ICT Lecture on Chapter 2

Lecture # ___

Basic Editing Tools

Painting

In Photoshop, you have two choices for painting: the Paintbrush (Brush) tool or the Pencil tool. The only difference between the two is that the Paintbrush always delivers a soft-edged stroke—even a seemingly hard-edged brush will produce a slightly blended edge —whereas the Pencil tool produces a truly crisp edge.
All painting tools use the current foreground color when you're painting on the image, so before you begin painting, make sure the active foreground color is the one you want.

To quickly change the Opacity setting of a painting tool, use the number keys on your keyboard (1 = 10%, 3 = 30%, 65 = 65%, and so on).
You can change the softness of the Paintbrush tool by choosing different brushes from the Brushes palette. When the Pencil tool is active, all brushes will have a hard edge.

Opacity

If you lower the Opacity setting of the Paintbrush tool, you can paint across the image without worrying about overlapping your paint strokes. As long as you don't release the mouse button, the areas that you paint over multiple times won't get a second coat of paint.

Flow

The Flow setting determines how much of the opacity you've specified will show up on your first paint stroke. When the Flow setting is set to 20%, you'll get 20% of the opacity you've specified in the options bar each time you paint across an area. Each time you pass over the same area with that setting, you'll build up another coat of 20% of the opacity you've chosen. No matter how many times you paint across an area, you will not be able to achieve an opacity higher than what's specified in the options bar, unless you release the mouse button. If you set the Flow setting to 100%, then it will effectively turn off this feature, so that you'll get the full opacity that you've requested each time you paint. The Pencil tool doesn't use the Flow setting, and therefore will deliver the desired opacity setting in a single pass.

Blending Mode

The Mode pop-up menu in the options bar is known as the Blending Mode menu. If you would like to change the basic color of an object, you can set the blending mode to Hue. If you're using a soft-edged brush, you can set the blending mode to Dissolve to force the edges of your brush to dissolve out.
To draw straight lines, Shift-click in multiple areas of your image; Photoshop will connect the dots. You can also hold down the Shift key when painting to constrain the angle to a 45-degree increment.

Eraser Tool

If you use the Eraser tool while you're working on a background image , it acts like one of the normal painting tools—except that it paints with the background color instead of the foreground color. It even lets you choose which type of painting tool it should mimic by allowing you to select an option from the pop-up menu in the options bar

However, when you use the Eraser tool on a nonbackground layer, it really erases the area. If you lower the Opacity setting, it makes an area appear partially transparent. Bear in mind that the same does not apply to the background image. You cannot "erase" the background.

Brush Presets Palette

When a painting or retouching tool is active, you'll see the currently active brush shown in the options bar. If you click on that preview, the Brush Presets drop-down palette will appear. All of the painting and retouching tools available in the Tools palette use the Brush Presets palette to determine their brush size. Each individual tool remembers the last brush size you used with it, and will return to that same size the next time you select the tool. In other words, the brush size you choose doesn't stay consistent when you switch among the tools.

You can change the active brush by clicking once on any brush that's available in the Brush Presets palette. (Double-clicking will choose a brush and then hide the Brush Presets palette.) Each brush has a number below it, which indicates how many pixels wide the brush is.

Use the bracket keys ([ ]) to change the diameter of your brush, or hold Shift and use the brackets to change the hardness of your brush.
For even more fun, keep an eye on the brush in the options bar and then press the < or > key on your keyboard (without holding Shift). You can use these keys to cycle through all the brushes shown in the Brush Presets palette.

Brushes Palette

If you'd rather change the characteristics of a brush, then you'll need to abandon that palette and work with the full Brushes palette by choosing Window > Brushes. In this version of the palette, you can still access the Brush Presets by clicking on the words brush presets in the upper left of the palette.
There's one thing you'll need to think about before you start experimenting with all of Photoshop's brush settings. There are two types of brushes you can work with: round brushes and sampled brushes.

