Painting tools

About painting tools, options, and palettes 

Adobe Photoshop CS3 provides several tools for painting and editing image color. The Brush tool and the Pencil tool work like traditional drawing tools by applying color with brush strokes. The Gradient tool, Fill command, and Paint Bucket tool apply color to large areas. Tools like the Eraser tool, Blur tool, and Smudge tool modify the existing colors in the image. See Painting tools gallery.

In the options bar for each tool, you can set how color is applied to an image and choose from preset brush tips.

Brush and tool presets

You can save a set of brush options as a preset so you can quickly access brush characteristics you use frequently. Photoshop includes several sample brush presets. You can start with these presets and modify them to produce new effects. Many original brush presets are available for download on the web.

You choose presets from the Brush Preset picker, which stores preset brushes and allows you to temporarily modify the diameter and hardness of a brush preset.

Learn the shortcuts for changing paint tool size and hardness. See Keys for painting objects.

You use tool presets when you want to save brush tip characteristics along with settings from the options bar, such as opacity, flow, and color. To learn more about tool presets, see Create and use tool presets.

Brush tip options

Along with settings in the options bar, brush tip options control how color is applied. You can apply color gradually, with soft edges, with large brush strokes, with various brush dynamics, with different blending properties, and with brushes of different shapes. You can apply a texture with your brush strokes to simulate painting on canvas or art papers. You can also simulate spraying paint with an airbrush. You use the Brushes palette to set brush tip options. See Brushes palette overview.

If you work with a drawing tablet, you can control how color is applied using pen pressure, angle, rotation, or a stylus wheel. You set options for drawing tablets in the Brushes palette.

Paint with the Brush tool or Pencil tool

 

The Brush tool and the Pencil tool paint the current foreground color on an image. The Brush tool creates soft strokes of color. The Pencil tool creates hard-edged lines.

1. Choose a foreground color. (See Choose colors in the toolbox.) 
   
2. Select the Brush tool  or Pencil tool . 
   
3. Choose a brush from the Brush Presets picker. See Select a preset brush. 
   
4. Set tool options for mode, opacity, and so on, in the options bar. See Paint tool options. 
   
5. Do one or more of the following:
   

• Drag in the image to paint. 
  
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• To draw a straight line, click a starting point in the image. Then hold down Shift, and click an ending point.
  
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• When using the Brush tool as an airbrush, hold down the mouse button without dragging to build up color. 
  

Paint tool options 

Set the following options for painting tools in the options bar. Options available vary with each tool.

Mode  Sets the method for blending the color you paint with the underlying existing pixels. Available modes change with the currently selected tool. Paint modes are similar to layer blending modes. See List of blending modes. 

Opacity  Sets the transparency of color you apply. As you paint over an area, the opacity will not exceed the set level no matter how many times you move the pointer over the area, until you release the mouse button. If you stroke over the area again, you will apply additional color, equivalent to the set opacity. Opacity of 100 percent is opaque. 

Flow Sets the rate at which color is applied as you move the pointer over an area. As you paint over an area, keeping the mouse button down, the amount of color will build up based on the flow rate, up to the opacity setting. For example, if you set the opacity to 33% and the flow to 33%, each time you move over an area, its color moves 33% towards the brush color. The total will not exceed 33% opacity unless you release the mouse button and stroke over the area again. 

Press a number key to set a tool’s opacity in multiples of 10% (pressing 1 sets it to 10%; pressing 0 sets it to 100%). Use Shift and number key to set Flow.

Airbrush   Simulates painting with an airbrush. As you move the pointer over an area, paint builds up as you hold down the mouse button. Brush hardness, opacity, and flow options control how fast and how much the paint is applied. Click the button to turn this option on or off. 

Auto erase  (Pencil tool only) Paints the background color over areas containing the foreground color. Select the foreground color you want to erase and the background color you want to change to. (See Auto Erase with the Pencil tool.) 

Paint with a pattern 

The Pattern Stamp tool paints with a pattern. You can select a pattern from the pattern libraries or create your own patterns.

1. Select the Pattern Stamp tool . 
   
2. Choose a brush from the Brush Presets picker. See Select a preset brush.) 
   
3. Set tool options for mode, opacity, etc. in the options bar. See Paint tool options. 
   
4. Select Aligned in the options bar to maintain the pattern’s continuity with your original start point, even if you release the mouse button and then continue painting. Deselect Aligned to restart the pattern each time you stop and start painting. 
   
5. Select a pattern from the Pattern pop‑up palette in the options bar. 
   
6. If you’d like to apply the pattern with an impressionistic effect, select Impressionist. 
   
7. Drag in the image to paint it with the pattern. 

Paint with the Art History Brush 

The Art History Brush tool paints with stylized strokes, using the source data from a specified history state or snapshot. By experimenting with different paint style, size, and tolerance options, you can simulate the texture of painting with different colors and artistic styles.

Like the History Brush tool, the Art History Brush tool uses a specified history state or snapshot as the source data. The History Brush tool, however, paints by recreating the specified source data, while the Art History Brush tool uses that data along with the options you set to create different colors and artistic styles

Erase with the Eraser tool 

The Eraser tool changes pixels to either the background color or to transparent. If you’re working in the background or in a layer with transparency locked, the pixels change to the background color; otherwise, the pixels are erased to transparency. 

You can also use the eraser to return the affected area to a state selected in the History palette.

