Now we press 〖B〗 to select the brush tool from the toolbar. If the pencil is selected, 〖SHIFT B〗 switches to the brush. Then press 〖D〗 , its function is to set the color to the default foreground black and background white. You can also click the default button in the toolbar color area (red arrow in the left picture below). Clicking on the blue arrow will swap the foreground and background colors. If you press now, the foreground color will become white and the background color will become black. Its shortcut key is 〖X〗 .
Then click on the red arrow in the middle picture below in the public bar to open the brush preset, and select the item at the blue arrow. This selects a brush size of 9 pixels, the mode is selected as normal, and the opacity and flow are both 100%.
You can also directly set the main diameter of the brush to 9 pixels without using a preset. Refer to the picture below. What is the main diameter? Because the brush is a circle, the diameter of the circle is used to represent the thickness of the brush. The meaning of hardness will be introduced later. For now, set the hardness to 100%.
If the 9-pixel brush option at the blue arrow does not appear after clicking the green circle in the middle picture below, it may be that you have changed the brush preset before. At this time, click the round triangle button at the green arrow, select "Reset Brush" in the pop-up menu, and the inquiry box as shown on the right will appear. Click "OK". If the brush preset is changed in the future, you can use this method to restore it. The reset operation of other palettes such as styles and color palettes is also the same as this.
At this time, the mouse will change into a brush-sized circle in the image. If not, first make sure that the CapsLock key on the keyboard is turned off, and then select "Painting" from the "Display and Cursor" item in Photoshop preferences. Cursor" is designated as "Normal Brush Tip". As shown below.
Now we will use this brush to draw our first stroke in Photoshop. Press the left mouse button and drag to draw the image. Release the left button to end the drawing. It's as significant as man's first footprints on the moon, so draw it nicely. As shown below.
Let's look at some options for brushes. The brush options are concentrated in the common column. Now lower the "Opacity" to 15%. There are 5 ways to change the opacity of a brush. These 5 methods are basically applicable to all places where there are similar numerical adjustments in Photoshop.
1: Move the mouse over the opacity value, click and enter the number. You can also scroll the mouse wheel up and down (using the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard has the same effect as the wheel, press the SHIFT key to speed up, and hold down ALT to slow down).
2: Press the Enter key directly. At this time, the opacity value will be automatically selected, and then enter the number. Note that this method does not work everywhere.
3: Click the triangular arrow to the right of the number and drag on the pop-up slider.
4: Move the mouse to the "Opacity" text in the public column. At this time, press the mouse cursor and it will turn into a two-way arrow. Drag left and right to change the value. The effect is similar to 3. Hold down the SHIFT key to speed up, hold down ALT to slow down.
5: Press the number keys on the keyboard directly. If it is changed to 80%, press 8, 40% press 4, 100% press 0, 15% press 1 and 5 continuously. 1% press 0 and 1 continuously. This method is the fastest and most practical. But it doesn't apply everywhere.
Lowering the brush's opacity will lighten the color and create a deepening effect where the strokes overlap. Note that overlapping brushes must be drawn in stages to have a deepening effect. Even if the strokes drawn at one time overlap, there will be no deepening effect. One time here refers to the time from pressing the left mouse button to releasing it, which counts as one drawing. The picture on the left below shows the effect of one-time drawing and divided drawing. The upper one is drawn in one time. You can also experiment with different opacity and foreground colors.
Now we bring up the history palette, menu [Window History] , and you will see that the palette records all the operations performed since the image was created. The order from top to bottom represents the operation steps from first to present. As shown below on the right. Click the corresponding step to return to the state of the image after that operation. It's like stepping back in time. This history record is mainly used to undo operations. If you are not satisfied with the modifications to the image, you can undo them through this palette.
The number of steps that can be undone is 20 by default. If more than 20 steps are recorded, the latest step will replace the oldest step. Assuming that 21 steps are performed, the "New" step at the top of the first step in the right picture below will disappear. Lost historical records cannot be retrieved. The number of steps in the history record can be modified from the "History Record Status" in "General" of Photoshop Preferences [CTRL K] . The maximum is 1000. Be careful not to covet too much history, as that will cause the running speed to gradually slow down. In most cases 20 steps is enough.
