Part V Painting, Paths, Shapes, and Text IN THIS PART Chapter 16 Painting and Brushes Chapter 17 Working with Paths and Vector Shapes Chapter 18 Working with Text 23_584743-pp05.indd 49923_584743-pp05.indd 499 5/3/10 10:37 AM5/3/10 10:37 AM 23_584743-pp05.indd 50023_584743-pp05.indd 500 5/3/10 10:37 AM5/3/10 10:37 AM 501 CHAPTER Painting and Brushes IN THIS CHAPTER Painting in Photoshop Using brush-style editing tools to edit photos Painting with brush and non- brush tools Using Photoshop’s new wet paint capabilities Customizing paint brush settings Painting and tracing techniques A lthough Photoshop is typically thought of as a photo-editing pack- age, it also includes an arsenal of tools that makes it one of the pre- mier painting applications as well. In fact, painting in Photoshop means much more than in most other painting applications. What makes painting so effective in Photoshop is that Adobe combined the powerful photo-editing tools with the paint brush tools so you can use paint brush strokes to apply localized photo editing and you can apply photo edit- ing techniques to your painting. This chapter discusses the Brush tools available in Photoshop for both edit- ing and painting purposes. It also covers how to configure custom brushes to increase the capability of those tools. Before you begin painting in Photoshop, you likely want to switch to the Painting workspace by selecting Window ➪ Workspaces ➪ Painting from the main menu. This configures the workspace specifically to support the painting tools. Painting in Photoshop Painting in Photoshop means much more than just painting colors onto a blank document with a brush. Painting means using brushing techniques to apply effects to fix problem areas of photographs, retrace history, blend layers, apply color, and mix colors. In this chapter, we discuss the tools and techniques that you can use to apply some specific changes to images, create artwork, and create dramatic artistic effects. Before we start, though, you should know a few things about painting: 24_584743-ch16.indd 50124_584743-ch16.indd 501 5/3/10 10:37 AM5/3/10 10:37 AM Part V: Painting, Paths, Shapes, and Text 502 l Brushing techniques are applied by selecting the tool, setting the brush and tool options, and then dragging the cursor on a specific area of the document using a mouse or stylus pen. l Painting is applied to the currently selected layer in the Layers panel, although some of the tools sample from all the layers to apply the painting effect. l When you have a selection active, the painting effect applies only inside the selection. This allows you to use Photoshop’s powerful Selection tools to fine-tune your painting. l Painting is a destructive task that alters pixels. It is a good idea to paint from a copy of the background layer if you are altering a photo and then apply the change only when you feel that the painting is finished. l You can paint on vector layers, but you need to convert them to Smart Object layers first. l Painting is not an exact science. You may need to try different brush styles, sizes, settings, and strokes to achieve the results you are looking for. Understanding the Painting Tools The best way to understand painting in Photoshop is to look at the brush-based tools that Photoshop provides. Understanding how these painting tools work can make you more effective at both editing photos and applying artistic effects. This section discusses the painting tools and how to use them. You use three types of tools to paint in Photoshop: editing, painting, and mixing. Editing tools paint by adjusting the pixels directly beneath the tool. Painting tools paint by applying color to the pixels directly beneath the tool. Mixing tools paint by mixing color with the pixels directly beneath the tool. Tip When you are using any of the painting tools, keep in mind that holding down the Shift key while dragging the cursor results in applying the stroke in a straight horizontal or vertical line. You also can hold down the Shift key as you click the painting tool in two different locations in the image to create a straight paint stroke between the two points. n Painting tools and blending modes Many of the painting tools provide blending modes that define the behavior and look of the effect and how it blends to the pixels beneath. Blending modes are computer algorithms that define methods to combine two pixels into one pixel. The idea is that instead of using one pixel or the other, you can define several ways to combine the two to create a different outcome. As you begin using the painting tools, you’ll notice that many of the tools offer a blending mode set- ting of some sort. The painting tools use blending modes for a variety of purposes. For example, the Brush tool allows you to set a blending mode that defines how the paint from the brush interacts and blends with the pixels below. And when adding a texture to a brush, a blending mode is used to define how the pixels from the pattern blend with the paint in the brush to create the texture. 