Elements 2 Impressionist Brush
Used for stylized
painting with image data
Found at #6 in the Toolbar diagram at left
[Elements 1 users will find this tool at the #21 position in the
toolbar.]
In Elements 2, the Impressionist brush has been moved under the brush
tool (aka the paintbrush) in the toolbox. Click on the paintbrush and
hold to get pop-up to show the hidden tool. Or click on the Impressionist
button on the brush options bar.
Painting on an multi-colored image with this brush causes the colors and shapes to be distorted to simulate the Impressionist painting style. Results are highly unpredictable, so be prepared to experiment.
A shortcut for changing brush sizes while using this tool is to press the left bracket [ to decrease brush size, and the right bracket ] to choose a larger brush.
When editing an image with any tool that uses brushes, you can right-click on the image and the brushes pop-up palette will appear next to your cursor. Press Enter or click the blue title bar of your document to close the pop-up palette after choosing a brush.
The keyboard shortcut for this tool is the letter B. [In Elements 1, the shortcut was A.]
The illustration in the white section below, is the impressionist brush’s options bar. To choose a brush size and type, click on the brush thumbnail. A pop-up palette of available brushes will appear. For more information on brushes, please see the Brushes page.
Opacity can be set by typing a value into the text box, or by using a slider. Click on the arrow to the right of the percentage value box to access the slider. A high setting is more opaque, a low value is more transparent.
The box titled Mode, and showing Normal is a drop down menu of the blend modes you can choose from to affect how the colors applied by the brush mix with the colors already on the current layer.
If you click on the More Options button, you get a small dialog that
includes an Area setting. This determines how far from the brush
strokes is affected by the chosen style. It’s not the same as brush
size, but you’ll have to try both to see. I recommend using a very
small brush size and varying the Area setting. Tolerance determines
how similar the colors must be to the one you clicked on in order from
them to be affected by the brush.
The Style menu determines how the brush will work. All of the
brush styles are swirly but the ones with Tight in their name spin like
a wheel on an axis with what look like closed loops. The ones with Loose
in their name make wide swirls with open ‘arms’ like the blades of a fan
or pinwheel. Dab makes very tight little doughnut twirls.
If you have doodled with a tool’s options and want to get back to the default settings, click that tool’s icon at the far left end of its options bar. Choose either Reset Tool to reset only the current tool, or Reset All Tools to restore default settings to every tool.
Please note that all descriptions, and illustrations featured refer to files which are in Photoshop’s .psd format, and which are in RGB color mode. Other file formats, and color modes may generate different options. Some Photoshop features are not available for images not in .psd format, or RGB color mode. To find what color mode your image is in, choose Image > Mode.
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