Basics on Brushes

Other Brush Types

Eraser tool:This tool replaces colors in an image with the background/foreground color in the color palette (on background layers) or with a transparency (raster layers). See Samples.This link will open a new browser window. When you are finished viewing the samples just close the new browser.

The Eraser Tool is a smart tool. It will remember what it had erased. To restore an image just right click on the image and drag the Eraser tool back over the transparent area.
To erase in a straight line, click where you want to start your line. Hold down the SHIFT key and click where you want the line to end.
You can set the options of the Eraser tool in the Tools Options panel. You can choose shape, size, opacity, density, and hardness, step, build up brush, and paper texture.

Flood Fill: allows you to completely fill an image or selection with a new color, gradient or pattern.

Fill Style options are solid color, pattern, or a variety of gradients.
Match Mode: determines which pixels are covered.
- RGB covers pixels with matching RGB values
- Hue covers pixels with matching Hue values
- Brightness covers pixels with matching luminance
- None covers all pixels
Tolerance determines how closely the color of a pixel must match the selected color, before it is overwritten. Scale of 0-200, with 0=exact match and 200=total fill.
Opacity determines the strenght/dilution of the paint (100% paint covers everything).
Sample Merged if checked will use pixels from all layers, unchecked will use pixels from selected layer only.
Gradient Fills use the second tab to set the gradient pattern, direction, centers, and repeats of the gradient pattern. Go to my tutorial on Creating and Editing Gradients for more.
Blend Modes are used if your want the pixels from underlying layers to effect the flood fill colors.

Picture Tubes:

You can paint with a collection of objects without having to create them. It is like a rubber stamp. These are saved as TUB files in the Tube folder of PSP6. These objects are arranged in rows (cells) and columns. You can control which object appears by changing the settings in the Selection mode in the options dialog box. You can also change the size of the object in the Scale box (10-250% of its original size), Placement Mode either random or continuous, or the Step (the distance between images as they are painted to your image). In the Selection Mode you can choose what image in the tube is painted by several methods: Random, Incremental (a repeated sequence), Angular (determined by the direction you drag the mouse), Velocity (determined by the speed you drag the mouse), and Pressure (for those who have pressure sensitive drawing tablets). PSP5 tube files can be converted into PSP6 tube files through the converter utility that PSP6 provides. Go to my tutorial on Creating and Editing Picture Tubes for more.

Shape Presets: This tool allows you to draw simple shapes precisely.

Options:
- Shapes: You have several shapes to choose from.
- Styles:
  - Filled: completely filled with color.
  - Stroked: just the outline of the shape.
  - Stroked and Filled: center is filled with one color on the active color palette and outlined with it's opposite.
- Antialias: gets rid of the jaggies.
- Create as Vector: creates the shape as a vector.

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