Even without opening the history palette, you can use the shortcut key "CTRL ALT Z" to undo step by step, and press once to step back. Like "step by step from the present to the past." You will see the steps move up in the history palette. After "going back to the past", you can redo it step by step through the shortcut key 〖CTRL SHIFT Z〗 without performing the operation, just like "step by step from the past to the present".
If other operations are performed in the earlier steps, all the historical records that followed will be cleared and the recording will be restarted. In other words, there is "no coming back". Suppose you draw a circle and move it several times, and then you delete the circle before going back to move it. Where do the subsequent moves come from? Therefore, just as there would be no children without a mother, there is a linear cause-and-effect relationship in the historical record.
Now we undo the blank space we created (or create another new one). Change the opacity of the brush to 100%. What is the fastest way to change it? Don’t forget the shortcut key mentioned earlier, which is to press the number 0 on the keyboard.
Now let's take a look at what the "flow" of the brush is used for. Bring up the color palette 〖F6〗 or select a more vivid color through the color picker, then change the flow to 1% and apply it on the image. At first, you will feel that reducing the flow has the same effect as reducing the opacity, but gradually you will feel the difference, that is, in one drawing, the overlapping areas will also have a deepening effect. The more times you overlap the color, the more saturated it will be. Just like when we draw with watercolor brushes on paper. As shown below on the left.
The shortcut key for changing the flow rate is similar to the shortcut key for changing the opacity. It also uses the numeric keys. The difference is that you must first hold down the SHIFT key and then press the corresponding numeric key. For example, 50% is 〖SHIFT 5〗 , 80% is 〖SHIFT 8〗 , 45% is 〖SHIFT 45〗 , and 1% is 〖SHIFT 01〗 . Note that the numeric keys here must be the numeric keys above the letter area of the keyboard. Using the numeric keypad is invalid.
Now we want to make the image completely blank, just like creating a new one. This time you don’t have to pass the historical record. Think about it, if you fill the entire image with white, wouldn't you achieve the same effect? The fill command is in the menu [Edit Fill] [SHIFT F5] . Use white in the content, normal mode, and opacity 100%. Once confirmed, the entire image will be filled. As shown below.
This filling method is more troublesome because you still have to operate in the settings box. There is a shortcut key that can be filled directly with the foreground color, which is 〖ALT DELETE〗 or 〖ALT BackSpace〗 . BackSpace is the backspace key located above the Enter key.
Then, combining the several shortcut keys learned earlier, the method of filling with white is: first press [D] to set the color to the default black at the front and white at the back, then press [X] to change the foreground color to white, and finally press Click [ALT DELETE] to complete the foreground color filling. In fact, you can also fill it with the background color directly through the shortcut key, which is 〖CTRL DELETE〗 or 〖CTRL BackSpace〗 , so the above operation can actually be simplified into 〖D〗 and 〖CTRL DELETE〗 .
0318Now let’s take a look at what is the hardness of the brush. First we make the brush diameter larger. The method of enlargement can be changed by pulling the slider in the brush preset as before. You can also use the shortcut key 〖]〗 , which is the right square bracket. The shortcut key to reduce the brush diameter is the left square bracket 〖[〗 . The brush diameter value increased or decreased using shortcut keys is not always 1. Within 10 pixels is 1, between 10 and 100 pixels is 10, between 100 and 200 is 25, between 200 and 300 is 50, and above 300 is 100. The maximum diameter is 2500 (future versions of Photoshop may break this limit). So if you want to use a diameter size like 12 pixels, you still need to pull the slider or enter a number. When using shortcut keys to expand or shrink the brush, if the mouse is in the image, the cursor will also expand or shrink at the same time.
Now set the brush diameter to 30 and the hardness to 100%. Click on the left part of the image with black so that a circle appears. Then set the brush hardness to 50% and click once on the right, then set it to 0% and click the third one. Three different circles will appear, as shown in the picture below.