When you’re painting, the Brush uses the Foreground color, as does the Pencil tool. The Eraser uses both the Foreground color and the Background color (we get to that shortly). And these colors are always displayed as color swatches in the toolbox (see Figure 21.1). Some tools have their own color swatches in the Options bar; in this case, you can change the color that tool uses next without affecting the Foreground and Background colors that other tools use. You’ll even find color swatches right in some dialogs, as you saw in Hour 19, “Using the Improvement Filters,” when you learned how to use the Lighting Effects filter; in that dialog, you can click color swatches to specify colors for each light and for the ambient light.

Figure 21.1. The Foreground and Background colors are always visible in the toolbox.

In any case, clicking a color swatch opens the color picker. I probably shouldn’t say “the” color picker, however, because you do have a choice of which version you want to use: the Adobe color picker or the one that comes with your system software, whether that’s Windows or Mac OS. Try both of your options and see which works best for you. I generally prefer the Adobe color picker (see Figure 21.2), but my kids like the system one better (see Figure 21.3). To change which color picker comes up when you click a color swatch, choose Edit, Preferences, General (or press Ctrl+K) and choose an option from the Color Picker pop-up menu at the top of the Preferences dialog; then click OK.

Figure 21.2. You can always tell when you’re using the Adobe color picker because its window is gray, like the rest of the Photoshop Elements interface.

Figure 21.3. If you can’t see the right half of the Windows color picker, click the Define Custom Colors button to display it.

In either color picker, you can choose colors from a color field or enter numeric RGB or HSB values. I like the Adobe color picker better than the Windows one because it enables me to specify colors in hexadecimal code (the color system that HTML web pages use) as well as HSB (Hue/Saturation/Brightness) and RGB (Red/Green/Blue). It even has a couple ways to make sure that a color is “web-safe”—in other words, that it’s one of the 216 colors that the Mac OS and Windows system palettes share. To display only web colors, check the Only Web Colors box at the bottom of the color picker. Or, if you choose a color from the entire range of colors and then decide it needs to be web-safe, you can click the small color swatch below the web-safe color warning icon (a rainbow-colored cube) to have Photoshop Elements automatically replace the color you picked with the web-safe color that’s closest to your selection.

The color field and slider work the same way in both the Windows and Adobe color pickers, however. In each case, the slider controls whichever color component you click, whether that’s Hue, Saturation, Brightness, Red, Green, or Blue. The color field then displays your options in the other two components for the specified location on the slider. That sounds complicated, I know, but it makes more sense when you start playing around with it. Take a look at Figure 21.4 for an example. Here I’ve chosen Hue (see the selected radio button next to the H) for the slider, which means that the color field displays all the possible combinations of saturation (intensity) and brightness for the shade shown on the slider. If I switch the slider to B instead, for Brightness, the color field displays all the possible combinations of hue and saturation for the brightness level shown on the slider.

Figure 21.4. This green shade is about one-third as saturated as pure green; you can tell that both by the Saturation percentage and by the circle’s position one-third of the way from the left side of the color field.

Maybe you’re not the color-mixing type, and you prefer to choose from a predefined set of colors. Photoshop Elements can accommodate this method of working as well, with its Color Swatches palette (choose Window, Color Swatches). This palette, shown in Figure 21.5, comes with seven different preset color collections, listed in the pop-up menu at the top of the palette. Setting the Foreground color is as easy as clicking on a swatch you like; press Alt as you click to specify the Background color.

Figure 21.5. Not only can you choose colors from the Color Swatches palette, but you can also save your own favorite colors as swatches.

To add a swatch, click the New Swatch button at the bottom of the palette; it looks just like the Layers palette’s New Layer button. If you’re using a List view, double-click the swatch’s name (Color Swatch, with a number) and enter a new one that makes sense to you. If you want to delete a swatch, just drag it to the Trash icon next to the New Swatch button. When you have a collection of colors you want to use again later, choose Save Swatches from the palette menu, give your swatch collection a name, and then click Save. You can reload that set of color swatches at any time by choosing Load Swatches or Replace Swatches from the palette menu. If you use the Load Swatches command, the new colors are added to the colors already displayed in the Color Swatches palette; with Replace Swatches, only the new colors are displayed.

