9. Using the Paint, Shape Drawing, and Eraser Tools

Introduction

Adobe Photoshop supplies you with all types of adjustment and manipulation tools. In addition to image enhancement, Photoshop can also be a powerful application for designing from scratch. With the vast array of supplied brushes, tips, and shape drawing tools, Photoshop helps you produce any images, either enhanced or developed from scratch, that you might need for virtually any conceivable project.

Brushes come in all sizes and shapes, and can be controlled with a mouse or drawing tablet. Since the shape of the tip controls brush strokes, Photoshop gives you access to several sets of predefined brush tip shapes, or you can create your own customized sets. As for shape drawing tools, Photoshop doesn’t limit your creativity to just drawing circles and squares; it gives you instant access to dozens of predefined shapes. You can even create and save your own custom shapes. When it comes to Photoshop’s paint and drawing tools, your choices are limitless, based only on your knowledge of the available tools, and a creative imagination—the more you know, the more you can do with Photoshop.

And, when all the drawing is said and done, there will be a need for cleaning up. With the various Eraser tools that Photoshop provides, you can make quick work of touching up those small problem areas. Photoshop provides regular eraser tools, eraser tools that erase to a definable edge, and even eraser tools that target specific color values.

When enhancing an image, you might want to apply a gradient. Gradients can be something as simple as black and white, or as complex as one that contains the colors of the rainbow. Gradients can be applied to an image by completely covering the original image information, or they can be controlled through targeted selection, and creative uses of blending modes.

Understanding Foreground and Background Colors

The Foreground and Background colors, located near the bottom of the toolbox, are Photoshop’s way of identifying your primary painting color, as well as the color Photoshop uses in conjunction with the Background layer. When you select any of Photoshop’s painting or drawing tools, the color applied to the document will be the foreground color—that’s its purpose. Hence, it’s sometimes referred to as Photoshop’s active color. The Background color serves several functions—its primary purpose is to instruct Photoshop how to handle erasing on the Background layer. When you use an eraser tool on a Photoshop layer, by default, the pixels are converted to transparency. However, when you use an eraser tool on the Background, something different happens. Since the Background does not support transparency, it replaces the erased pixels with the current background color.

Change the Active Foreground and Background Colors

Use any of the following methods to change the active foreground or background colors:

Use Default and Switch the Foreground and Background Colors

Using the Brushes Panel

Photoshop’s Brushes Panel (released in version 7) changed forever how Photoshop designers use brushes. Previously, Photoshop gave you the ability to create a brush in any size and shape, and then use the brush in a traditional manner. However, with the exception of changing the brush’s spacing, it wasn’t much more than a glorified paintbrush. The current painting engine configuration, with options such as Shape Dynamics, Scattering, Texture, Dual Brush, and Color Dynamics, gives you control over brushes in ways that once were only available in programs like Corel Painter and Adobe Illustrator.

An Overview of the Brushes Panel

Photoshop’s Brushes panel is, by default, located in the Dock on the Options bar. To access this panel, you will first need to have a brush tool, or a tool that requires the use of a brush, such as the Eraser tool, chosen from the toolbox, and then click the Brushes panel icon. You can also go to the Window menu, and choose Brushes to make the panel appear. In this version of Photoshop, the brush engine has been improved for quicker response (New!), especially with a graphics tablet.

Modifying the Brushes Panel

The Brushes panel comes in many forms; you can view brushes as strokes, or you can choose thumbnails, or even text descriptions. The form of the Brushes panel does not impact its performance, only how you view the available brush tips. Choose the version that best suits your current design needs, and then change the view as needed. When you select a brush, it becomes the default for that tool only. This gives you the ability to choose a default brush for each of the brush-specific tools.

Change the Brushes Panel View

Selecting Brush Tip Sets

The Brushes panel comes with 12 predefined brush tip sets. Each set organizes specific brush tips by name. Since other Photoshop tools also use brush tips, it’s important to have the right tool (brush tip) for the right job. Using or making do with the wrong brush tip is akin to digging a swimming pool with a teaspoon. You wouldn’t paint a portrait with a house-painting brush, so don’t settle for anything less than the exact brush tip you need to get the job done.

