BRUSHES AND LAYERS We will learn how to use brushes and illustration tools to make a simple composition. Introduction to using layers.

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1 Brushes BRUSHES AND LAYERS We will learn how to use brushes and illustration tools to make a simple composition. Introduction to using layers. WHAT IS A BRUSH? A brush is a type of tool in Photoshop used to illustrate, but that doesn t mean that you need to be an artist to appreciate how they work. Many tools in photoshop besides the Brush Tool use the brush engine to work. If you are retouching a photograph, or making a composite with a layer mask, you are using brushes, so don t think that you can ignore brushes just because you don t like to draw. They are very versatile in how they can be applied. BRUSH TOOL The Brush Tool lives with the Pencil and Color Replacement Tools. Make sure you are on the right tool, they all behave differently. When you pick the Brush Tool, make sure your Caps Lock key is off, or else you won t be able to see the size of brush you are using. If you right-click your canvas with your mouse while on the Brush Tool, it will open the brushes contextual menu shown below. There are a limited amount of choices in this menu. To get to the brushes sub menu, click on the triangle icon in the upper right hand corner of this palette, or right mouse click on the canvas when you are on the brush tool. This secondary palette will allow you to reset the brushes to the default, and to load other brushes that came with Photoshop, that are not currently active. FOREGROUND/BACKGROUND COLORS AND SWATCHES To choose colors you want to draw with, the simple way to start is the foreground and background color picker. This is on your main tool bar. If you click on the icon for either foreground or background color, it will open the color picker. Color Picker will let you choose from an entire spectrum of colors, and input specific values of color formulas. TIP To switch rapidly between the foreground/background colors you choose, just tap X on your keyboard. To reset the foreground/background color to black and white tap D on your keyboard. A bit more sophisticated palette is Swatches. This has some default colors you can click and they become your new Foreground Color. If you want additional colors, you can choose the swatches sub menu in the upper right hand corner of the swatches palette, and load a color library, like Pantone. These color libraries will add a substantial amount of colors to the swatches palette to choose from.

2 Brushes OPTIONS BAR The Option Bar for the brush tool contains several important features for changing how the brush behaves, these include the Brush Tip, Blend Mode, Opacity, and Flow. Becoming familiar with how these options change how the brush behaves is important later when we are trying to get the brush to behave significantly different than the default settings. Also, the terminology applied here is later applicable to other tools using the brush engine. BRUSH CONTROL Changing the diameter and hardness of a brush are basics we should master. The graphic to the left shows a brush set at 0%, 50%, and 100% Hardness respectively. Notice how the edges are softer on the 0%, and 50%. The graphic to the right illustrates the same 0% brush, but using a different diameter to draw with. TIP To change the diameter of a brush use the bracket keys: [ smaller ] larger To change hardness of a brush use SHIFT bracket keys: SHIFT [ softer SHIFT ] harder BRUSH PALETTE The Brush Palette is a very large, and very powerful palette. It allows for the editing of brushes in a number of unique ways. You can modify an existing brushes behavior by changing the Brush Tip Shape settings, or by turning on Dynamics like Scattering, Shape Dynamics, and Color Dynamics. These settings make brushes behave very differently, and you need to pay attention to the brush preview in the bottom of the palette to see what the settings you choose will do if you draw with them. Below is an example of a Scattering Dynamic. DEFINING A BRUSH You can make your own brushes in Photoshop by defining a brush preset. Make a design that you think would make an interesting brush, and make a selection around it. After it is selected, go to the EDIT Pull down menu, and choose Define Brush Preset. Name the brush a description of what it is, and then choose it from your brush choices in any of the brush palettes. Modify it using the Brushes palette and any dynamics that seem interesting. t

3 Brushes DRAWING If you are not very skilled at drawing lines and shapes, don t be discouraged. Use photoshop s tools to your advantage. To draw straight, use the click/shift click technique. Click with your brush in a location you want the line to start, then shift click the end point of the line, and it will draw a straight line between the 2 points. You may continue to shift click and it will follow you to the new end point, this way you can create 1 1. click drag 2. click shift/click 2 polygons without jagged edges. If you hold shift before you click, it will constrain lines to being horizontal or vertically straight. Drawn with brush tool Filled selection shapes SHAPES FROM SELECTIONS For shapes, use the rectangle/elliptical marquees, and the polygon lasso tool to force photoshop into drawing accurate selection shapes for you. Use OPTION and DELETE to fill them with your foreground color, or COMMAND and DELETE to fill with your background color. SHAPE TOOL The Shape Tools allow us to use pre-made shapes and designs. It is very important for this project that we use it with some specific settings. If we use it to create what Photoshop calls Shape Layers we won t be able to use brushes and draw on those shapes like we ve been showing. Instead it will give us a Shape Layer that behaves like a vector object, not a raster graphic. So make sure that the options for the Shape Tool is set to Fill Pixels as denoted below. Fill Pixels CUSTOM SHAPE EXAMPLES OTHER TOOLS There are many other tools for illustration in photoshop. In addition to the ones shown in class, try using the following tools on your project: BLUR Useful for softening edges of shapes and lines. SMUDGE Blends colors together in a unique way, also try using the finger paint option. GRADIENT Create transitions between colors. Make sure to confine it to a selection or layer. EYE DROPPER Use to click on any color that you want to become your new foreground color.