When you’re using the Eyedropper tool, the entire image is the equivalent of one big Color Swatches palette. Just click anywhere to choose a Foreground color, or Alt+click to choose a Background color. If you’re interested in the numbers behind colors chosen this way, choose Window, Info to display the Info palette (see Figure 21.6). Click the eyedropper next to each color readout to display a different color model in that space. Now, as you move your cursor within the image window, the values for the color immediately underneath it are displayed. You can use this technique to make sure a white background is really white (its RGB values will be 255, 255, 255), among other useful applications.

Figure 21.6. This pink flower petal contains a lot of red and blue and almost no green—not really surprising.

As you know, you can switch to the default colors of black and white by clicking the Default Colors button on the toolbar. You can also just press D, which is much faster. And you can swap the Foreground and Background colors by clicking the Switch Foreground and Background button—or by pressing X.

Now, when we’re talking about shapes, we’re not talking about plain white squares and circles. No way—Photoshop Elements’ styles are made to be applied to shape layers, meaning that your shapes will never be boring. You don’t have to use the Effects menu, either; there’s a Style pop-up menu right in the Shape tools’ Options bar, next to the color swatch (see Figure 21.9). You can choose a color or a style before you start drawing or after you’ve completed a shape. Of course, if you prefer to use the Effects palette to apply styles to shapes, you can definitely do that. Click the second button at the top of the palette to see just layer styles.

Figure 21.9. Click the triangle next to the style swatch to see your style choices; choose from a menu of other style categories by clicking the double arrow.

To apply a style to an existing shape, click the shape’s layer in the Layers palette; then choose a style from the pop-up menu in the Options bar or double-click a thumbnail in the Effects palette.

Here’s another area where the computer’s capabilities really outshine people’s abilities. When using the Shape tools, you can set options for each kind of shape that control its shape, size, and other attributes (see Figure 21.10). Here’s a rundown of what options are available for each Shape tool:

Figure 21.10. Click the triangle next to the Shape tool’s icon in the Options bar to see its geometry options.

Ordinarily, each shape you draw appears on its own layer. If you want to combine shapes into more complex shapes, however, you can use buttons on the Options bar to determine exactly how that happens. The first button, Create New Shape Layer, is the default setting and creates a new layer on which you draw your shape; click one of the other buttons to keep drawing on the current shape layer (see Figure 21.13). Add to Shape Area just puts a second shape on the layer; Subtract from Shape Area deletes any overlapping area between the new shape and the old one, keeping the new shape uncolored. Intersect Shape Areas colors only the overlapping area, and Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas colors all the new shape and the old one except the overlapping area.

Figure 21.13. Clockwise from top left, you see the results of Add to Shape Area, Subtract from Shape Area, Intersect Shape Areas, and Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas.

As you draw additional shapes, you can switch to other Shape tools in the toolbox. Use the Shape Selection tool (accessible via the toolbox or the Options bar) to select and move a single shape when you’ve got multiple shapes on a layer. You also can combine multiple shapes on the same layer into a single shape; use the Select Shape tool to select the shapes you want to merge, and then click Combine on the Options bar. After you combine shapes, you can no longer select or move the original individual shapes.

Drawing a custom shape is just as easy as drawing any other shape. With your image file open in the Editor, choose a shape from the menu in the Options bar, and then choose a color, a style, or both (some styles make use of the shape color; others don’t). Click and drag, and you’re done.

Photoshop Elements’ custom shapes are divided by category into several libraries, accessible via the double arrow at the right side of the shape picker menu. Also in this menu are options to view the shapes with small or large thumbnails (I used large ones in Figure 21.14) or as a list.

Figure 21.14. These are just a few of the hundreds of objects you can create with the Custom Shape tool.

Perhaps more than any other tool, the Brush requires you to check its Options bar settings before painting. Don’t get me wrong—you can start painting right away, but there are so many variables in Brush settings that you’re likely to need to undo, change settings, and try again. The Brush does retain the last settings you used with it, except for color, so if you’ve settled in for a long session and you’ve got all your settings the way you want them, you’re fine to just keep going.

