Photoshop: Brush Dynamic

Shape dynamics

The Shape Dynamics include 3 sections: Size Jitter, Angle Jitter, and Roundness Jitter. These options allow you to vary the diameter, angle, and roundness of the brush.

Size Jitter:

This options controls the thickness of the brush-stroke or brush Diameter. Unless it’s use control option (Pen Pressure, Pen Tilt, and etc.) you set to vary the brush size depend on your pressure or tile when you’re drawing. More pressure or tilt equals bigger brush diameter.

Use following options to add Size dynamic to the brush:

• Size Jitter: Enter number in % or use slider to add a randomness to the thickness of a brushstroke. This option works equally well with mouse or stylus. Higher values produce a wider range of jitter. Keep an eye on the preview at the bottom of the palette to get a sense of what different settings will do.
• Control: Select method you want to control size of the brush. (See Brush Dynamic Control option above)
• Minimum Diameter: This option determines the thinnest a brush-stroke can become.
• Tilt Scale: This option only available when you set the Control option to Pen Tilt, it stretches the height of the brush to make it elliptical when you tilt the stylus.

27px brush with Size Jitter to 100% and Brush Spacing 150%

Angle Jitter

Use this dynamic to control Angle of your brush. Just like the diameter settings, you can link the angle of your brush to control option. More pressure or tilt equals more rotation of the brush. You can also link the angle to Fade, which rotates the brush over the course of a specific number of steps and then returns the brush to its normal angle. If the brush is complete round shape, you won’t see a difference.

Use following options to add Angle dynamic to the brush:

• Angle Jitter: Similar to Size Jitter unless this option random brush angle instead of brush size. Use slider or enter value to rotates the brush randomly as you paint
• Control: Select method you want to control angle of the brush. (See Brush Dynamic Control option above)

Angle Jitter have two additional options in Control pop-up menu.

• Direction: Rotates the brush according to the direction of your drag. A horizontal drag is considered the normal angle, when dragging vertically, the brush rotates 90 degrees.For maximum effect, after setting this option to Direction, go to the Brush Tip Shape panel and set the Angle value to 90� with an elliptical brush. Then raise the Spacing value to something higher than 100 percent.
• Initial Direction: This option rotates the brush according to the very start of your drag direction as normal angle (instead of horizontal angle for Direction option). The brush rotation will vary depend on direction you change from initial direction.

27px brush with Angle Jitter to 100%, Brush Spacing 300%, Brush Roundness 20%

Roundness Jitter

Use this option to control brush Roundness dynamic similar to another two jitter that describe above. Set this option to Fade to reduce the roundness to its minimum over the course of a specified number of steps. You can also associate the roundness with Pen Pressure, Pen Tilt, or Stylus Wheel. Anyway Pen Tilt might be the most suitable option because that’s what pen tilt does in real life.

Use following options to add Roundness dynamic to the brush:

• Roundness Jitter: Use this option to introduce random variations in roundness to your brush-stroke.
• Control: Select method you want to control roundness of the brush. (See Brush Dynamic Control option above)
• Minimum Roundness: This value determines the minimum roundness, or maximum flatness, of the brush available to the Control and Jitter settings. If the Control option is set to Off and the Roundness Jitter is 0 percent, then the Minimum Roundness slider is dimmed.
• Flip X and Flip Y Jitter: These two check boxes at the bottom of the Shape Dynamics panel give you the ability to flip the jitter on its x-axis, y-axis, or both at once, much like you can flip the brush tip shape. Flipping the jitter on its axis may be more control than most of us will ever need, but you can’t fault Photoshop for offering yet another means of controlling brush-strokes.

27px brush with Roundness Jitter 100% and Brush Spacing 150%

Scattering

Highlight the Scattering option to spread the position of the spots of color around the brush-stroke. When using a custom brush, the effect is like spraying a pattern of images. Scattering dynamic include 2 sections : Scatter and Count, that have it own Control option as you see below.

Use following options to adjust Scattering for the brush:

• Scatter: Raise the Scatter value to increase the spread.
• Both Axes: Select to scatter the brush spots along the stroke as well as perpendicularly to it.
• Count: This option define the population of brush spots. Increase this value will increase number of brush spots.
• Count Jitter: Use this option to random the count value
• Control: Select method you want to control scattering of the brush. You have this option for both scatter and count. (See Brush Dynamic Control option above)

27px brush with Scatter Jitter 100% and Brush Spacing 30%

Texture

Select this option to apply a texture to a brush-stroke, useful for conveying a surface such as paper or canvas. You can selecting a predefined texture. You can click New Button next to texture preview to create new preset from current pattern.

If you want to vary the degree of texture applied to brush throughout a stroke, turn on the Texture Each Tip check box. Then use the Control option to vary the depth according to, say, stylus pressure, or add some random Depth Jitter.

Use following options to adjust texture applied to brush:

• Invert: Check to invert texture color.
• Scale: Use this value determine size of texture to apply.
• Texture Each Tip: Check to enable Texture Dynamic option
• Depth: Use this value determine degree of texture applied.
• Mode: Use this option to define how brush and texture mix using several blending modes. (See Blending Mode for more detail).
• Depth Jitter: Set this option to random depth value.
• Control: Define Control option for Depth Jitter.

27px brush with Texture applied to brush shape (Using setting as shown in screen shot on the left).

