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The heart of Photoshop 7's powerful new paint
engine is the Brushes palette. In this column, we'll take a look
at the Color Dynamics and Other Dynamics panes, as well as the
"pane-less" options at the bottom of the palette.
COLOR DYNAMICS
The Color Dynamics pane of Photoshop 7's Brushes palette gives
you the chance to blend the foreground and background colors for
the brush. Each instance of the brush (every time the brush tip
is applied) will use only one color, but the proportions of the
foreground and background colors can be varied with the sliders.
The Foreground/Background Jitter slider enables
you to vary the color of the brush instances between the
foreground and background colors, using various colors that are
combinations of the two. When Control is set to Fade, the number
specified is the number of different colored brush instances
that will occur before the color reverts to the foreground. If
you leave Control set to Fade and the Foreground/Background
Jitter slider at 0%, the color reverts to the background color
after the specified number of steps.
When the Hue Jitter slider is set to a low
percent, the hue of the stroke remains close to the foreground
color. As the percent grows, the background color is introduced.
By about 25%, some additional color can be detected. At 100%,
all the hues of the color wheel are used.
The Saturation Jitter slider affects only the
saturation of the stroke. When the slider is toward the left
(low percent), the saturation remains close to that of the
foreground color. Likewise, the Brightness Jitter slider varies
from that of the foreground color (left) to the full range of
brightness (right).
The Purity slider is not, you will note, a
"jitter" option. Rather, it works directly with the saturation
value of the stroke. Set to 0%, the slider has no effect.
Negative numbers reduce the saturation, with –100% creating a
completely desaturated (gray) stroke. At +100, the stroke is
completely saturated. Purity does not override the Saturation
Jitter slider, but rather restricts it.
OTHER DYNAMICS
The options found in the Other Dynamics pane can be considered
the paint dynamics or the tool option dynamics. The Opacity
Jitter and Flow Jitter sliders vary the appearance of the stroke
up to but not beyond the values specified in the Options Bar for
the Brush tool. Note that these options are not available for
other brush-using tools.
ADDITIONAL BRUSH PALETTE OPTIONS
The five options at the bottom of the left column in the Brushes
palette don't have separate panes. You activate them on an
on/off basis, and can click on either the box or the name.
(The Brushes palette is shown here with the
Texture pane visible – note the "Protect Texture" option.) The
options are:
• Noise – Noise is added to gray areas of the brush. Brushes
defined as solid black are not affected.
• Wet Edges – Simulating watercolors, the paint
collects along the edges of the brush stroke.
• Airbrush – The Airbrush option in the Brushes
palette activates and deactivates the Airbrush button on the
Options Bar for the Brush tool.
• Smoothing – Designed for use with drawing
tablets, this option reduces the sharpness of some curves. If
your stroke should have sharp angles, don't enable this option.
Also be aware that it can result it a reduction in system
responsiveness – your screen redraw may be slower.
• Protect Texture – Just as the Global Light
option in Layer Style ensures consistency in lighting effects,
so too does Protect Texture protect against anomalies in your
image. Check this box and all the brushes you use that can
employ textures will use the same texture.
Remember, if you've got an under-powered system
or your video card is strained by your monitor resolution and
color depth, make sure to disable Smoothing. The slower your
system, the greater the delay you will experience with this
option. |