24_584743-ch16.indd 50224_584743-ch16.indd 502 5/3/10 10:37 AM5/3/10 10:37 AM Chapter 16: Painting and Brushes 503 The following sections describe the different blending modes and how they relate to the painting tools. For the sake of the descriptions, we refer to the pixels below the brush as the base pixels. Basic blending modes These are the basic blending modes that can be used when painting: l Normal: This is the default option for most of the Brush tools. No blending is applied; instead the value of the new pixels is the value created by the paint brush. When painting tools use the Normal mode, the foreground color that is applied is based on the opacity, flow, and airbrush settings. When editing tools use the Normal mode, the tool manipula- tion is applied using the normal editing algorithm. l Dissolve: The blend is applied by randomly replacing the pixels with either the paint brush value or the pixels beneath, depending on the pixel location and the opacity setting. Using this option allows you to dissipate the effect of the painting effect, more than just changing the opacity. l Behind: The painting effect is applied only on the transparent areas of the layer. This mode works only when the Lock Transparency option is deselected for the layer. l Clear: This applies the painting effect as transparency. It’s similar to the Eraser tool, but it works with the Shape, Paint Bucket, Brush, and Pencil tools to apply the transparency. This mode works only when the Lock Transparency option is deselected for the layer. Note The Behind and Clear blending modes are not available if the selected Layer in the Layers panel is locked. n Darkening blending modes The next group within the blending modes menu contains darkening effects. These five blending filters reduce the painting effect in the darker areas and apply more paint to the lighter pixels below. The result is that the effects tend to darken the overall image: l Darken: The blend is applied by replacing the pixels with the darker of the base value or the paint brush value. In other words, the painting effect is only applied to pixels in the underlying pixels that are lighter than the value of the brush pixel. This has the effect of darkening the image. l Multiply: The blend is applied by multiplying the base value of each pixel by the paint brush pixel value. Multiplying a pixel by black always produces black, and multiplying a pixel by white leaves the pixel value unchanged. This mode has the overall effect of dark- ening the image. l Color Burn: The blend is applied by darkening the base channel based on the brush color by increasing the contrast between the two. This has the effect of darkening the image as well as increasing color contrasts. l Linear Burn: This darkens the image as it applies the blend by decreasing the brightness based on the value of paint brush pixel. 24_584743-ch16.indd 50324_584743-ch16.indd 503 5/3/10 10:37 AM5/3/10 10:37 AM Part V: Painting, Paths, Shapes, and Text 504 l Darken Color: The blend is applied by replacing each of the channels of a pixel with the darker between the base pixel channel and the paint brush pixel channel. This option works a bit better than using the Darken mode because it uses the darkest values from each of the channels to create the resulting color. For example, this mode may use red and green from the base pixel and blue from the paint brush pixel. Lightening blending modes The Lightening blending modes work opposite of the darkening blending modes. As the painting effect is applied, the results tend to lighten darker areas of the image while not impacting the lighter areas of the image as much: l Lighten: The blend is applied by replacing the pixels with the lighter of the base value or the paint brush value. This has the effect of lightening the image and can be extremely useful if applying filters to underexposed images. l Screen: The blend is applied by multiplying the inverse of the channel values of the paint brush and base pixels. This results in a lighter color than either the paint brush value or the base value. This has the same effect as projecting multiple photographic slides on top of each other. l Color Dodge: This applies the blend by decreasing the contrast between the color of the channels in the paint brush pixel and the base pixels. This lightens the base pixels using the paint brush pixel values. l Linear Dodge (Add): This lightens the images as it applies the blend by increasing the brightness based on the paint brush pixel value of each channel. l Lighter Color: The blend is applied by replacing each channel of a pixel with the lighter between the base pixel channel and the paint brush pixel channel. This option works a bit better than using the Lighten mode because it uses the lightest values from each channel to create the resulting color. Adding contrast blending modes These blending modes create contrast between the paint brush effect and the base pixels, making the lighter areas lighter and the darker areas darker: l Overlay: This applies the blend by mixing the paint brush values with the base pixels while preserving the shadows and highlights. This reduces the effect of extreme layer adjustments that dramatically reduce the detail in the original image. l Soft Light: This applies the blend based on the gray value of the paint brush pixel. If the value of the paint brush pixel is darker than 50 percent gray, the base pixel is darkened using a multiplying method. If the value of the paint brush pixel is lighter than 50 percent gray, the base pixel is lightened using a dodging method. This has a similar effect to shin- ing a diffused spotlight on the image. l Hard Light: This applies the blend based on the gray value of the paint brush pixel. If the value of the paint brush pixel is darker than 50 percent gray, the base pixel is darkened 