I don't understand brushes!

[Gumavi]

I'm playing around in PSE3 and learning lots of stuff, which is great.

I'm intrigued by brushes, but just totally don't understand how they work or what you do with them. When I click on the brush selection tool, a drop down menu appears & when I click on a brush and try to do anything with it in the layout, I just see something that I guess are lines for a selection area? I looked at a tutorial here, but it referenced a bunch of controls that I don't see. I tried to click on "load brushes", but that didn't bring up any new menus.

Thanks for helping a newbie!

[kim]

Gumavi,

I have PSE2... :) Let's see what we can do :)

Make sure you are clicking on the Brush Tool (6th tool down on the left column of your tool bar or hit "B" on your keyboard). If you want to change the shape of your brush, you can click on the down arrow of brush listings at the top of the work area. You will then have a bunch of choices to choose from. :)

Let me know if that helps. :)

[Gumavi]

Hi Kim!

Thanks so much - that helped a lot! Turns out I was clicking on the wrong icon! :o

Now I can have fun playing around!

[kim]

Be careful...it is addicting!! :) YAY!! Can't wait to see what you come up with!:)

[Gumavi]

Oh, I can totally see how it would be addicting! When I made something I could actually recognize, I said to myself "Well, THIS is cool!" :D

[Marcee]

Bonified Brush addict here..There is so much you can do witht he brushes my favorite is making backgrounds..it is wayyyyyyyy cool :)

[Lauren]

Hi Im Lauren and Im a brush addict - join the club - there are lots of us here!!!!!

[kim]

LOL... Another who needs 12-step intervention! :)

[SuzanneCWalker]

ROTF! I'd be even more addicted if I were as good as you guy with brushes! Gumavi, I can't WAIT to see what you come up with! I cracked UP when you said that you were so excited when you actually made something you could recognize!!!

[Funtolearn]

I am trying to learn PS7. I don't understand brushes. When people say they can do back grounds I am totally lost and confused.

I got brushes in the December club and I have no idea what to do with them??

Also what is the history brush? My grand son and I were palying with it yesterday and it was strange. Also later on I was trying to do something and the history brush was still there and it was making the neatest white "things" We were trying to change color when we got there.
Thanks
Muriel

[scrapqltr]

Hi, I'm Jan, and I am becoming a brush addict since getting PSE! :D

[Gumavi]

Hey yall!

I'm so glad there are so many brush addicts out there to corrupt us wanna-be brush addicts! ;)

So, I just spent a little while playing around with the brushes, and I gotta say, it's harder than I thought it would be. Here's my attempt (which is neither very pretty or fancy, but ya gotta start somewhere, right?): http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=20831&password=&sort=2&cat=500&page=1

My primary problem seems to be that I feel like I don't have much control over placement. Like I would click the butterfly brush in the spot where I wanted it and all of a sudden, there was a butterfly in a totally different spot. Is this just because it's something that takes practice & getting used to, or is it an adjustment thing? (I tried playing around with spacing & jitter, but it seemed to do pretty much the same thing in terms of placement!)

Also (sorry this getting to be so long!), when I read the tutorial on beginner brushes, it talks about spacing jitter, background jitter, all sorts of controls I just don't see. The only jitter menu I see is for hue jitter. I'm sure I'm missing something obvious again! :o

[Funtolearn]

Are brushes like tubes in PSP?

[Kristen]

Are brushes like tubes in PSP?

With tubes, you get a full-color copy of the tube image.

With brushes, the color of the image depends on the foreground and background colors and the hue jitter setting. You can set the jitter to 0 and what you create with the brush will only be the foreground color. If you set it to 100, you'll get images in the full rainbow of colors. There are other settings to keep the colors to just between the foreground and background colors - which could be really subtle if you choose two shades of pink and really variegated if you choose opposites.

You can get interesting rubber-stamp-like images. Brushes are great for collage work. In one of Lauren's Creating Elements classes she had us making and using brushes for grunge-effects.

PSP has brushes as well - you get the best of both worlds!

[Funtolearn]

Thank you Kristen! for the explanation. Could you tell me what to do with the brushes I got with the December Club. Where to i put them.
Thanks Muriel

[Emma]

"...just see something that I guess are lines for a selection area?" This is the Selection Brush, it lets you use brushes to create a custom selection, pretty cool!

Fun2learn, just save the brushes anywhere. Open the Brushes menu, and click the little arrow in the circle on the top right of the brush menu and choose Load Brushes. Browse to the folder you saved them in, and they'll show up at the bottom of your brushes menu. Click on one to use it.

Now, brushes either look like texture, so painting long strokes with them creates neat patterns, or they're little pictures you use to stamp. They're not like PSP tubes because a tube is an entire image, a little element. A brush is just a ghosty-image where light spots are more transparent, and dark spots are more opaque.
To paint a background with brushes, think of making an abstract painting with real paint and brushes. Just paint and drag to create colors. You can change the settings on the brush to create a lot of cool effects. Go into the Brushes Palette in PS, the Brush Variance Palette in PSP, or the More Options in PSE and just slide the numbers around and see what they do. Have fun!

[Funtolearn]

Thanks so much Emma. I have been wondering what to do with them.
I have been working all day on a membership booklet. When I get that done I am going to tackle "Brushes"