Turn on the full power of Photoshop with a PEN TABLET

Using a mouse as an input device may work for placing insertion points in text or dragging a rectangular selection in Photoshop, but using a Brush tool or selecting specific areas with a mouse is similar to writing your name with a bar of soap — clunky and inaccurate. You can edit images with greater comfort and control using a pressure-sensitive tablet and pen, such as the Wacom Intuos or Cintiq. More than 20 Photoshop tools, such as the Brushes, the Eraser, the Quick Selection tool, the Clone Stamp, the Dodge and Burn tools, and other tools can be fully customized only when a tablet is connected to the computer. You can then change brush size, roundness, flow, or opacity by applying more or less pressure with the pen.

Instead of scooting the mouse around, you use the pen to place the cursor exactly where you want, and make precise selections or paint digitally as with a traditional paintbrush on paper. 

The key to using a tablet and pen and turning on the full power of Photoshop is to start by setting the Tablet Preferences located in the System Preferences or Control Panel.

 

 

1 With a Wacom tablet plugged into a USB port and the Wacom driver installed, open the Tablet Preferences from System Preferences (from Control Panel in Windows).

The Tablet Preferences open with the Pen tab selected.

2 Click and drag the Tilt Sensitivity slider to the right for greater tilt response.

3 Click and drag the Tip Feel slider for a softer or firmer touch.

The Select Application dialog box appears.

6 Click Adobe Photoshop CS6.

7 Click OK.

Note: If Photoshop is not running, click Browse and navigate to the Photoshop CS6 application. 

 

 

A Photoshop CS6 is listed in the Application section.

8 Click Functions to customize the ExpressKeys, Touch Ring, and Radial Menu.

Note: Make sure that Photoshop CS6 is still highlighted in the Application section.

9 Click any ExpressKey drop-down menu to change the setting to Keystroke.

10 Type a keystroke, such as D for Deselect, and click OK. 

11 Type a name for the Keystroke and click OK. 

12 Repeat steps 9 to 11 for any other ExpressKey you want to change. 

13 Click the Touch Ring tab. 

14 Click and drag the Speed slider to change the scrolling speed. 

15 Click any of the Functions drop-down menus to select different settings. 

Note: If you select Keystroke for any of the Functions drop-down menus, repeat steps 10 and 11. 

16 Click the Close button. Your custom settings are saved in the Wacom Preferences or Wacom Control panel. 

TIPS

Did You Know? 

Although you can work in Photoshop without a tablet, you will not have access to a large number of tools, which are specifically designed for use with a pressure-sensitive tablet and pen. For example, using a mouse, you can select only Off or Fade for Brush opacity. With a tablet attached to the computer, you can also select Pen Pressure, Pen Tilt, and Stylus Wheel, giving you more natural and responsive control when painting or editing photos. 

Try This! 

Set one ExpressKey for the Radial menu. Click the Radial Menu tab in the Wacom Tablet Preferences (Control Panel) and click one section of the Radial menu. Click the Function drop-down menu and set your custom settings as in the task steps. Now when you click the ExpressKey, the Radial menu appears on-screen so you can click to launch an application, run an action, or use the keystroke depending on your custom settings. 

Important! 

Wacom pen tablets come in three basic types: the Bamboo, the Intuos, and the Cintiq, and each comes in multiple sizes. The preferences dialog box varies slightly depending on the type of Wacom tablet you have connected.

CALIBRATE AND PROFILE your monitor for accurate editing

All the work you do in Photoshop is based on what you see on the screen, so the color accuracy of your monitor is very important. Because each monitor displays color differently and because a monitor’s characteristics change over time, you should calibrate and profile your monitor regularly to make sure that you are viewing the colors that are actually in your files.

Make Photoshop TAKE NOTES FOR YOU

Some projects in Photoshop require only a few steps, and if you repeat the project multiple times, you will probably memorize the steps. Most tasks, however, require many steps, and the order in which to apply them is crucial to the function of the tools. Even if you follow the steps in this book, you will often try a new tool, apply a different option, or add multiple changes to complete your vision. When you succeed in creating a particular look, the most difficult part is remembering how you did it.

