Working with Art Media tools
You can use the Art Media tools when working on Art Media layers. The Art Media tools let you simulate the rich, expressive results you get when working on physical pigment media such as paint, chalk, pastel, and pencil.
Important! Although the Art Media tools support Presets, they do not support custom brush tips like the Paint Brush tool and other raster painting tools.
The wet pigment media tools
The Oil Brush, Watercolor Brush, and Marker tools simulate the effect of painting with real wet pigment and tools. The Oil Brush even creates the effect of running out of paint at the end of a stroke. To get more paint, simply release the mouse button, and then drag more paint strokes.
The Oil Brush tool and the Palette Knife tool let you produce strokes with multiple colors on the brush head. This simulates the effect you can achieve by using a real painting palette and multiple wet pigments. Additionally, you can dry the wet strokes you have applied. For more information, see
To dry or wet an Art Media layer.
The dry pigment media tools
The Chalk, Pastel, Crayon, and Colored Pencil tools let you create effects that simulate artwork that you create with dry pigment media. Unlike the Oil Brush tool, the dry tools don’t run out of pigment media. Furthermore, the pigment applied with these tools has less volume than that which is applied by using the Oil Brush tool.
The Palette Knife, Smear, and Art Eraser tools
You can use the Palette Knife to apply and smear art media pigments. You can also use the Smear tool blend pigments as though you are using a finger or a cloth.
You can use the Art Eraser tool to erase pigment. However, if you are using the Art Eraser tool to erase pigment created with multiple paint strokes (such as those applied by the Oil Brush tool), it may take multiple strokes to clean the area. If you are using the tool to erase pigment created with the Chalk tool or the Colored Pencil tool, you’ll achieve results with fewer strokes.
Creating artistic rendering of photos
You can give a photograph image the look of a painting or drawing. By dragging the Artistic Media tool over a color, you select the pigment or paint color by sampling the data below the center of the brush regardless of the layer type. When you hold down the mouse button to begin the stroke, note that a single sample is performed, and the resulting color is used for the duration of the stroke.
To use an Art Media tool
Edit workspace
1 On the Tools palette, choose one of the following tools:
• Oil Brush
• Chalk
• Pastel
• Crayon
• Colored Pencil
• Marker
• Watercolor Brush
• Palette Knife
• Smear
• Art Eraser
2 On the Tool Options palette, click the Presets button and choose a preset brush.
If you want to adjust the preset brush, change any of the settings on the Tool Options palette.
To adjust the brush size by using the keyboard
Edit workspace
To | Do the following |
Increase or decrease brush size interactively | Hold down Alt, and drag. |
Increase brush size by 1 pixel | Hold down Alt, and press C. |
Increase brush size by 20 pixels | Hold down Shift + Alt, and press C. |
Decrease brush size by 1 pixel | Hold down Alt, and press X. |
Decrease brush size by 20 pixels | Hold down Shift + Alt, and press X. |
To create an artistic rendering of a photo
Edit workspace
1 With the image open, choose an Art Media tool that applies paint or pigment.
2 Mark the Trace check box on the Tool Options palette.
3 Place the cursor over the image where you want to sample an underlying color and drag to apply a stroke using the sampled color.
The resulting color is used for the duration of the stroke.
You can experiment with your results by adjusting the brush size and zoom level.
You can achieve accurate results by creating a color-based selection by using the Magic Wand tool, and applying the pigment or paint to the color sampled area.