understanding photoshop brushes digital painting

I’m able to keep going and keep going and keep going until I get to 100 percent.įlow determines how quickly it gets to 100 percent, where as opacity sets a hard limit. But as I go back over, I’m not lifting my hand off at all. By the way, the shift key will enable us to do the same thing with the shortcuts, but for Flow. Now, if I take my hand off and paint, I can do another 50 percent and this enables me to build up the stroke over time. It’s not going to go more than 50 percent. So I can go over this area as much as I want. No matter how hard I press, I’m going to get 50 percent. Let’s start with 50% opacity to 50, keep the flow at 100 right now. If you want to do a number, just type quickly like 12. For example, the 3 key will change to 30% opacity, the 7 key to 70% etc. Tip: To change opacity, tap a number key, these will appy in 10’s. Some people use Opacity and some people use Flow. As I push harder, I’m going to get a darker stroke. When you paint, notice, a light touch will make a faint brushstroke. Turn on shape dynamics and make sure transfer is turned on. for this example, I’ll use a black, soft round brush. When you’re doing retouching, you don’t need it.Ĭhoose a brush. We will only want to use Smoothing if you are doing digital painting or sketching. Let me quickly address smoothing: Take the setting to zero and you’re going to get a much more responsive brush.

When you choose a brush (B) and look at the top option’s bar, there are three settings: Opacity, Flow and Smoothing.

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you the difference between flow and opacity in Photoshop brushes and when to use each. I’m using a Wacom Intuos Pro.

Understanding photoshop brushes digital painting