Drawing Tools

The drawing tools help you to transform your work from ordinary to extraordinary. Photoshop comes with various drawing tools, which are easy to use. Let us see how to use them.

Pencil tool

Draws with the current foreground color. To draw,

• Choose the pencil tool from the palette.
• Choose the foreground color.
• Choose the pencil tip thickness from the options bar.

 

• Click and hold the left mouse button.
• Drag the mouse with the button pressed.
• To draw a straight line click the mouse, hold down the SHIFT key. Click the mouse again in a different location. A straight line is drawn.

Brush Tool

These are the main drawing tools that can be used from touching up photos to creating your own works of art from scratch. A large number of options are offered when the brush tool is selected. There are five top level options.

• Brush
• Mode - To choose different blending modes.
• Opacity - Adjust the transparency of the brush.
• Flow - Controls how fast the paint flows from the brush.
• Airbrush - Paint will continue to flow as you hold down the mouse button.

 

 

To change the style or type of brush you want to use the following options exist.

• Brush Size (Master Diameter) - to increase/decrease the brush diameter.
• Hardness - Adjusts the hardness of the brush
• Brush Type - Choose from the list

 

To draw with a brush:

• Choose the brush tool from the tool palette.
• Select the brush type size and the hardness.
• Select the foreground color opacity and the blending mode.
• Choose the airbrush option if desired.
• Draw with the mouse as you did with a pencil.

Modify the brush

You can modify the brush attributes extensively by opening the brush palette in terms of brush size and type, the texture and color dynamics and many more.

 

To create a dotted Line

• Choose a brush and select a Brush tip.
• Change the spacing to any number greater than 100.
• Draw the brush and a dotted line will appear.

To create your own brush tip.

• Open an image.
• Using a marquee tool select a portion of the image as a brush tip.

 

 

• Choose Edit > Define Brush preset. The brush name dialog box will open.

 

• Type the name for the brush and the brush is ready to use.

 

• Open the image you want to work on or create a new image file.
• Select the brush tool. Scroll through the brushes in the options palette and select the brush you have just created.
• Choose the size, foreground colour and begin to draw.

 

Eraser Tool

Eraser Tool is used for erasing. It works in three different modes

• Brush mode - Currently selected brush as an eraser that takes on brush attributes.
• Pencil Mode -currently selected brush with 100 % hardness.
• Block Mode - Eraser is a 15 X 15 pixel square with hard edges.