4 Layer Basics LAYERS Layers are going to allow us to do many things that are not possible to do if you are just using the background layer. It will add a third dimension for us to work with, along with the ability to edit and adjust individual elements of our composition. This will be a very basic introduction to Layers and navigation tools. Later projects will require a more advanced understanding of layers and compositing. LAYERS PALETTE It s very important that when working with layers that we always have the layers palette open. Photoshop will start to be much pickier about what we are doing and where we re doing it, now that we are going to work with layers. Specific adjustments will be done to the current layer we re on. If you ve only been working with the background, that means that all of our elements are stuck together, and cannot be freely moved, or individually altered. We want each unique object to be on its own layer from now on. NEW LAYER MENU When you choose to make a new layer to illustrate on, make sure to give it a descriptive name, so that you can easily navigate your layers palette and find exactly what you re looking for. You won t remember what is on Layer 37 but you will remember if it is called Red Sphere. You can also rename any layer you make later. CHECKERBOARD You re going to start seeing this pattern a lot when you start using layers. The checkerboard pattern represents transparency, or no pixel color information. This is because photoshop treats white pixels as opaque, and it needs something to represent transparency. VISIBILITY Anytime you see the eye icon, it means that you can click toggle the visibility of that object on or off. Its very useful to hide layers at certain points, and bring them back later. MOVE TOOL The Move Tool is the easiest way of quickly moving layers around on your composition. To make this even easier, turn on the option for Auto Select Layer on the Move Tool Options bar. ERASER TOOL The eraser tool allows you to specifically erase/delete pixels from a layer. Be careful, once you delete these pixels, you can t easily get them back later. It is a fairly permanent way to get rid of detail. LAYER STACK Here we see an example of an illustration using layers. Each object is on its own named layer, and has a different layer height. Layers at the top of the layer stack appear on top and overlap lower layers. Imagine it like a deck of cards stacked up, the top card covers all the cards underneath it. We can move layers in the stack around by click dragging them higher and lower in the list If you draw on the Background layer, you will be able to adjust it separately, but it can t move freely, so I suggest not drawing anything there. You can add and delete layers at the bottom of the palette. NO JPEGS The JPEG file format DOES NOT SUPPORT LAYERS. If you save a layered file as a JPEG, you will lose all of your layers, and will be unable to pull them apart, it won t work. Save layered files as TIFF or PSD formats and your layers will be preserved. This is not a mistake you want to make.

5 Project 3 PROJECT 3: BRUSH ILLUSTRATION POINTS POSSIBLE: 10 WHAT YOU SHOULD LEARN The brush tools default settings can be heavily adjusted and modified to make the tool behave very differently than when we first use it. There are a variety of tools that all use the Brush Engine, not just the Brush Tool itself, so it is very important to be familiar with brushes and know how to edit with them. The tools and techniques we learned are directly applicable to editing photos. Drawing everything on the background makes it impossible to move and edit individual elements, we must put each object on a layer in order to be able to move or modify them. We can use Photoshop to draw shapes for us that would prove difficult to draw with the mouse. If we don t pay attention and manage our layers, we ll have a hard time grabbing or making sense of our elements. Name your layers as you go, and get rid of elements you don t want anymore. TECH SPECS Canvas Size: 3 x 3 300PPI RGB Color Mode (can be a black and white illustration if you choose) At least 2 layers in addition to Background. Save As.psd (Photoshop Document Format) NOT JPEG DO NOT USE: Photographs, Type Layers, Layer Styles (such as drop shadow or bevel and emboss), Filters, Shape Layers, Adjustment Layers STEP 1 Download the project_3_files folder from the class website. Open the file illustration_blank.psd. We are going to create a simple illustration using a variety of illustration tools and layers. The Illustration needs to be simple, but not simplistic. This isn t MS Paint, so don t make it look like it is. Explore different types of shapes, color, compositions, layers, and brush dynamics. Don t limit yourself to just one tool. STEP 2 If you find the blank canvas intimidating, don t be discouraged. We re not trying to create a Van Gogh. Pick a simple subject or scene and begin to work with the tools and layers. The shape tool can be a helpful place to start. The end result needs to look refined; not rushed, not experimental, and not too abstract. Here are a variety of past examples that were both successful, and unsuccessful in meeting the assignment criteria. SUCCESSFUL These are successful images for this project and its objectives because: They have a refined, simple but creative subject, that are easily recognizable Proper tech specs: resolution, layers, size, color mode Not abstract or simplistic subject, doesn t look like MS Paint Experimented with different shapes and dynamics, got beyond the defaults

6 Project 3 UNSUCCESSFUL These are unsuccessful images for this project and its objectives because: Subject is unrefined, too simplistic, not easily recognizable, or too abstract Looks like MS Paint Improper tech specs: low resolution, no layers, wrong size Used: filters, photos, type layers, adjustment layers Didn t try to experiment with any tool settings, used default brushes and gradients STEP 3 WARNING: IF YOU SAVE THIS PROJECT AS A JPEG YOU WILL LOSE ALL OF YOUR LAYERS. Go to the File/Save As drop down menu. Change the name to lastname_project3_illustration.psd Leave the format as Photoshop, and choose a place on your hard drive where you are going to save files to that you will upload via ftp to the class website. Click Save, and agree to any file format options such as Maximize Compatibility. Upload to the FTP site. FOR FULL POINTS MAKE SURE TO Experiment with different tools, settings and dynamics Use layers so that you can edit and refine individual elements Meet all the tech specs, and avoid using the disallowed elements noted there, ie; photography Save as a.psd format to retain your layers when you reopen it Upload lastname_project3_illustration.psd to your folder through the FTP client