How To Use Blending Brush In Photoshop

New to this serial? Start at the get-go with Digital Painting 101: Get to Know the Brush Panel.

Blending, past far, is the about important affair you need to know in order to pigment in Adobe Photoshop.

Today we're going to interruption down blending with the Brush Tool step by pace. Effort to go as comfy with this process as possible, because it will be the backbone of all your digital paintings.

Offset, let's go over some quick Do's and Don'ts beginners should keep in listen while using the Brush Tool.

The Do's

• Practise: Go on colour swatches for your overall colour scheme.
• Do: Vary the settings for Hardness/Opacity based on what the painting needs.
• Do: Study the difference between painting with a "hard" or "soft" edged brush.
• Exercise: Use "heavier" brushes (50–100% Opacity) for blocking in colors, the main painting, and finishing details.
• Do: Use "lighter" brushes (0–50% Opacity) for smoothing out details, adding atmosphere (similar fume/fog), and softening textures.
  

The Don'ts

• Don't: Color pick from a reference photograph.
  
• Don't: Get stuck making an unabridged painting on one setting (for Hardness/Opacity).
• Don't : Use Soft Brushes for details that need clean edges.
  
• Don't: Forget to continue blending!
  
• And Don't: Surrender!
  

The number one problem beginners take is choosing the right Opacity and Hardness for the different stages of their painting. Naturally, they either start with a brush that's also hard with a really high opacity, or a castor that'southward likewise soft with a depression opacity.

You come across, Hard, High Opacity Brushes are much harder to blend, while Soft, Low Opacity Brushes tend to dingy upward a painting actually quickly. And if you're non conscientious, they can as well give off that super "airbrushed" await that doesn't always work well. And then but put, the all-time advice I tin can mayhap give is to get used to changing the Hardness and Opacity constantly. Like-every-couple-of-minutes-kind-of-constantly. There really is no perfect setting.

Castor Settings

To evidence you this technique, let'southward continue the castor settings super simple:

Hardness set to 50%.
Opacity set up to 50%.

The Ii Keyboard Shortcuts You Have to Know

• The Brush Tool (B) ...Plain.
  
• The E yedropper Tool (Hold Alt while the Castor Tool is already selected).
  

Speed painting videos are bully to learn from, but unfortunately they're sped up and then much that viewers don't see the little Eyedropper Tool that pops up while blending. It happens that speedily! In the next few steps I'll show yous how to interchange these tools for a perfect blending event.

And for now, don't touch any other options! Experimenting with every imaginable setting in the Brush console is very tempting just I don't want yous to run into whatever confusion. I would detest for you to terminate your learning feel early merely because yous didn't understand a more avant-garde setting. As a general rule, dive right into the basics, try out these adjacent examples a couple dozen times, and and so see what the other settings can do for yous.

How to Blend: The Basics

Step 1

First, pick one colour from the Swatches console, and institute it on the canvas using the Brush Tool (B) at 100%Opacity and 100% Hardness. Once it'due south on the canvas, drop the Hardness and Opacity each to 50%.

Step 2

With the original color withal selected as a Foreground Color, paint a small swatch next to information technology. This swatch should announced more than opaque with softer edges because of changing the brush settings.

Step 3

Use the Eyedropper Tool now to color option the opaque stroke yous made. Swatch a new stroke side by side to information technology. Repeat this procedure, making certain to slightly overlap the strokes as you go.

Eventually, the color will start to fade and show signs of blending together. Effort to think of it as the beginning stages of a gradient effect.

Stride 4

How y'all "blend" is to color option ii colors next to each other and overlap them with more and more opaque layers. Essentially, the Eyedropper Tool becomes the correct mitt man to the Brush Tool during this procedure. Continue these steps until your colors are all blended together.

Let's Come across This Technique in Grayscale

Painting in grayscale is a technique yous'll eventually go to know in digital painting. Many people, myself included, like to utilize information technology as a style to gear up up a lighting scenario before adding color. Endeavour a couple of gray swatches to see how well y'all blend the tones together.

Let's See It Once more With Other Colors

Here are some variations of color combinations with this technique. Experiment with more to get a improve grasp of what to look.

Now Information technology's Your Turn: Blending Exercise!

I have included a couple of color swatches for yous to try out below. Copy and Paste this image into Photoshop and accept a go at blending with the Brush Tool. Add more colors to the canvas if yous'd like, and feel complimentary to upload your blending skills to the comments section.

Decision

I really hope yous've enjoyed today'south quick tip lesson for digital painting. If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to enquire them in the comments below. Keep upwards with our Digital Painting 101 serial as we'll go along to provide more tips and resources on a topic I absolutely adore. Remember to continue at it, stay confident, and never give upwardly. Good luck!

Source: https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/quick-tip-how-to-blend-with-the-brush-tool-for-digital-paintings--cms-23052

Posted by: reesetraturness.blogspot.com

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