Select Brush Tip Sets

Creating Customized Brush Tips

Although Photoshop’s Brushes panel gives you many choices for brush tips, any good designer will tell you that no matter how many brush tips you have, you’ll always want more. For example, you’re working on a 100-year-old photograph, and you need a specific brush to add hair details to the blown-out areas of the image. You’ll want to find a special type of brush that literally creates the illusion of wavy hair and add it to your collection of brush tips. Photoshop, in an effort to help keep you organized, gives you the ability to create your very own customized brush tips, and then save them later in organized sets.

Create a New Brush Tip

Saving Customized Brush Tips

Once a brush tip is created, it becomes part of the current set. However, the brush has not yet been permanently saved in Photoshop. Although the new brush tip will reappear every time you access the Brushes panel, if you choose the option to reset the panel, the new brush will be lost. To keep brushes you must save them into customized sets.

Save a Customized Brush Tip

Working with Brush Presets

The Brush Presets area of the Brushes panel provides a series of controls that let you define how a brush tip is applied to the active image. Features such as Scattering and Color Dynamics let you further customize your brush tips so you can create that specialized brush for all your image enhancement needs.

Work with Brush Presets

Working with the Brush and Airbrush Tools

Photoshop’s Brush and Airbrush tools were designed to reproduce the visual effect of applying paint to a canvas. You have full control over the brush tip, color, size, opacity, and even the brush’s blending mode. Control over the image is achieved by using additional layers to hold the brush strokes—but remember, adding additional layers increases the file size of a Photoshop document. Since layers have their own individual options, such as opacity, fill, and blending modes, you achieve even greater control over the final design by giving brush strokes their own layers. Once the brush stroke is to your liking, you can always merge the brush-stroke layer into the image to conserve file size.

Work with the Brush and Airbrush Tools

Working with the Pencil Tool

The Pencil tool is exactly what its name implies...a pencil. The Pencil tool is limited to hard brush tips of any size or shape, and creates freeform lines using the current foreground color. In fact, the major difference between the Pencil and Brush tools is the Pencil tool’s inability to draw anything but a hard-edged line. A unique feature of the Pencil tool is its ability to switch between the current foreground and background colors using the Auto Erase feature.

Work with the Pencil Tool

Working with Auto Erase

The Auto Erase feature lets you automatically switch the Pencil tool’s painting color using the current foreground and background color swatches. The trick is where you start drawing the line. If you start dragging the brush tip from a new location in the document, the Pencil tool creates a line in the active foreground color. If you then place the brush tip on a previously drawn line and drag, the Pencil tool creates a new line in the active background color. Since the Auto Erase feature doesn’t really erase anything, it will perform exactly the same way on a transparent layer as it does on the background layer.

Work with Auto Erase

Working with the Line Tool

The Line tool lets you draw lines by dragging from one point in the active document and releasing in another. You can draw lines at precise 45- or 90-degree angles by holding down the Shift key as you drag. Select the Line tool, or if you already have another drawing tool selected, you can choose the Line tool from the toolbox. Then configure the Line tool using the Options bar. It’s also a good idea to create the lines in a separate layer. That way, once the lines have been drawn, it’s as easy as selecting the Move tool and repositioning them where you want them.

Work with the Line Tool

Using the Standard Shape Tool

Creating standard shapes, such as polygons or rectangles with rounded corners, used to be a hassle. That is, until Photoshop released its Standard Shape drawing tools. Now, it’s a simple matter of selecting the correct tool, choosing a color, and then drawing the shape. As with any of Photoshop’s drawing functions, control is maintained with the use of additional layers. Photoshop’s standard shapes include rectangles, rounded rectangles, ellipses, and polygons. Each one of the shape tools comes with additional options to control exactly how the shape appears when drawn.

Work with the Standard Shape Tool

Working with the Custom Shape Tool

Having the ability to draw a perfect polygon or rounded-corner rectangle is nice; however, Photoshop went way beyond standard shapes when it introduced the Custom Shape tool. Photoshop now comes packaged with dozens of predesigned shapes, or you can even create your own. User-defined shapes can be made from literally any vector object. For example, a company logo can be converted to a custom shape. Custom shapes have many time-saving applications. As previously mentioned, a company logo, if used frequently, is only a mouse click away. Any vector form, outline, or shape used on a recurring basis, can be converted to a custom shape and saved for future use. Select the Custom Shape tool or, if you have any shape drawing tool selected, click the Custom Shape button from the Options bar, and then configure the shape using choices from the Options bar.