Let’s take a look at the Brush’s Options bar to see what variables you can change when using this tool (see Figure 21.15). First, you’ll need to choose a brush tip from the pop-up menu. You have a choice of many different sizes and shapes, and some are hard-edged while others are soft-edged. If you have trouble distinguishing subtle differences among various tips, click the double arrow and switch to Stroke Thumbnail so that you can see a stroke drawn with each brush tip instead of just its outline. When you find a brush that’s the right shape and close to the right size, click it and then adjust the size using the pop-up menu right next to the Brushes menu.

Figure 21.15. Photoshop Elements’ brushes aren’t all boring, round-tipped ones.

The next section of the Brush’s Options bar contains pop-up menus that control blending mode and opacity. Opacity is, of course, the opposite of transparency; with an Opacity setting of 0%, you won’t paint anything, and with Opacity set at 50%, you’ll be able to see anything below your Brush strokes. The blending mode you choose affects how the new color and the old color blend when you paint over a nontransparent area. In Normal blending mode, the new color simply covers the old color (assuming that you also have the Brush’s opacity set at 100%). The other blending modes combine the two colors in different ways, using yet more obscure math that I’m really glad Adobe’s programmers know how to do, because I sure don’t.

You click the Airbrush button, which is next on the Options bar, to turn Airbrush mode on or off. When you’re working in Airbrush mode, you can control how much paint is applied at any given spot by varying the amount of time you hold down the mouse button as you hover in that spot. Color builds up with repeated strokes over the same area, just as it would with a real-life airbrush (see Figure 21.16).

Figure 21.16. Each dot along the line is a place where I stopped moving the mouse for a minute to let the paint build up.

Finally, the Brush tool has additional options available under the Brush icon on the Options bar (see Figure 21.17). These control what you might call the “physical” attributes of the Brush: how hard it’s pressing against the canvas, whether it’s hard or soft, what angle it’s being held at, and so on. From top to bottom, they’re as follows:

Figure 21.17. Who knew there were so many aspects to a simple paintbrush?

Don’t be leery of playing around with the Brush Options; if you’re going to paint instead of restrict yourself to retouching and filtering pictures, you’ll have much more scope for creativity with these additional options.

The name of this tool is a bit misleading because when you “paint” with it, you’re not laying down new color. Instead, the Impressionist Brush rearranges the pixels in the existing image to make them look like the brushstrokes in an Impressionist painting (see Figure 21.18). Its Options bar controls are much like those for the regular Brush; instead of an Airbrush button, however, you have a special menu of additional options for the way the Impressionist Brush works:

Figure 21.18. The left half of this picture has been “Impressionized”; the right half is the sharp, colorful, and boring original.

Each stroke with the Impressionist Brush blurs the area under the brush, but it also smudges and swirls it according to the Style you’ve chosen.

Create an Impressionist Masterpiece

Even if you think you have no artistic talent whatsoever, you can paint an Impressionist work. Start by downloading iris.jpg from the book’s website at www.informit.com/title/9780672330179 (see Figure 21.19). Open it in the Editor’s Full Edit mode, and follow these steps:

1. Switch to the Impressionist Brush and change your brush Size to 10 pixels. Set the Opacity at 75%.

   By the Way

   If you were using the regular Brush, you’d want to set your Foreground color at this point. With the Impressionist Brush, you don’t have to worry about color; the brush uses the image colors, not the Foreground color.

2. In the special Impressionist Brush settings on the Options bar, choose Tight Medium from the Style pop-up menu. Then set Area to 30 pixels and Tolerance to 5.

3. Carefully go over the image with the brush, making short strokes that follow the contours of the image. Drag quickly along each leaf and petal, and go over the street, the flagpole, and the building in the background. Paint over the sky, too, although you won’t see much change because it’s all the same color.

4. Go back to the Impressionist Brush settings in the Options bar and lower the Tolerance to 0%. Now lightly go back over any areas of the image that didn’t get adequately smudged on the previous pass. This is likely to include the street and its yellow lines, as well as some of the leaves (see Figure 21.20).

