How To Use Adobe Photoshop CS2

Part 7. Drawing and Painting with Color

Task

1 How to Paint an Image 148

2 How to Erase an Image 150

3 How to Erase a Background 152

4 How to Use the History Brush 156

5 How to Use the Clone Stamp 158

6 How to Draw Graphic Shapes 160

7 How to Build a Custom Brush 162

8 How to Use the Pattern Maker 166

9 How to Apply Gradients 168

10 How to Create Custom Gradients 170

Considering that Photoshop is often called a "paint" program, it's surprising how seldom the paint tools are used. Typical users resize images, color correct, or apply a filter, but few people focus on the drawing or painting functions of the program.

Handled properly, the drawing and painting tools can yield predictable and acceptable resultseven if your drawing skills are limited. Touching up images, spotting photographs, and erasing an area of a photo all involve the drawing and painting techniques described in the tasks in this part.

The underlying skill for almost all these tasks is the ability to effectively use a brush to apply the effects. When using a brush, the basic rule of thumb is to move from big and light strokes to small and heavy strokes. This means you should start with the largest possible feathered brush set and move toward the lightest possible setting. As you build up the effect, reduce the size of the brush to concentrate the results and slightly increase the pressure by increasing the Opacity slider. The one instance when this rule does not hold true is when you are doing line drawings and want to put down a clean brushstroke.

The tasks in this part also look at filling areas with color or gradients. Although filling is certainly not the same as brushing in an effect, it does create a graphic effect that many people associate with digital drawing. •