Work with the Custom Shape Tool

Creating a Custom Shape

Custom shapes can be created from anything you choose, and the process is quick and simple. You just create the shape, select the shape, and name the shape. That’s it. Since shapes are vector images, they’re resolution-independent, which means you can draw them at any size without impacting image quality. Once custom shapes are saved, they can be accessed by opening a document, selecting the Shape tool, and choosing your new shape from the Custom Shapes panel.

Create a Custom Shape

Saving Custom Shape Sets

Creating customized sets of shapes is an excellent way to get organized. The next time you need a specific shape all you have to do is select the shape from your organized sets. Organization can save you time, but it also lends a sense of consistency to designs. Using the same customized shapes repeatedly helps to tie the elements of a design together, and Photoshop gives you the perfect way to maintain that consistency with customized shape sets.

Save Custom Shape Sets

Using the Paint Bucket Tool

The Paint Bucket tool is not new; in fact, it’s been around almost as long as Photoshop. The Paint Bucket’s primary function is to fill an area with the active foreground color, but that’s not all it’s capable of doing. The Paint Bucket tool can fill areas with a selected pattern and, much the same way that the Magic Wand tool selects image information, the fill area can be controlled by the shift in brightness of image pixels. Combine those features with the ability to change the Paint Bucket’s blending mode or opacity, and you have a tool with a lot of horsepower.

Use the Paint Bucket Tool

Working with the Eraser Tools

Photoshop’s basic Eraser tool converts image pixels in a layer to transparent pixels. While the primary function of the Eraser tool has not changed, the tool itself has been greatly improved. For example, you can use the Eraser tool to remove a specific color or to erase around the edge of an object. You can instruct the Eraser tool to remove a specific color while protecting another color and at the same time, increase or decrease the tool’s tolerance (the range of selection). If you use the Eraser tool on a layered document, the tool will erase to transparency. If the Eraser tool is used on a flattened document (flattened documents do not support transparency), the Eraser tool will use the active background color to perform the erasure. As you can see, the eraser tools do more than blindly erase image information. As you master the eraser tools, you just may find those complicated eraser jobs becoming easier and easier. The Background Eraser tool lets you select specific colors within an image and erase just those colors.

Use the Basic Eraser Tool

Use the Background Eraser Tool

Working with the Magic Eraser Tool

The Magic Eraser tool functions the same way as the Magic Wand selection tool, except that instead of selecting an area, it erases it. The Magic Eraser tool works on any traditional Photoshop layer, as well as the Background layer. Clicking with the Magic Eraser tool converts image pixels into transparent pixels. Since the Background layer does not support transparency, using the Magic Eraser tool causes Photoshop to convert the Background into a traditional layer.

Work with the Magic Eraser Tool

Creating and Applying Gradients

While most of Photoshop’s painting and drawing tools let you select and paint with a single color, the Gradient tool lets you paint with a veritable rainbow of colors. The Gradient tool comes packaged with several sets of predesigned gradients, or you can create and save your own customized gradient sets. The process of creating a gradient is simple; you select a gradient along with a specific type (Linear, Radial, etc.), and then drag in the document window. The length and angle of the drag determines how the gradient is applied. Since gradients, by default, overwrite image pixels, it’s a good idea to create gradients in separate layers.

Create a Standard Gradient

Creating and Saving Customized Gradients

Customized gradients are easy to create and essential when you just can’t find what you want in Photoshop’s predefined sets. It doesn’t matter how many gradients Photoshop provides for you, there will always be that one instance where they just don’t do the required job. With just a few clicks of your mouse, you can create your own customized gradients. You can start with one of Photoshop’s gradients and modify it to your needs. You can also start completely from scratch; the choice is yours, and so are the rewards of creating that one-of-a-kind stunning gradient you can use for your current and future projects.

Create and Save a Customized Gradient

Using the Color Replacement Tool

The Color Replacement tool lets you replace a specific color in your image. For best results use soft brushes with this tool to help blend the colors into the original image. Have you ever captured that perfect picture of a family member or friend, only to find they have red eyes? Or maybe there’s a part of your image where the color draws attention away from the focal point. Either way, the Color Replacement tool is a great feature that allows you to take control of the final image.

Use the Color Replacement Tool