Experimenting with different opacity and flow settings is one way another way is to apply each color to a separate layer and explore filters, blending modes, layer opacity settings and hue, saturation and value adjustments. This means that part of a brush’s effectiveness is discovering how to use it in order to get the effect you want. As 100% opacity and flow, the brushes don’t paint very effectively it’s when they are applied in layers at lower opacities that the magic begins to happen: On the right are sample brush strokes all are at 100% opacity and 100% flow.

On the left are the footprints of what the basic shape of the brush looks like. Then make a few strokes and observe how the brush works on a blank canvas. Choose any brush preset, set the options to 100% opacity and 100% flow, tap it on a layer so you can analyze the footprint and look at its settings in the Brush Presets Window. Photoshop gives you great clues on how to do this. More from our Popular Tools in Photoshop series:ĭon’t miss the rest of this series, subscribe to our awesome mailing list.

Create brush photoshop