider will cause it to randomly scatter, or you can use Pen Pressure to control the scattering.
Count will change the spacing of the brush when it scatters, while Count Jitter lets you affect the count randomly.
:bulletred: Texture. This lets you apply a texture to the brush; it's a bit tough to see the effects on a solid brush, so try changing the Mode to something like Multiply, and give it a go. The "Texture Each Tip" switch decides whether or not it should apply the pattern to every stroke of the brush separately, or simply overlay the texture onto any area you paint. Depth and Depth Jitter will control how aggressively it applies the texture; just a faint texture, or full-blast.
:bulletred: Dual Brush. This is a fun one; you'll notice that this one looks a lot like the Brush Tip Shape menu. What this will do is actually apply a second brush tip shape within your current brush tip shape; it works best if both brushes are something other than the default circle brush. Just like with Texture, you can control the mode from the drop-down menu at the top.
:bulletred: Color Dynamics. This is another fun one; using the settings in here, you can set your brush to randomly - or via pen pressure - switch between your foreground and background colors. The Hue, Saturation, and Brightness Jitter sliders will give the same effect, though with more random colors. Lastly, Purity affects the saturation of the color, allowing you to set up brushes that always paint in black and white, or always over-saturate, or perhaps just fade the color slightly.
:bulletred: Transfer. The settings in here are fairly simple; Opacity will control the brush opacity, or how transparent it is. Flow will perform nearly the same thing, though with flow, painting over your own stroke will multiply the effects, while opacity won't do this. Just like with most other settings, you can use the slider to affect jitter, or use one of the control options to use pen pressure or the like.
----
:bulletgreen: Noise. This will create random noise, or specks, in soft brushes. There's no sliders for any of the settings here, simply turn this setting on or off.
:bulletgreen: Wet Edges. What this one does is cause the outer edges of the brush to apply more "paint" than the rest of the brush. This works best with soft brushes, just like with the Noise setting.
:bulletgreen: Airbrush. This will modify your brush Flow setting; with a low Flow, brushes paint slightly opaque, and build up as you scribble over an area. With Airbrush turned on, simply holding the brush in a spot will cause the "paint" to build up, as though you were using an airbrush.
:bulletgreen: Smoothing. This setting toggles the automatic smoothing. The effects can be almost imperceptible, but with this setting turned on, it will attempt to keep your brush strokes free of little jiggles and jumps as you stroke.
:bulletgreen: Protect Texture. What this last one does is, whichever texture setting your brush has, it holds the settings for you when you switch to another brush with Texture enabled. This lets you set up a texture for, say, a background, paint it in with a large brush, then switch to a smaller brush, enable texture, and still be able to seamlessly continue your texture. Do note that switching to a brush preset that already has different texture settings already won't "protect" your old one.
----

With all the settings laid out - and hopefully not too confusing - let's get into creating some brushes with this. Experimentation is a great thing to do here; I've personally learned a lot of what I know about Photoshop by simply playing with settings to see what they do, and some of my favorite brushes have been born of simply messing about with settings!

Taking a look at the image above, you'll notice I've numbered each brush.
:bulletyellow: 1. This is your default brush here; no settings changes at all. It's just a hard round brush tip, with shape dynamics turned on, letting the size be controlled by pen pressure. Your basic, everyday pen tool.
:bulletyellow: 2. Right here is my preferred brush for coloring. It's a hard round brush tip, but with the hardness dialed down to 75%, and the spacing set to 10%, to give it a nice smooth stroke. Shape Dynamics are turned off for this one; in fact, the only thing turned on here is Transfer, where I've set both Opacity and Flow to Pen Pressure control. The result is great for blending colors, letting you block in colors if you press hard enough, and smoothly blend colors together if you just brush lightly. This is probably my most used brush.
:bulletyellow: 3. This is a fun one; a hard round brush tip, hardness of about 85%, and spacing of 25%, with Shape Dynamics allowing the Size to be pen pressure controlled, and then Scattering to give it 100% Scatter. When used with a opacity of about 50% or so, this brush is a great way to paint fluffy clouds; bump up the opacity, and you can use it to paint distant treetops, dial down the size and paint rough hills.
:bulletyellow: 4. This is a favorite of mine; I use the large chalk brush tip, but just about any rough brush shape will do; I put the spacing all the way down to 5% for this one. Shape Dynamics sets the Size Jitter at about 10%, as well as pen pressure control, and Angle Jitter at 100%. Then a Scatter Jitter of 100%, to give it even more randomness. I use this brush when I need a really scratchy, random texture.
For some particularly great results, try similar settings with the Smudge tool, giving you a great way to blend and texture colors.
:bulletyellow: 5. Lastly, here's a brush that makes use of even more settings. I use the sampled tip brush, but just like with 4, anything rough will do nicely. Spacing of 5%, while Shape Dynamics has Size Jitter at 10%, with pen pressure control, and Angle Jitter at 50%. Scattering is set all the way up at 450%, with about 10% on the Count Jitter. And to finish up, Texture is turned on, using the basic Bubbles texture, leaving everything at default settings with the exception of setting the Mode to Color Burn. The results of all this is a very rough texturing brush, perfect for creating rough textures for backgrounds and the like. Play around with different colors and opacity levels, perhaps use a rough smudge brush, and you can make some nice soft background textures.

Hopefully all this gives you a good bit of information, and/or some inspiration, for creating some unique and useful brushes of your own! Your basic hard round brush will get you far, but if you really want to give your creations a more textured, unique look, you're going to have to make use of brushes better fitting of your style.
Find what works best for you!

Got questions? Feel free to ask me, either in the comments below, or via note. I'm always happy to lend a hand.
Image size
960x960px 184.15 KB
© 2012 - 2024 Jio-Derako
Comments26
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Ronivan's avatar
See my gallery and the things I draw. I made everything with a single standard brush. Brushes are only for lazy and unskilled artist, or for a very specific texture work.