How to use Brushes

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Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 12:30 am

How to use Brushes

Postby Richard Briggs » Wed Feb 12, 2014 11:26 am

Since I've been using brushes for masking etc I've a question about usage....

1 - Is it better to click near the edge and hold the brush still then release. Then move on a little and click the next area and so on thus building up a complete mask edge?

2 - Or is it better to click and hold, then drag the brush around the edge only 'unclicking' when the edge has been completed?

The reason I ask is that in the first approach I think I've noticed that the more I click on the same spot the more solid and defined the masked edge becomes. Is this my imagination or is it how its meant to be? And if so, what is the rationale? And if so (again!) this would surely impact whether you use 1 or 2 discussed above.

Regards
Richard

Site Admin
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Re: How to use Brushes

Postby admin » Thu Feb 13, 2014 10:31 am

Hi Richard,

There are two factors here which are useful to know:

The brush is optimised for dragging round the edge. It detects your direction of movement and tries to find an edge that follows that direction. The brush is designed to work well with any use, but the more information you give it, the better chance it has. If you look very closely you'll see two very faint semi-circles showing where it might find an inside and an outside region.

Secondly because the Add brush will only ever add to the selection, going back over an edge will gradually add more to the selection, eating into soft areas more. Also because it has more information about the edge from the previous stroke, it can make a better guess and thus make it more accurate.

So in summary, click and drag round edges, but then go back over edges where you want the selection to be a bit better.

Also, you probably already know this, but holding down shift is a great way of getting into tight spaces.

Tony

Posts: 372
Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 12:30 am

Re: How to use Brushes

Postby Richard Briggs » Thu Feb 13, 2014 10:45 am

Thanks Tony, so looks like carry on as I've been doing (dragging etc). But I didn't know about the Shift Key. Thanks.

Regards
Richard

Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:27 pm
Location: Central Maryland

Re: How to use Brushes/seletion tool

Postby bebo1998 » Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:01 pm

I hope I am not the only one who can't find the selector tool (dot within the circle) because it is so faint. I am constantly trying to find it and end up starting at the edge of the photo and trying to follow it. Grrrrrrr it is very frustrating!

Thanks to anyone who can help. Admin?

Posts: 372
Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 12:30 am

Re: How to use Brushes

Postby Richard Briggs » Fri Jun 16, 2017 7:31 am

You mean the 'Detector' as in Detector Size at top left when you are masking etc?

Did you know you can enlarge the Detector Size? And if you don't want to do that then select a different view of the selection 'Display Selection As...'?

Richard

Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:27 pm
Location: Central Maryland

Re: How to use Brushes

Postby bebo1998 » Tue Jun 20, 2017 12:08 am

Richard Briggs: Is my face RED??????

For all the time using the brushes (countless hours) I have been using a small detector size - thinking that if I enlarged it, I wouldn't be able to maneuver into small areas. Thanks to such a simple response by you, I, like Eliza Doolittle "think I've got it". How did I not figure it out??? I have no idea!??

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