There are literally thousands upon thousands of brushes available on the web - some are free, others you will buy. Brushes also overcome the 'I can't draw as well as I'd like to' problem as they can contain drawn objects that do the drawing work for you. You can also create art using brushes and, if you have a good selection of brushes, you may not even want to use photos and you can still create some wonderful images using just the brushes, colours, blends and filters. One typical use for these brushes is to create patterns in your image, for example, they're a great tool for blending two images into each other as you might do if you are creating a collage. However there are many specialist brush shapes available that you can also use.

You will already have had experience with choosing different shape brushes - circles and ovals etc. They also determine the shape of the eraser when you erase around an image or through it. What is a brush?īrushes in Photoshop and other graphics programs are used to determine the shape of the line you paint with when you use the paint brush tool. You'll also see how to make your own custom brushes to use in any Photoshop image. Here I'll show you how to locate and install brushes into Photoshop and how to use them for a range of photo effects. In fact, complex collage style images can be created in minutes using a selection of brushes and layer blend modes. The digital artist and photographer can also make use of brushes for all sorts of effects.

There are literally hundreds of different types of paint brushes and that's without delving into texture tools like sponges and towels. When you're painting a picture, you pick a brush made from the right material and the appropriate size and shape for the task in hand. Helen Bradley Just as a painter will have a range of brushes for all sorts of needs, so too the digital painter needs a range of brushes.

Photoshop blending brush settings