|
Brushes are the best digital scrapbooking tool
you can have.
Brushes are perfect for digital scrappers. Nothing else offers you as
much creative control, or can be used in as many different ways as brushes
can when digital scrapbooking. Brushes can be papers, mattes, frames,
embellishments, accents and even text. They are extremely versatile.
If you are new to digital scrapbooking and/or graphic work, the easiest
way to understand brushes is to think of them as a combination of rubber
stamps and punches.
When you use a rubber stamp, you pick a stamp design, you decide what
color ink to use on it and where to place it on the paper. You get these
same options with brushes... and more.
First off, lets discuss the terminology. When we say "brushes,"
what we really mean is "Custom Brush Shapes." But that's too
long to say, so everyone just says "brushes." But by saying
"brushes" rather than "custom brush shapes," it gives
the impression they can only be used by the Paint Brush Tool, and nothing
could be further from the truth. Custom Brush Shapes, or brushes, can
be used with many different tools in Paint Shop Pro. You use them with
the Paint Brush Tool, the Airbrush Tool, the Clone Tool, Lighten/Darken,
Dodge, Burn, Smudge, Push, Soften, Sharpen, Emboss, Saturation Up/Down,
Hue Up/Down, Change to Target, Color Replacer, Eraser and Background Eraser
Tools.
Installing, Locating and Enabling Brushes
There are exact directions for downloading, unzipping and installing
brushes included with each brush purchase, so I'm only going to briefly
go over it again here. When you get new brushes, place them in your My
PSP Files> Brushes folder. There are two files for each brush.
One of these files is the actual image while the other is the settings.
It is best to keep them together. If you are missing the image file, your
brush will not work and you'll get nothing but a big black circle.
If you want to organize your brushes, you can make sub-folders and organize
your brushes by folder. There is no limit to the amount of brushes or
sub-folders you can have. I have 53 at the moment.
Once you have your brushes in the brush folder, open PSP. Make sure
you have told PSP to look for brushes in that folder by going to File>
Preferences> File Locations.
In the File Location Window, select Brushes from the list on the left.
Make sure the path to the brush folder is listed on the right and that
it's Enabled. If you've made sub-folders, make sure the box telling PSP
to look at them is also checked. You do not need to list each sub-folder
separately, PSP will find them if you check that box.
Picking a Brush
Anytime you pick a tool that can use a custom brush shape, you will
see a small thumbnail box in your tool options window. Depending on which
tool you select to use, you will see other items and options there as
well. Click on the drop down arrow next to it and a larger window will
open that displays a thumbnail of all your brushes in all the folders
you have enabled.
You may look at thumbnails of all your brushes in alphabetical order
by selecting "All" in the category box. Or you may look at just
one folder by selecting the down arrow and picking a folder. You pick
a brush shape from the thumbnail window by double-clicking it.
Brush Options
Once you've selected what brush shape you want, you can then decide
its size, rotation and opacity by adjusting the settings on the Tool Options
Bar. You adjust the size, rotation, density and opacity with the sliders
in this box. When you place your cursor over your image, you will see
an outline of the brush you selected in the size and rotation that you
picked, so it's very easy to get the right size and angle.
(If you want to do four corners, these are the numbers you
need.)
The color of the brush is selected via the Materials Palette.
Any combination of colors, gradients, patterns, textures or fills you
can come up with in the Materials Palette, you can use with brushes.
Here's something that only PSPers can do... if you click
with your left mouse button, you can put the brush shape down in the foreground
color and if you use your right mouse button you can put it down in the
background color. Two colors without leaving your image!
You can even use other images... simply open them up, then
choose the pattern option and scroll up to the very top where you'll see
all your open images. Select one and your brush will use it just like
a color.
Brushes in Straight Lines/Step Option
Want a row of brushes perfectly straight as a border or
frame? Simply put down your first brush where you want it. Hold down the
Shift key and click where you want the last brush. Voila... a perfectly
straight line of brushes. Turn on PSP's grid (View> Grid)
to make sure your clicks are lined up straight.
If you want to change the spacing of the brush line, you
use the Step option on the Tool Option Bar. The Steps are the spacing
between the brushes.
Making Embellishments with Brushes
You can apply filters and effects to your brushes. This
first brush was put down with orange color. Then an Inner Bevel and Drop
Shadow were added. The second uses PSP's Effects> Texture>
Sculpture> Gold preset and a Drop Shadow. Think of all the
embellishments, in the right size and color for your layout, that you
can make with brushes!
Brushes as Punches
Now let me show you how to make digital "punches."
When you use a brush with the Eraser Tool, it "erases" from
your layer.
In this example, I flood filled a layer with a dark purple.
I made a second layer and flood filled it with a lighter shade. I selected
the Eraser Tool and picked this cat brush. With the top layer active,
I clicked. As you can see, it erased the top layer allowing the bottom
layer to show through. I then added a Drop Shadow to the top layer to
make it show better.
Brushes as Edges
Brushes can be used to edge anything: paper, photos, mattes, etc. And
the edges can be "put on" or "taken off."
Here are two examples. I "took off" the edge of the photo of
the cat by using a brush with the Eraser Tool. I "put on" the
edge of pink hearts by using a brush with the Paint Brush Tool.
Brushes as Frames
By using brushes in straight lines, you can frame anything... a photo,
a journaling box, your papers, etc. And remember, a single corner brush
can be rotated to make a frame. Remember, 0, 90, 180 and 270 are the four
corner rotation angles. This frame is made from one brush rotated in four
directions (0, 90, 180, 270).
Brush Variance Palette
Now let's get artistic! There's a palette called the Brush Variance Palette
that offers some incredible things for brush artists. If you don't see
this palette, hit the F11 key or go View> Palettes> Brush
Variance. It has some really fun stuff in here.
There are way too many options to go over here, so I'm just going to
give you the highlights and let you discover the full extent of this palette
on your own. If you want specifics, your PSP manual, the Help files and
online tutorials can give you more information on each option.
What these options do is vary the way your brushes are applied with each
click... automatically! They vary the color or the size or the rotation
or even how many brush images get applied with each click. It's amazing.
First you pick the Option of what you want to have PSP vary automatically,
then you pick how you want to vary the settings from the drop-down menu.
Then you pick how much variation you want with the Jitter %.
Here's an example... I flood filled a layer with brown. I had beige and
orange in my Materials Palette. With a leaf brush selected and beige as
my color, one click should have given me one beige leaf on this image.
But I used the Brush Variance Palette to tell PSP to vary the hue, the
size, and the rotation by 50%. And then I told it to put down 12 images
with each click and vary where they go by 464%. So when I clicked on the
image, PSP put down many images, in many colors and sizes and rotations.
By varying the settings and the percent jitter, you can make wonderful
papers with a single click. There are tons of options here, so play with
them all, you'll be amazed at what you get. If you want to reset all the
controls to 0, simply click on that black arrow in the bottom right corner.
I hope this helps get you started with Brushes. They truly do give you
unlimited artistic and design capabilities. Enjoy!
Tutorial written by Lori Cook
See all of her marvelous brushes in the Scrap
Girls Boutique.
|
