Selecting Brushes and Painting Options

The Properties bar contains the Brush icon as well as other options for painting and image editing. The Opacity slider lets you adjust opacity for painting. The Mode menu lets you choose painting modes to control color application and target tonal ranges. Open the Brushes palette to select preset brushes and create new brushes.

The Brushes palette contains the same painting options as the Properties bar; e.g., the Opacity slider, painting modes, etc.

The Brush icon appears in the Properties bar when one of the following Painting tools is selected: Eraser, Paintbrush, Marker, Airbrush, Neon, Rubber Stamp, Smudge, Blur, Sharpen, Dodge, Burn, Sponge.

Brush Icon

Use the Brush icon to adjust current brush settings or to open the Brush palette and select another brush.

To Modify Brush Settings:

You must select a Painting tool, such as the Paintbrush or Pencil tool, so the Brush icon is active in the Properties bar. You can edit any brush shape. For brush shapes created from selections, you can change only the spacing.

1. Click on the Brush icon in the Properties bar to open the Brush Options dialog box.
2. Make any adjustments to the current brush’s settings. (See New Brush Options.) You can also add the brush to the Brushes palette by clicking the button located in the upper right corner.

You do not have to add the brush to the Brushes palette to be able to use it; however, if you plan on using a brush more than once, we recommend that you add it to the palette.

3. Begin painting with the modified brush.

To Select Brushes from the Brushes Palette:

1. Click on the arrow that is next to the Brush icon and the Brushes palette pops out.

You can drag the Brushes palette off the Properties bar. The Brushes palette has commands for creating brushes, saving brushes to a file, loading brush files, and deleting unused brushes.

2. Click on a brush shape and begin painting.

While painting, use the context menu to change brushes and select painting options. (See To Access the Context Menu.)

Brushes Palette Menu

Use the Brushes palette menu to create new brushes, save brushes in files, modify existing brushes, and delete brushes.

You can add custom brushes to the list of preset brushes in the palette. When you exit Canvas X Draw, it stores the brush presets. The same set of brushes are available whether you work with new documents, documents you created, or documents created by another Canvas X Draw user.

To Create a New Brush:

1. Open the Brushes palette menu and choose New Brush.
2. In the New Brush dialog box, adjust the settings for the brush as described below.
3. Click OK after entering the settings you want. The new brush shape appears in the Brushes palette.

New Brush Options

Create brush shapes by specifying diameter, hardness, spacing, roundness, and angle. These same options are available in the Brush Options dialog box.

To Define a Brush Shape with a Selection:

You can make a new brush shape from a selection in an image. This lets you create non-elliptical brush shapes.

1. Select all or part of an image. (See Selecting Pixels in Images.)
2. Choose Define Brush in the menu. The selection becomes a brush in the Brushes palette. Canvas X Draw uses the shape and lightness values of the selection to define the brush. Brush shapes do not contain color.

To Delete Brushes from the Palette:

You can permanently remove brush shapes from the Brushes palette. If you think you might want to use the brush shape again, you should first store it in a brushes file so at a later time you can load it back into the palette.

1. Select the brush you want to delete.
2. Choose Delete Brush in the menu. You can also Command-click a brush in the palette to delete it.

To Save Brushes in a File:

You can save brushes in a file. Saving brushes to disk lets you customize the Brushes palette for particular projects or exchange brushes with other Canvas X Draw users. The file format that Canvas X Draw uses to save brushes on disk is also compatible with the file format used by the Photoshop image-editing program for saving brushes.

1. In the Brushes palette, add or remove brushes until you have the collection you want to save.
2. Choose Save Brushes in the menu.
3. In the directory dialog box, type a name for the brushes file, select a location, and click OK.

To Load or Append Brushes from a File:

When you load brushes, you can replace the current set of brushes with the file or append the brushes to the current palette.

1. Choose one of the following commands in the menu:
   • To replace the current brushes with the file: Choose Load Brushes.
   • To add the brushes in the file to the current palette: Choose Append Brushes.
2. In the directory dialog box, locate the brushes file you want to open and click OK.

See Also:

• Painting Context Menu
• Selecting Pixels in Images