How To Adjust Brush Size In Photoshop

Photoshop's Castor Tool Subconscious Tips and Tricks

Acquire secret, pro-level tips and tricks for working with Photoshop's brushes and the Castor Tool, including faster ways to modify your castor size, cull castor colors, switch between brush blend modes, and more than! For Photoshop CC and CS6.

In this tutorial, I share subconscious tips and tricks you can use with Photoshop's Brush Tool that make working with brushes faster and easier! I'grand using Photoshop CC merely these tips will also work with Photoshop CS6. Let's become started!

Tip #1: Select the Brush Tool from your keyboard

This first tip isn't much of a secret but it's still a practiced one to know. Rather than selecting the Castor Tool from the toolbar, a faster manner to select it is by pressing the letter of the alphabet B (for "Castor Tool") on your keyboard:

Printing "B" to speedily select the Brush Tool.

Tip #2: Show the crosshair in the brush cursor

When using the Castor Tool, it oft helps to know the exact center of your castor cursor then y'all can meet exactly where you're painting. You can bear witness a crosshair in the eye by enabling information technology in Photoshop'due south Preferences.

To open the Preferences on a Windows PC, go upward to the Edit carte du jour in the Menu Bar. On a Mac, go upwards to the Photoshop CC menu. From at that place, choose Preferences, and then Cursors:

Opening the Cursors Preferences.

Select the option that says "Evidence Crosshair in Brush Tip" then click OK to shut the dialog box:

Selecting "Prove Crosshair in Brush Tip"

The side by side time you paint with the Brush Tool, you'll meet a crosshair in the middle of the cursor:

The crosshair marks the eye of the brush cursor.

Related: Get over thou more brushes in Photoshop CC!

Tip #three: How to pigment with smoother brush strokes

Equally you paint with the Castor Tool, you may notice that the edges of your strokes look kind of "bumpy":

Photoshop'southward default brush strokes take bumpy edges.

The reason is that Photoshop does not pigment a continuous stroke. Instead, it paints by laying down a series of individual dots. And each one of those "bumps" in the stroke is a single dot. By default, Photoshop spaces the dots also far apart, making them too obvious. But we can shut up the spacing for smoother strokes, and we practise that in the Brush Settings console.

To open information technology, go up to the Window menu in the Carte du jour Bar and cull Castor Settings. If you lot're using Photoshop CS6, the Brush Settings panel is called the Brush panel:

Going to Window > Brush Settings.

The Spacing option

At the lesser of the console is the Spacing selection, along with a preview beneath it showing your brush stroke with your current settings. The default Spacing of 25% is too high. This value is a hold-over from years ago when computers were not as fast as they are today. Back then, smaller Spacing values would have slowed Photoshop downwards. But if you're using a newer calculator, there's no reason to keep this old setting:

The default Spacing value for the brush stroke.

If we increase the Spacing value, we see the individual dots that make up the stroke:

The dots go obvious at higher Spacing values.

Lowering the value back downward to 25% does help, just those bumps are still there. And so these days, the best Spacing value to apply is x%. This gives you a much smoother and cleaner brush stroke without sacrificing speed and operation:

Lowering the Spacing to 10%.

I'll paint another stroke, and this time with the Spacing lowered to 10%, the edges await much smoother:

The lower Spacing value smooths out the edges.

Tip #4: Faster means to change your brush size

Next, let's look at some faster ways to change the size of your brush.

The Brush Preset Picker

The most common way to alter your brush size is by right-clicking (Win) / Command-clicking (Mac) in the document to bring upward the Castor Preset Picker. From here, yous can drag the Size slider left or right to adapt the brush size equally needed:

Changing the brush size from the Brush Preset Picker.

The bracket keys

But a faster fashion to change your brush size is past using the left and correct bracket keys ( [ and ] ) on your keyboard. You'll find them next to the letter of the alphabet "P". Press the left subclass key ( [ ) repeatedly to make your castor smaller or the correct bracket key ( ] ) to get in larger.