Dual Brush:

The Dual Brush panel lets you mix two brushes together. Select the second brush from the list of thumbnails and use the Mode option to specify how the brushes intermix. You can mixing a standard round brush with one of Photoshop’s predefined Dry Brush options, so you can generate a complex brush that imparts its own texture. You can also set common brush option below brush thumbnail, Spacing, Scatter, and Count, for second brush.

• Mode: Use this option to define how the two brushes are mix using several blending modes. (See Blending Mode for more detail).
• Flip: Check to Flip second brush
• Diameter: Brush Size for second brush.
• Spacing: Brush Spacing for second brush.
• Both Axes: Check to spread second brush spots in a radial direction. When unchecked, the second brush spots are distributed along the stroke path.
• Scatter: Define how spread for second brush
• Count: Number of brush spots for second brush

27px brush mixed with 60px Dry media brush using option on the left

Color Dynamics:

Normally painting tool (such as Brush Tool) will use only Foreground color you assign to add color to image’ pixel while you are painting. You can use these options to vary the color of the stroke between the foreground and background colors depending on a fade or stylus pressure. You can also apply random changes to the hue, saturation, and brightness, or all three.

Note: Whether you select any color for foreground/background you will not see any change in Brush preview area (F). Color dynamic will not preview in brush preview area, that is show only back stroke on white background, you have to actually paint on image to see effects. In this case you may need to save current setting using New Button at bottom of brush palette to save your current setting while making test and fine tune your brush color dynamic effects. With saved brush in various versions you can go back to previous setting easier.

You can use following option to add random color to brush stroke.

• Foreground/Background Jitter: To random current Foreground and back ground color to the brush
• Control: Method to control the jitter.
• Hue Jitter: Random color Hue value. If you turn it to 100% to add all color to brush stroke and will have same effect for all foreground and background color if Foreground/Background Jitter is 0%.
• Saturation Jitter: Enter value to random color saturation.
• Brightness Jitter: Enter value to random color brightness.
• Purity: increases or decreases the saturation of colors throughout the brushstroke.

27px brush set Red as Foreground and Green as Background and Purity 100%. All setting that didn’t state are set to 0.

Other Dynamic :

This final dynamic is the one that I use with all of my brush when working with Wacom tablet. This brush dynamics option allow you to control over opacity, strength, flow, or exposure of the brush, depending on what tool you’re using. If you happen to own an airbrush pen, settings such as the Flow and Exposure are what the wheel was originally designed for.

Tip: You can change the opacity of brush-strokes or edits that you just applied by choosing Edit � Fade or pressing Ctrl + Shift + F (Command + Shift + F). Then reduce the Opacity amount in the Fade dialog box. While you’re in the dialog box, you can also apply one of Photoshop’s Blending modes to the stroke.

Note: The common option of most tool are Opacity and Flow. Strength option, which Opacity option is dimmed and replace Flow option, are available for Blur Tool , Sharpen Tool and Smudge Tool . Exposure are available for Dodge tool and Burn tool , like Strength option Opacity are not available and Flow is replace by Exposure for both tools.

Opacity:

The Opacity value determines the transparent of colors applied with the Brush or Pencil tool. At 100% in normal mode, the applied colors completely covering the image behind them. At lower settings the applied colors mix with the existing colors in the image.

Flow:

The Flow option appears when using the Brush tool, Sponge, History brush, both stamp tools, and the Eraser. Although The Airbrush option always accompanies the Flow option, you can use Flow and Airbrush independently. The Flow value controls the opacity of each spot of color a tool delivers. (See also Airbrush Option)

The difference between Opacity, which controls an entire brush-stroke, and Flow, which affects individual spots of paint. So Spacing have effect with Flow, tighter Spacing values also heighten the color . For example, at lower settings, let’s say at 20% when you draw a stroke, with Opacity alone you will never have more that 20% color along the stroke. But with the Flow you may got color with more than 20% transparent due to speed of drawing, overlap brush stroke or spot intensity.

When using the Brush, History, Stamp, and Eraser tools, you can combine Opacity and Flow values to achieve unique effects. You can also add in the Airbrush, which compounds Flow further by adding spots of color when you slow down a brush-stroke or hold the cursor still.

Strength:

When using the Blur Tool or Sharpen tool , the Opacity option changes to Strength. The value determines the degree to which the tool changes the focus of the image, 1 percent being the minimum and 100 percent being the maximum. Strength also appears when using the Smudge tool , in which case it governs the distance the tool drags colors in the image.

Note: The default Strength value when you begin using Photoshop is 50% instead of 100% as for Opacity default value.

Exposure:

Available when using the Dodge Tool or Burn tool , Exposure controls how much the tools lighten or darken the image, respectively. Like Flow, Exposure compounds when you corner or overlap a brushstroke, and includes an airbrush variation. A setting of 100 percent applies the maximum amount of lightening or darkening, which is still far short of either absolute white or black. As with Strength, the default is 50 percent.

Tip: You can quickly change the Opacity, Strength, or Exposure setting for the active tool by pressing number key. For Example, press 1 for 10%, 5 for 50%, 0 for 100% or 0 and 1 (01) for 1%.

To change Flow value for Brush tool and others that offer both Opacity and Flow , If Airbrush icon is turn off press Shift + Number will change Flow value. But if Airbrush icon is active pressing number will change Flow value and you can use Shift + Number to change Opacity value.