Techniques Used in Painting in Photoshop

[Heather Quick]

You can also create or change images in Photoshop with paint brushes
and colors. The brushes can also be used as a healing brush and to
erase things that you don't want or need.
Select Edit, Preferences, and Displays & Cursors in order to
adjust the display. This will allow you to see the various painting
tool sizes while you use them for your image. Choose the brush size
you need for your image.
Select an area that you wish to paint and mark it. You have to do this
because it prevents the part that is not selected from being painted.
However, if you decide to paint the whole thing, then nothing should
be selected.
Black is the default color for the foreground and white is the default
color for the background. When you use the paint brushes in Photoshop,
they will use the current foreground color. To change foreground and
background colors, you can type the letter X or select the double
sided arrow. If you want the black and white colors, type the letter
D. You can also choose a new color by selecting the foreground color
from the tool box.
Another way to choose colors is by using the swatches palette or the
color bar. You can also choose the Eyedropper tool. Any of these can
be use to change the colors to what you want for your image.
Painting Tools
? Paintbrush - Select the paintbrush picture from the toolbox. If you
need to, use the other options to change the size of the paintbrush.
Use the drag method for the image or part of the image that will be
painted. If you want to create straight lines, as you're dragging,
hold down the Shift key.
? Eraser - The eraser gets rid of the background color if the process
is done on the background layer. There are several types of erasers to
use from the Eraser tool. You can choose pencil, airbrush, paintbrush
or block. When you need to erase, use the dragging method on the
image. It's a good idea to have a copy of your work in the event you
accidentally erase something you shouldn't have.
? Paint Bucket - The Paint Bucket is used to fill in areas that are
close to where you have selected pixels. If you don't want to have
transparent spots filled, make sure that "Preserve Transparency" is
checked. Select the Paint Bucket tool and in the Options bar, choose a
tolerance value. Select the part of the image that will be filled with
the Paint Bucket.