420
Natural media brushes
A
DOBE RE-ENGINEERED THE
brush engine in Photoshop CS5,
producing a range of natural media brushes
that simulate the experience of painting in
watercolors.
This isn’t Photoshop’s attempt to take on
Corel Painter: the brushes have none of the
three-dimensional, oil paint quality of that
powerful painting application. But we can use
Photoshop’s brushes both to create artistic
work from scratch, and to modify existing
images.
The ten new brushes can be used in
standard mode or with the new Mixer Brush.
Each comprises individual bristles that work
as independent tips, producing multi-colored
painting techniques previously unseen in
Photoshop.
There’s a lot to be said about the new brush
technology: we only have space to scratch the
surface here, giving an overall impression of
the range of features available.
5
The Mixer Brush can be set to various modes between
Dry and Wet. This is equivalent to adding more water to
painting with watercolors: here, I’ve painted on the right side
of Nicole Kidman’s head with a Wet brush, which produces
smeary strokes.
1
Ten new brush tips were introduced in Photoshop CS5,
and examples are shown above left; they’re shown next
to the icons that appear in the Brush Presets panel. Each brush
can be customized in the Brush panel, above, giving the user
full control over the number of bristles, their length, thickness
and stiffness.
14
Advanced techniques
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
421
HOT TIP
The Mixer Brush,
in common with
many Photoshop
tools, really
benefits from
simply trying it out
in an experimental
way. Far more
textural than the
regular brushes,
it can be used to
patch artwork
with built-in
texture, rather
than with a single
flat color: and of
course it’s great for
painting images
from scratch.
7
We get interesting results when we use the Mixer Brush
using a standard brush tip. Here, I’ve used the same
sample I used on the Nicole Kidman image to produce this
shaded pipe (top); sampling an area half brown and half black
produces this strongly shaded tube (bottom).
6
I’ve painted on the left side of the head here using a Dry
brush, which reveals the individual strands much more
clearly. There’s a wide variation of brush types between wet
and dry to choose from, with additional variants built in for
each brush type.
2
By far the most interesting aspect of the new brush
engine is the Mixer Brush, a new tool nested beneath the
Brush tool in the Tool panel. This shows a preview displaying
the brush itself, which angles as we drag and rotate it
(assuming you have a compatible graphics tablet).
3
The interesting part comes when we paint over an
existing stroke. Here, I’ve changed the foreground color
from green to orange: as I’ve painted from left to right, the
brush picks up the green color and starts to paint with it.
4
When we now paint a new stroke with the brush – again
from left to right – it paints with the green color still
mixed in, which gradually disappears as the brush ‘cleans’ itself
back to the original orange color.
Current brush tip Range of sampled
colors
Load brush with color
after each stroke
Clean brush after
each stroke
Paint style, from
dry to wet
Parameters for
selected brush
Use pressure to
vary brush size
Sample colors
from lower layers
How to Cheat in Photoshop CC
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