24_584743-ch16.indd 50424_584743-ch16.indd 504 5/3/10 10:37 AM5/3/10 10:37 AM Chapter 16: Painting and Brushes 505 using a multiplying method. If the value of the paint brush pixel is lighter than 50 percent gray, the base pixel is lightened using a screening method. This has a similar effect to shining a harsh spotlight on the image. This option is great for adding shadows while applying the filter. l Vivid Light: This applies the blend based on the gray value of the paint brush pixel. If the value of the paint brush pixel is darker than 50 percent gray, the base pixel is darkened by increasing the contrast. If the value of the paint brush pixel is lighter than 50 percent gray, the base pixel is lightened by decreasing the contrast. l Linear Light: This acts as a combination of the linear dodge and linear. If a paint brush pixel is darker than 50 percent gray, then the pixels in the image are darkened by the brush stroke. If a paint brush pixel is lighter than 50 percent gray, then the pixel in the image is lightened by the brush stroke. l Pin Light: This applies the filter based on the gray value of the paint brush pixel. If the value of the paint brush pixel is darker than 50 percent gray, the darker of the paint brush pixel and base pixel is used. If the value of the layer pixel is lighter than 50 percent gray, the lighter of the paint brush pixel and base pixel is used. l Hard Mix: This adds the value of each RGB channel in the paint brush pixel to the corre- sponding RGB channel in the base pixel. The values above 255 and below 0 are clipped, so this can result in a large loss of detail. Difference, Exclusion, Subtract and Divide blending modes The Difference, Exclusion, Subtract and Divide blending modes blend the layers based on the dif- ference between the two layers: l Difference: This applies the blend by setting the resulting pixel to the value of the differ- ence between the paint brush pixel and the base pixel. Blending white inverts the pixel value, and blending black results in no change. l Exclusion: This works similar to the Difference blend mode, but generates less contrast. l Subtract: This applies the blend by subtracting the pixel value in the paint brush from the corresponding pixel in the image. The resulting pixel value is divided by a scale factor and then added to an offset to make certain it still falls in the 0–255 range. The result is that the darker the paint brush pixel is, the less effect it has on the image pixel. l Divide: This works that same way that the subtract blend mode does, but instead the image pixel is divided by the paint brush pixel. This increases the range of variance in changes in the image pixels. Color blending modes The final group of blending modes gives the selected layer a color influence over the layers under it: l Hue: This applies the blend by creating the resulting pixel using the luminance and satu- ration of the base pixel but the hue of the paint brush pixel. This reduces the blend to affect only the hue of the base pixels. 24_584743-ch16.indd 50524_584743-ch16.indd 505 5/3/10 10:37 AM5/3/10 10:37 AM Part V: Painting, Paths, Shapes, and Text 506 l Saturation: This applies the blend by creating the resulting pixel using the luminance and hue of the base pixel but the saturation of the paint brush pixel. This reduces the blend to affect only the saturation of the base pixels. l Color: This applies the blend by creating the resulting pixel using the luminance of the base pixel but the hue and saturation of the paint brush pixel. This limits the blend so it doesn’t affect the brightness of the base pixels. l Luminosity: This applies the blend by creating the resulting pixel using the hue and satu- ration of the base pixel but the luminance of the paint brush pixel. This allows you to apply it so it affects only the brightness of the base pixels. Painting with painting tools Painting tools, shown in Figure 16.1, paint by applying new color to the pixels in a specific region under the tool. This is a pretty basic concept that has been around for decades. Photoshop enhances the paint technique by allowing you to select specific brush styles, sizes, and settings that control how pixels are painted in almost unlimited ways. FIGURE 16.1 The Painting tools allow you to apply color to images using a variety of brush and pencil strokes. Presets Brush presets Brush panel Tablet Pressure Controls Opacity Airbrush Tablet Pressure Controls Size Background SamplingContinuous Sampling Once Sampling Tip You can select the Painting tools using the B hotkey, and you can toggle through the Brush, Pencil, Color Replacement, and Mixer Brush tools by using the Shift+B hotkey sequence on the keyboard. n The following list describes the Painting tools that you use to add color to your images: 24_584743-ch16.indd 50624_584743-ch16.indd 506 5/3/10 10:37 AM5/3/10 10:37 AM . The blend is applied by multiplying the base value of each pixel by the paint brush pixel value. Multiplying a pixel by black always produces black, and multiplying a pixel by white leaves the. three types of tools to paint in Photoshop: editing, painting, and mixing. Editing tools paint by adjusting the pixels directly beneath the tool. Painting tools paint by applying color to the pixels. workspace by selecting Window ➪ Workspaces ➪ Painting from the main menu. This configures the workspace specifically to support the painting tools. Painting in Photoshop Painting in Photoshop