1. Select the Eraser tool . 
   
2. Set the background color you want to apply if you are erasing in the background or a layer with locked transparency. 
   
3. Choose a mode for the eraser. Brush and Pencil set the eraser to act like those tools. Block is a hard-edged, fixed-sized square with no options for changing the opacity or flow. 
   
4. For Brush and Pencil modes, choose a brush, and set Opacity and Flow in the options bar. An opacity of 100% erases pixels completely. A lower opacity erases pixels partially. See Paint tool options.
5. To erase to a saved state or snapshot of the image, click the left column of the state or snapshot in the History palette, and then select Erase To History in the options bar. (Photoshop) To temporarily use the Eraser tool in Erase to History mode, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you drag in the image.
6. Drag through the area you want to erase. 
   

Change similar pixels with the Magic Eraser tool 

When you click in a layer with the Magic Eraser tool, the tool changes all similar pixels to transparent. If you’re working in a layer with locked transparency, the pixels change to the background color. If you click in the background, it is converted to a layer and all similar pixels change to transparent.

You can choose to erase contiguous pixels only or all similar pixels on the current layer.

1. Select the Magic Eraser tool . 
   
2. Do the following in the options bar:
   

• Enter a tolerance value to define the range of colors that can be erased. A low tolerance erases pixels within a range of color values very similar to the pixel you click. A high tolerance erases pixels within a broader range.
  
• Select Anti-aliased to smooth the edges of the area you erase.
  
• Select Contiguous to erase only pixels contiguous to the one you click, or deselect to erase all similar pixels in the image.
  
• Select Sample All Layers to sample the erased color using combined data from all visible layers.
  
• Specify an opacity to define the strength of the erasure. An opacity of 100% erases pixels completely. A lower opacity erases pixels partially

   Click in the part of the layer you want to erase. 

Change pixels to transparent with the Background Eraser tool 

The Background Eraser tool erases pixels on a layer to transparency as you drag; this allows you to erase the background while maintaining the edges of an object in the foreground. By specifying different sampling and tolerance options, you can control the range of the transparency and the sharpness of the boundaries. 

•  If you want to erase the background of an object with intricate or wispy edges, use the Extract command. 
  

The background eraser samples the color in the center of the brush, also called the hot spot, and deletes that color wherever it appears inside the brush. It also performs color extraction at the edges of any foreground objects, so that color halos are not visible if the foreground object is later pasted into another image.

Note: The background eraser overrides the lock transparency setting of a layer.

1. In the Layers palette, select the layer containing the areas you want to erase. 
   
2. Select the Background Eraser tool . 
   
3. Click the brush sample in the options bar, and set brush options in the pop‑up palette:
   

• Choose settings for the Diameter, Hardness, Spacing, Angle, and Roundness options (see Brush tip shape options). 
  
• If you’re using a pressure-sensitive digitizing tablet, choose options from the Size and Tolerance menus to vary the size and tolerance of the background eraser over the course of a stroke. Choose Pen Pressure to base the variation on the pen pressure. Choose Stylus Wheel to base the variation on the position of the pen thumbwheel. Choose Off if you don’t want to vary the size or tolerance.
  

1. Do the following in the options bar:
   

• Choose a Limits mode for erasing: Discontiguous to erase the sampled color wherever it occurs under the brush; Contiguous to erase areas that contain the sampled color and are connected to one another; and Find Edges to erase connected areas containing the sampled color while better preserving the sharpness of shape edges.
• For Tolerance, enter a value or drag the slider. A low tolerance limits erasure to areas that are very similar to the sampled color. A high tolerance erases a broader range of colors.
• Select Protect Foreground Color to prevent the erasure of areas that match the foreground color in the toolbox.
• Choose a Sampling option: Continuous to sample colors continuously as you drag; Once to erase only areas containing the color you first click; and Background Swatch to erase only areas containing the current background color.

1. Drag through the area you want to erase. The Background Eraser tool pointer appears as a brush shape with a cross hair indicating the tool’s hot spot.   

Auto Erase with the Pencil tool 

The Auto Erase option for the Pencil tool lets you paint the background color over areas containing the foreground color.

1. Specify foreground and background colors. 
   
2. Select the Pencil tool . 
   
3. Select Auto Erase in the options bar. 
   
4. Drag over the image. 
5. If the center of the cursor is over the foreground color when you begin dragging, the area is erased to the background color. If the center of the cursor is over an area that doesn’t contain the foreground color when you begin dragging, the area is painted with the foreground color. 

Changing the brush cursor 

The painting tools have three possible cursors: the standard cursor (the icon from the toolbox), a cross hair , and a cursor that matches the size and shape of the currently selected brush tip. You change the brush tip cursor in the Cursors preferences dialog box.

1. Choose Edit > Preferences > Cursors (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences > Cursors (Mac OS). 
   
2. Select the desired cursors in both the Painting Cursors area and the Other Cursors area. The sample cursors change to reflect your choices. For a Brush Tip cursor, choose a size and whether to include a cross hair in the cursor.
   

• Normal Brush Tip restricts the cursor size to areas of the brush stroke that have 50% or more opacity. 
  
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• Full Size Brush Tip sizes the cursor to the entire area affected by the brush stroke. For soft brushes, this produces a larger cursor size than the Normal setting, to include the areas of the brush stroke with lighter opacity.
  

1. Click OK. 
   

• For the Pen and Brush tools, the Caps Lock key acts like a toggle for changing between the standard cursor and the cross hair.