As you press the keys, the size of your castor cursor changes. And in the Options Bar, y'all'll see the value for the electric current brush size updating:

The current castor size is shown in the Options Bar.

The HUD (Heads Up Display)

The merely trouble with the bracket keys is that they make your brush larger or smaller in incremental steps. But if you demand more command over your brush size, or if your keyboard does not include the bracket keys, you can change the brush size using the HUD, or Heads Up Brandish.

To access the HUD on a Windows PC, press and hold the Alt key on your keyboard and right-click in the document. On a Mac, printing and hold your Control and Option keys and left-click. Keep your mouse button held down and y'all'll see the HUD showing a preview of your brush cursor, along with its current size (Diameter), the Hardness of the brush, and the Opacity. Note that the red color you're seeing is not your brush colour. It's just the color of the castor preview, and I'll show you how to change it in a moment:

The HUD (Heads Up Display).

In one case your mouse push is down, you tin can release the Alt fundamental (Win) or the Control and Option keys (Mac). The HUD will stay open up for as long as your mouse push button is held downwardly. And then to adjust the brush size, drag left or right. Dragging to the right will make the brush larger, and dragging to the left volition get in smaller. Equally you drag, the size of the castor preview volition change and you lot'll see the Diameter value updating:

Elevate left or right with the HUD to change your brush size.

Tip #v: Changing the brush hardness with the HUD

Along with using the HUD to change your castor size, you lot tin also use it to suit the brush hardness. The electric current Hardness value is shown below the Diameter value. To subtract the hardness, go along your mouse button held downwardly and elevate upwardly. Lowering the hardness makes the brush edges softer, and the softer the edges, the more than feathering you'll meet around the preview's outline. Or drag down to brand the brush edges harder:

Drag up or down with the HUD to change the brush hardness.

How to change the HUD's brush preview colour

If yous don't like the red color of the brush preview, or information technology's difficult to see in front of your paradigm, you can change the color in Photoshop'due south Preferences. A quick way to open the Preferences is past pressing Ctrl+K (Win) / Command+Thousand (Mac) on your keyboard. So in the Preferences dialog box, select the Cursors category on the left:

Selecting the Cursors preferences.

To change the preview color, just click the Brush Preview color swatch and cull a new color from the Colour Picker. Then click OK to close the Preferences dialog box:

Click the Brush Preview color swatch to cull a new color.

Tip #6: Using the HUD Color Picker

We've seen that nosotros can change Photoshop's brush size and hardness using the HUD. Just we can also use the HUD to speedily choose our brush colour, and to choose new colors as nosotros pigment.

The current castor color is shown in the Foreground color swatch in the Options Bar. And the near common manner to change the brush color is to click on the swatch:

Clicking the Foreground colour swatch.

And then choose a new color from the Color Picker:

Choosing a new brush colour from the Color Picker.

The HUD Colour Picker

But the problem with choosing castor colors like this is that each time we demand a dissimilar color, nosotros have to take our optics off our work. A ameliorate and faster manner is to use the HUD Colour Picker.

To open the HUD Color Picker on a Windows PC, press and hold your Shift and Alt keys and right-click in the document. On a Mac, printing and hold the Command, Command and Option keys and left-click.

This opens the default HUD Color Picker, with a Hue strip along the right and what Adobe calls the Hue cube on the left. Once your mouse button is downwardly, you can release the Shift and Alt keys (Win) or the Command, Control and Choice keys (Mac). The HUD Color Picker volition stay open up for equally long as your mouse button stays downwardly:

The default HUD Colour Picker.

To choose a castor color, start elevate your mouse cursor into the Hue strip on the correct, and so elevate up or down inside the strip to select a hue, or the primary color:

Choosing a master castor color from the Hue strip.

And so drag your cursor into the Hue cube on the left. Drag up or downwardly inside the cube to set the brightness of the color, and drag left or right to set the saturation. Once you've chosen your color, release your mouse button to close the HUD:

Setting the brightness and saturation in the Hue cube.

