Painting And Drawing; About Painting And Drawing; Using The Painting Tools - Adobe PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS Manual

Chapter 7: Painting and Drawing
here are several tools you can use to paint
T
and draw objects in Photoshop Elements.
You can create different effects with the
painting and drawing tools by customizing the
options for each tool. You can also create and
edit shapes using the shape tools. Other tools and
commands let you transform and retouch
an image.

About painting and drawing

When creating graphics on a computer, there is a
distinction between painting and drawing.
Painting involves changing the colors of pixels
using a painting tool. You can apply colors
gradually, with soft edges and transitions, and
manipulate individual pixels using powerful filter
effects. When you use a painting tool, the color is
applied to the currently selected layer.
Drawing involves creating shapes that are defined
as geometric objects. For example, if you draw a
circle using the ellipse tool, the circle is defined by
a specific radius, location, and color. You can
quickly select the entire circle and move it to a new
location. When you use a drawing tool, a new layer
is automatically created.

Using the painting tools

You can use the paintbrush, pencil, or airbrush to
paint color on an image. The three tools create
different effects:
• The paintbrush tool creates soft strokes of color.
The pencil tool creates hard-edged freehand
•
lines.
The airbrush tool applies gradual tones
•
(including sprays of color) to an image, simulating
traditional airbrush techniques. The edges of the
stroke are more diffused than those created with
the paintbrush tool. The pressure setting for the
airbrush tool controls how quickly the spray of
paint is applied. If you hold down the mouse
button without dragging, you can build up color.
To use a painting tool:
Specify a foreground color. (See "Choosing
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foreground and background colors" on page 74.)
2 Select the paintbrush tool ( ), pencil tool ( ),
or airbrush tool ( ).
3 Click the inverted arrow ( ) next to the brush
sample and choose a size for the brush from the
pop-up palette menu in the options bar. To learn
more about using pop-up palettes, see "Using
pop-up palettes" on page 35.
If a brush is too large to fit in the palette, it appears
as a smaller brush with a number indicating the
actual diameter in pixels.
Specify a blending mode to control how
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painting affects existing pixels in the image.
(See "Selecting a blending mode" on page 147.)
Specify opacity for the paintbrush or pencil
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tool, or pressure for the airbrush tool. (See "Speci-
fying opacity, pressure, or exposure" on page 149.)
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