Brushes...? A PS noob wonders

[pogy366]

... i've been tinkering with PS for about a year now, which pretty much amounts to me being familiar with the program and allowing me to do basic stuff, i have yet to really use the brush (let alone the pen).

i recently scored a non-wacom tablet :$ and i've begun tinkering with it and making some seriously jacked-up sketches to learn (hopefully) on how to use it. And while i was tinkering, it really dawned on me that i don't know jack $&%@ about brushes. :dad:

i'm a pencil/ink/charcoal on paper kind of guy and while i've tried my hand at painting, my experiance is by no means solid enough to draw on when it's time to figure out the settings on the brush feature and how it applies to what i'm looking for.

Is there an online source that i can turn to that explains the very basics of brushes and what settings create the various results/techniques? Maybe some tutorials?

i would really appreciate any and all advice.

[thistly]

Does your tablet have pressure sensitivity?
This is important. If it doesn't, ignore the following:

The most basic adjustment is to go to the brushes tab up the top-right and check a few boxes under 'shape dynamics' and 'other dynamics', and move a few sliders around. Playing around with these and seeing what the effects are has to be the best way to learn. :)

[pogy366]

thistly - yeah, it has 1024 pressure levels... thanks for the tip

[Vin]

The wack thing is that PS brushes don't really let you draw like your used to when drawing with traditional materials. Create a new layer whenever your iffy about the next big decision your going to make in your piece, and use your eraser like its another brush.
That is if your drawing directly in PS, if you scan your just coloring....

[Datameister]

"PS brushes don't really let you draw like you're used to when drawing with traditional materials"? I don't think I agree with that statement. The results are somewhat different, but if you want, you can adopt a workflow very similar to working with pencil or pen. However, there are a lot of other sorts of workflows that are perhaps more effective in Photoshop.

If you want to draw in Photoshop like you would on paper, you should obviously use a small brush. Less obvious are the other settings. Pick a hard round tip. You'll want to set pressure sensitivity to brush size, flow, and opacity. Set a medium-large "minimum brush size" so your lines won't vanish. Also, I'd recommend using either Dual Brush or Texture settings; you can experiment with both to see what gives you the best feel of the paper. When you draw, pick a very dark gray, but don't go with pure black.

If you want to take advantage of Photoshop's painting abilities, I recommend using larger hard-edged brushes with pressure sensitivity set to flow and opacity.

[pogy366]

... thanks a lot for the info, it's helps.

[Vin]

Everyones got thier own way Miester, either you agree or you don't. Just givin my two cents, drawing in Photoshop is nothing like drawing with a pencil for me even with a Cintiq!
I started out using the Airbrush hard round verying the opacity, always using black [for simple black and wight drawings] but I now use just a regular Airbrush Soft round with an opacity between 40 and 80 %. Again for simple black and wight drawing.
Overtime everyone figures out thier own way. In time, when you upgrade [Poggy] you may not use either of these methods. Thats the beauty of Photoshop...:)