CUSTOMIZE A GRADIENT to suit your design

You can use the Gradient tool to blend colors and fill text with soft gradations of color, to fill backgrounds or selections with a colored gradient, to apply gradient layers, or to work with masks when making composite images. As with the brushes, Photoshop installs but does not automatically load a number of different gradient color sets, which you can find by opening the Gradient picker menu and loading these using the same steps as in task #11.

LOAD OPTIONAL BRUSH SETS for better painting

Brushes are essential for working with Photoshop. When you customize a brush and create a new preset, you can use that brush with not only the Brush tool but also a number of Photoshop tools, such as the History brush, the Eraser tool, the Pencil tool, and other tools. Adding brushes gives you more options for editing photographs and many more variations for painting with Photoshop. You can view the brushes in the Brush picker and change the default view from small thumbnail to any of the other view options listed. 

When you first install and open Photoshop, only the default brushes appear in the Brush picker. The optional brushes are stored in sets in the Presets folder. You can load any set and have the additional brushes replace the default brushes or be appended to the existing brush set using the Preset manager. Once loaded the additional brushes appear in the Brush picker. 

You should only add the brushes you need because loading more brushes requires more resources, or memory. At any time, you can append different brush sets to see your options, save different sets, and delete the ones you do not need.

 

1 Click the Brush tool.

2 Click the Brush Preset drop-down menu.

A The Brush picker appears, displaying small thumbnails of  the brush tips.

3 Click the gear menu button on the Brush picker.

The Brushes menu appears.

4 Click Small List or Large List in the menu to see the names of the brushes as well as the tip.

 

The Brush picker changes to show the brush names.

5 Click here and drag down to expand the Brush picker.

6 Click the gear menu button ( ) on the Brush picker again.

7 Click Wet Media Brushes in the bottom section of the picker.

Note: You can select any of the brush sets listed.

8 Click Append in the dialog box that appears.

B The Wet Media Brushes are added to the bottom of the Brush picker.

9 Scroll down the Brush picker to see all of the new added brushes.

TIPS

Try This! 

You can save a copy of the Brushes folder to another location on your hard drive. Your custom brush set and any brush sets you download can then be transferred to another computer or reloaded if you have to reinstall Photoshop. By default, the Brushes folder is in /Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS6/ Presets/ (on Mac OS X) or C:\Program Files\Adobe\ PhotoshopCS6\Presets\ (in Windows). 

Did You Know? 

You can find a large number of predesigned brush sets both free and for a fee on the web. 

Try This! 

You can add patterns the same way you add brush presets. Click and hold the Gradient tool on the toolbar and select the Paint Bucket tool. Click Foreground in the Options bar and select Pattern. Click the pattern icon to open the Pattern picker. Click the gear menu button on the Pattern picker and select a different pattern set at the bottom of the menu. Click Append in the dialog box that appears.

DESIGN A CUSTOM BRUSH with your settings

Many of the tools in Photoshop have modifiable brush options, and whether you retouch photographs, design brochures, or paint from scratch, you often need to vary the shape, size, and hardness of the brushes to fit your project. 

The Brush picker includes a variety of brushes you can select from a menu. You can also modify the attributes of any of these preset brushes and save the modified brush as your own custom brush preset so that you can readily use it for your next design. You can name and save any number of custom brushes as presets. 

Many other tools also have modifiable brush options, including the Pencil tool, the Eraser tool, the Clone Stamp tool, the Pattern Stamp tool, the History Brush, the Art History Brush, the Blur tool, the Sharpen tool, the Smudge tool, the Dodge tool, the Burn tool, and the Sponge tool. 

Customizing tools for your projects and saving your presets can save time for repetitive tasks and also open up more creative possibilities for your drawing, painting, and retouching.

 

 

1 With a new blank document open, click the Brush tool.

A You can optionally select different foreground colors for comparing the different brush strokes.

2 Click the Brush Panel Toggle button in the Options bar.

The Brush panel opens and the controls for the brush tip shape are visible.

3 Click a Bristle tip brush preset to modify into a custom brush.

4 Click and drag in the image to see the brush stroke.

Note: If you are using a Wacom tablet and stylus, the brush preview shows the brush angle as you angle the stylus.
 

5 Click and drag any of the sliders to change the size and look.

Note: To set any of the Control drop-down menus to Pen Pressure, such as the settings options under Shape Dynamics,you must have a pen tablet connected (see task #15).