How to choose a different HUD Color Picker

If you find that the HUD Colour Picker is likewise small, that'south because Photoshop chooses the smallest version by default. Only at that place are other sizes nosotros can utilise, and even a different blazon of Colour Picker.

Press Ctrl+K (Win) / Control+K (Mac) to open up Photoshop's Preferences. Then look for the HUD Color Picker selection at the top. By default, it'southward prepare to Hue Strip (Minor):

The HUD Color Picker option in Photoshop's Preferences.

Click on the option to select a different size (Medium or Big) for the Hue Strip. Or yous tin can switch to a Hue Wheel, with diverse sizes to cull from:

Setting the HUD Color Picker to "Hue Cycle".

The Hue Cycle works the same equally the Hue Strip. Outset by dragging your mouse cursor into the outer bike to choose the main color. So drag into the cube in the centre and elevate up or downwardly inside the cube to gear up the brightness, and left or right to set the saturation:

Choosing a color from the Hue Wheel.

Related: How to save custom brushes in Photoshop CC!

Tip #7: A faster way to choose brush blend modes

Finally, let'south await at a faster way to switch between Photoshop's castor blend modes. Along with layer blend modes, institute in the Layers panel, which command how a layer blends and interacts with the layers below information technology, Photoshop likewise includes brush blend modes. The castor alloy modes are found in the Options Bar whenever a brush tool is agile:

The brush blend modes in the Options Bar.

Brush blend modes control how the brush interacts with the layer, and how your brush stroke interacts with other castor strokes. Clicking the Blend Mode pick in the Options Bar opens the complete list of blend modes for the brush tool, and most of them are the same as what yous'd detect in the Layers panel:

Photoshop's brush blend modes.

Simply rather than choosing them from the Options Bar, a faster way to switch between brush alloy modes equally you're working is by property your Shift cardinal and correct-clicking in the document. Or on a Mac, hold your Shift and Control keys and left-click. And then choose the alloy mode you need from the list.

For example, I'll pigment an initial brush stroke using the default Normal alloy mode:

Painting a brush stroke with the blend way fix to Normal.

Then I'll leave the blend manner set up to Normal and I'll paint a 2d stroke that partially overlaps the first one. But discover that all I'm doing is roofing more area. The brush strokes are not interacting in whatever interesting style:

Painting a second stroke, also set to Normal.

I'll undo that last stroke by going upwards to the Edit menu and choosing Undo Castor Tool, or by pressing Ctrl+Z (Win) / Command+Z (Mac) on my keyboard:

Going to Edit > Undo Brush Tool.

Painting with brush blend modes

And then I'll bring upwardly the list of brush blend modes past holding Shift and right-clicking in the certificate. Or on a Mac, I would hold Shift+Command and left-click. Then from the menu, I'll choose the Multiply blend mode:

Selecting the Multiply brush blend mode.

The Multiply blend way works the same fashion with brushes equally it does with layers. It multiplies overlapping castor strokes together to create a darker issue.

I'll paint another castor that overlaps the offset one. And this time, with the blend mode ready to Multiply, the area that overlaps becomes darker:

Multiply darkens overlapping brush strokes.

And if I pigment a third stroke, the area that overlaps the kickoff ii strokes darkens even more:

The effect grows darker equally more castor strokes overlap.

Related: Photoshop Blend Modes Tips and Tricks

Resetting the brush alloy mode

When you're washed with the brush, retrieve to set the blend manner dorsum to Normal, otherwise y'all might get unexpected results the next time you use information technology:

Setting the brush blend way back to Normal.

And at that place we take it! That's some subconscious, time-saving tips and tricks yous can employ with the Brush Tool in Photoshop! Cheque out our Photoshop Nuts department for more than tutorials. And don't forget, all of our Photoshop tutorials are available to download equally PDFs!

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How To Adjust Brush Size In Photoshop,

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