Brush Tip Shape

When you click on the Brush Tip Shape in the upper left of the palette, the central portion of the palette will update to show you the settings that determine the overall look of your brush. A paint stroke is made from multiple paint daubs; that is, Photoshop fills the shape of your brush with the current foreground color, moves over a distance, and then fills that shape again. The Brush Tip Shape settings determine what the paint daubs will look like and how much space there will be between them.
• Diameter: Determines the size of the brush. You can use a setting between 1 and 2,500 pixels. The Use Sample Size button will appear anytime you're using a sampled brush that has been made larger or smaller than its original size. When you click the Use Sample Size button, Photoshop will reset the Diameter setting to the original size of the sampled brush, thereby delivering the highest quality. When you reduce the size of a sampled brush, it won't degrade the quality of the image much at all. Increasing the size of a sampled brush will cause the brush shape to have a less crisp appearance.
•Hardness: Determines how quickly the edge fades out. Default brushes are either 100% hard or 0% hard. This option is only available with round brushes.
•Roundness: Compresses a brush in one dimension. When using round brushes, changes to the Roundness setting will result in an oval-shaped brush. When working with a sampled brush, this setting will compress the brush vertically.
•Angle: Rotates oval and sampled brushes, but has no effect on round ones.
•Spacing: Determines the distance between the paint daubs that make up a brush stroke. Turning Spacing off will cause Photoshop to adjust the Spacing setting based on how fast you move the mouse while painting.

Shape Dynamics

These settings will change the shape of the brush you have chosen. In essence, they allow you to vary the same settings that you specified in the Brush Tip Shape section of the Brushes palette.

Scattering

The Scatter setting will cause Photoshop to vary the position of the paint daubs that make up a stroke. The Count setting allows you to vary how many paint daubs are applied within the spacing interval that you specified in the Brush Tip Shape area of the Brushes palette.

Texture

The texture settings allow you to vary the opacity of your brush based on a texture that you specify. The Depth Jitter setting allows Photoshop to apply the texture in varying amounts. The Texture Each Tip setting must be turned on in order to use the Depth Jitter setting. If you find that the texture isn't changing the look of your brush, then experiment with the Mode pop-up menu until you get the result you are looking for.

Dual Brush

This option allows you to create a brush stroke that's made with two brushes at once. Paint will show up only where the two brush shapes would overlap each other. This is a nice way to create sponge effects. You simply choose a normal, round brush in the Brush Tip Shape area of the Brushes palette, and then choose a textured brush in the Dual Brush area. If you find that the brushes aren't combining the way you'd like them to, then experiment with the Mode pop-up menu and Spacing setting until you get the results you desire.

Lecture # ____

Color Dynamics

These settings allow you to vary the color of your brush across the brush stroke. The Foreground/Background setting allows Photoshop to vary the brush color between the two colors being used as foreground and background colors. The Hue setting allows Photoshop to change the basic color of the brush to random colors. The higher the setting, the more it will deviate from your foreground color. The Saturation setting varies the vividness of the color that you are painting with. The Brightness setting allows Photoshop to randomly darken the color you are painting with. The Purity setting lets you change the saturation of the color you are painting with. A setting of zero makes no change; negative settings lower the saturation and positive settings increase it.

Paint Bucket Tool

Use the Paint Bucket tool to fill areas with the foreground color. Each time you click on the image, Photoshop will fill areas that contain colors similar to the one you clicked. You can specify how sensitive the tool should be by changing its Tolerance setting. Higher Tolerance settings will fill a wider range of colors.