B You can click the Shape drop-down menu and select a different shape.

C The Brush preview window displays the changed brushstroke.

6 Click and drag in the open document to test the brush effect.

 

 

D Your customized brush stroke appears on the document.

7 Click any of the other options, such as Texture, in the left section of the Brush pane.

8 Click and drag any of the sliders or drop-down menus to change the size and look.

9 Click and drag in the document to test the changed brushstroke.

10 Click the Create New Brush button.

The Brush Name dialog box appears.

11 Type a name for your brush.

E You can optionally click Capture Brush Size in Preset to save the brush size.

12 Click OK.

Your customized brush is now available in the Brush panel and stored in the default brush set.

Note: If you later reset the brushes without saving the changes, you will lose your custom brush preset.

TIPS

Important! 

You should save custom brushes in a set so they are available the next time you open Photoshop. Click the Brush Preset drop-down menu in the Options bar. Click the gear menu button and click Save Brushes. Type a name for the current set, including your custom brushes, in the dialog box and click Save. The brush set with the custom brushes is saved in the Photoshop Brushes folder in the Presets folder. 

Did You Know? 

The Brush Tip Shape options available with the Bristle tip brushes are different than those for the Standard brushes. You can change the Standard Brush Tip shapes by clicking and dragging the sides of the brush shape circle in the Brush Tip Shape pane. 

More Options! 

The Bristle tip brushes display an animated preview on-screen. You can see what a corresponding physical brush would look like, and also see how the bristles splay as you paint on the digital canvas. You can toggle the preview on and off by clicking the Live Tip Brush Preview button on the bottom of the Brush panel.

CREATE A CUSTOM ACTION to increase your efficiency

Actions help you perform repeated steps quickly. An action is a series of commands that you can apply to an image with one click of the mouse. Unlike a keyboard shortcut, which can only invoke a command, an action can open a command, apply changes to an image, step through another command, apply it, and even save a file in a particular way. Photoshop includes many predesigned actions, and you can also create your own for steps that you do over and over and add them to the Actions panel. 

Using the Actions panel, you record a sequence of steps and save your new action. When you need to apply the same steps to a different image, even to an entire folder of files, you play the action, and Photoshop automatically applies the steps. You can record any number of steps and even create complex actions that include steps requiring specific information in dialog boxes. Actions become particularly useful when you do repetitive projects with many steps.

 

 

Note: The steps in this task create a simple action for setting up a new 7-×-5-inch document at 300 pixels/inch for a greeting card.

1 Click Window.

2 Click Actions.

A The Actions panel appears.

3 Click the Create New Action button.

B Alternatively, you can click the panel menu button and select New Action.

The New Action dialog box appears.

4 Type the name of your action.

C You can click the Function Key drop-down menu and select a function key for a keyboard shortcut.

D You can click the Color dropdown menu and select a color for the action.

5 Click Record.

 

 

E The Record button in the Actions panel turns red.

Perform the steps that you want to record as an action:

6 Press Ô+N (Ctrl+N) to open a new file.

The New dialog box appears.

7 Type 7 in the Width field and 5 in the Height field.

8 Type 300 in the Resolution field.

9 Click the Advanced disclosure triangle.

The window expands with more options.

10 Click the Color Profile drop-down menu and click Adobe RGB 1998.

11 Click OK.

F A new untitled document appears.

12 Click the Stop Recording button.

G Your custom action to create a 7 × 5 greeting card is now recorded and listed in the Actions panel.

13 Test your action by clicking the Action name in the Actions panel and clicking the Play button.

TIPS

More Options! 

You can apply an action to a folder of files by clicking File Automate Batch and selecting the action and a source folder. Or you can apply an action to a group of images from Bridge by clicking Tools Photoshop Batch. 

Try This! 

Assign colors to your actions and turn them into buttons. With an action highlighted, click the panel menu button on the actions panel and click Action Options. Click the Color drop-down menu in the Action Options dialog box, select a color, and click OK. Then click the panel menu button again and select Button Mode. Your actions appear with color-coded labels. 

Did You Know? 

Photoshop actions are saved in a folder called Actions inside the Presets folder of the Photoshop application folder.