Photoshop Tips: Using Brushes

[1gr8muggle]

Many of you new to digital scrapbooking may see brushes in the store or in a downloaded kit and wonder, “What are these things, and how do I use them?”

Don’t worry. We’ve all been there.

Here are the basics:

1. Launch Photoshop
2. Go to Edit>Preset Manager
3. Click the “Load” button
4. Locate the brush file from your kit (it has the extension .abr)

To use the brush:

1. Create a new layer
2. Select the brush tool (also works with many other tools like eraser, clone, healing, burn/dodge, etc.)
3. Choose the brush shape you wish to use.
4. Set your foreground color.
5. Position the cursor (now the shape of the brush) and click to “stamp” the shape or click+drag to make a stroke with the shape.

Tips:

• You can make your brush larger or smaller with the [ ] keys.
• You can make your brush softer or harder by using Shift+ [ or ] (if the brush has hardness control)
• Hold down the Alt/Option key to activate the eyedropper and select a color, while still using the brush tool.
• To paint in a straight line, click on your start point, hold the shift key, then click on your end point.
• Try adjusting the opacity or blending modes of your brush layer to create unique backgrounds or watermarks for your layout.

For information about creating and saving brushes from png files, here's a link to the DD Photoshop Brushes 101. You can also purchase a video tutorial in the store called Brush Tool Basics that covers brushes in more detailed.