Shape Tools

The Shape tools are great for creating simple geometric shapes. These tools are much more powerful than what you'd expect at first glance.
Before you dive into the Shape tools, you need to think about what kind of result you want to achieve, because you have three ways of using these tools, each of which will lead you to a different outcome. You'll find the trio of choices in the far left of the options bar. The first (leftmost) choice will create a special layer. It's known as a Shape layer, and it has some very special qualities:
•It will have crisp edges when printed on a PostScript printer (even if the pixels that make up the image are large enough to cause the rest of the image to appear jagged).
•You can scale it (up or down) without degrading its quality. This makes it ideal for creating button bars on web sites where the client might decide to add more text to a button, which would require a larger button.
•You can add to or take away from it using the other Shape tools.
•It can be filled with a solid color, gradient, pattern, or adjustment.

Measure Tool

The Measure tool allows you to measure the distance between two points or the angle of any area of the image, which can be helpful when you want to rotate or resize objects precisely. As you drag with the Measure tool, the options bar at the top of your screen indicates the angle (A) and length (D, for Distance) of the line you're creating. The measurement system being used is the same as whatever your rulers are set to. After creating a line, you can click directly on the line and drag it to different positions. You can also click and drag one end of the line to change the angle or distance.

To rotate a layer to a specific angle, first use the Measure tool to specify the angle you'd like to use, and then choose Edit > Transform > Rotate. Photoshop enters the angle of the line you drew into the options bar and rotates the active layer that amount.

If you want to resize an image so that it fits perfectly between two objects, you can measure the distance between them with this tool and then choose Image > Image Size to scale the image to that exact width. Or, if you have a crooked image that you'd like to straighten, drag across an area that should be horizontal or vertical with the Measure tool and then choose Image > Rotate Canvas > Arbitrary and click OK. Photoshop will automatically enter the proper angle setting based on the measurement line that you drew.

You can also use the Measure tool to determine the angle between two straight lines. If you Alt-drag the end of the line, you can pull out a second line and move it to any angle you desire. Now the angle (A) number in both the Info palette and Options Bar displays the angle between those two lines.

Gradient Tool

To apply a gradient, simply click and drag across an image using the Gradient tool. You'll get different results depending on which type of gradient you've chosen in the options bar.

Here's an explanation of the gradient settings:
•Linear: Applies the gradient across the length of the line you make. If the line does not extend all the way across the image, Photoshop fills the rest of the image with solid colors (the colors you started and ended the gradient with).
•Radial: Creates a gradient that starts in the center of a circle and radiates to the outer edge. The point where you first click determines the center of the circle; where you let go of the mouse button determines the outer edge of the circle. All areas outside this circle will be filled with a solid color (the color that the gradient ends with).
•Angle: Sweeps around a circle like a radar screen. Your first click determines the center of the sweep, and then you drag to determine the starting angle.
•Reflected: Creates an effect similar to applying a linear gradient twice, back to back.
•Diamond: Similar to a radial gradient except that it radiates out from the center of a square.

Gradient Colors

You can choose from different preset color combinations by clicking on the small triangle that appears next to the gradient preview in the options bar. You can also reverse the direction of the gradient by turning on the Reverse check box in the options bar. Then, if you have a gradient that usually starts with blue and ends with red, it would instead start with red and end with blue. Some of the preset gradients will contain transparent areas. To disable transparency in a gradient, turn off the Transparency check box.

Dithered Gradients

When you print an image that contains a gradient, you'll sometimes notice banding across the gradient (also known as stair-stepping or posterization). To minimize this, be sure to turn on the Dither check box in the options bar. This will add noise to the gradient in an attempt to prevent banding. You won't be able to see the effect of the Dither check box on-screen; it just makes the gradient look better when it's printed. If you find that you still see banding when you print the gradient, you can add some additional noise by choosing Filter > Noise > Add Noise. (Use a setting of 3 or less for most images.)

Custom Gradients

The Gradient Preset drop-down menu might not always contain the exact type of gradient you need. When that's the case, click directly on the gradient preview in the options bar to create your own custom gradient. The Gradient Editor dialog box that appears has so many options that it can sometimes feel overwhelming, but if you take it one step at a time, you shouldn't run into any problems.