Figure 21.19. The original photo shows a gorgeous iris, perfect fodder for an Impressionist picture.

Figure 21.20. The vivid colors of the iris remain, but its detail is softened in the Impressionist style.

The main difference between the Brush and the Pencil is that the Pencil’s tip is always hard-edged, no matter what it looks like in the Options bar preview. You can use all the same brush tips that the Brush can use, but the soft-edged ones aren’t soft when used with the Pencil. That said, the tool works the same way the Brush does: Set the Foreground color, choose a brush tip, and then click and drag in the image window.

The Pencil could well be called a one-trick pony—and this is the trick. When you check the box labeled Auto Erase in the Pencil’s Options bar, you make the Pencil into an eraser of sorts. If you click on an area of Foreground color in the image window, the Pencil erases to the Background color. Then if you click in the area of Background color and draw, it uses the Foreground color (see Figure 21.21). Background on Foreground, Foreground on Background. If you click on any other color in the image, the Pencil draws with the Foreground color.

Figure 21.21. I created this image without switching colors or using the Eraser; first, I drew the large shape with the Pencil, then I drew on it to produce the Background color, and then I drew in more of the Foreground color in the middle.

The Eraser tool operates differently, depending on what kind of layer is active. If you’re working on the Background layer, the Eraser erases to the Background color, but if you’re working on a regular layer, the Eraser erases to transparency. It can’t erase pixels on multiple layers at the same time.

When using the Eraser, the first thing to do is choose a mode in the Options bar. Block mode erases a square whose size is always the same relative to your screen (16 monitor pixels), which means it grows larger as you zoom out of the image and smaller as you zoom in. Brush and Pencil modes enable you to use different brush tips and vary their size, just like the tools they’re named after. Pencil mode is always hard-edged, just as with the Pencil tool, but Brush mode can use soft-edged brushes so that the eraser effect fades out at the edges of strokes (see Figure 21.22).

Figure 21.22. Using a soft-edged brush tip blurs the edges of the erased area.

Next, if you’re using Brush or Pencil mode, you can vary the Size of the Eraser and its Opacity; set the Opacity to 100% to erase things completely, and make the percentage lower to leave traces behind. When your options are set, all you need to do to use the Eraser is click and drag, just as with the Brush or the Pencil.

The Magic Eraser is something else again. You can tell it to erase only a specific color or range of colors and ignore anything that’s a different color. It works like a combination of using the Magic Wand and pressing Delete, in a single step. And similar to the Magic Wand, it’s a tool that’s used by clicking, not clicking and dragging, so you can’t choose its size.

Figure 21.23. This picture used to include a rhinoceros, but I got rid of him easily with the Magic Eraser.

You can set some options for the Magic Eraser, as follows:

Similar to the Magic Eraser, the Background Eraser chooses which pixels to erase based on the colors of the pixels over which you drag it. To use it effectively, you need to pay close attention to its cursor, which is a circle surrounding a tiny cross called a hotspot. As you drag the Background Eraser across the picture, it analyzes the pixels directly under the hotspot and erases any pixels it passes over that are close enough to that color. Any pixels of other colors are left alone. You can actually drag the edge of the Background Eraser brush over objects you don’t want to erase, as long as the hotspot stays clear of them. This enables you to clean up background pixels right next to the foreground object that you want to retain, without affecting the object.

Figure 21.24. Here I’m using the Background Eraser to delete the mulch behind the flowers, while leaving the flowers untouched.

Unlike the Magic Eraser, the Background Eraser is a click-and-drag tool, so its Options bar has a Brush pop-up menu in which you can specify the size, softness, and other attributes of the tool’s tip. The Brush settings work just like the Brush Options, explained earlier in this chapter.

The Background Eraser offers you two more choices about how it works. First, the Limits pop-up menu contains two options: Discontiguous and Contiguous. Discontiguous erases any pixels within the circle that are close enough to the hotspot color, and Contiguous restricts the Background Eraser to erasing areas that both contain the hotspot color and are next to each other. You determine how close to the hotspot color a pixel under the eraser must be for it to be erased by adjusting the Tolerance, which is just like the Tolerance settings for the Magic Wand and the Magic Eraser.