Photoshop Q & A

Thought I'd start a thread for Photoshop. I have a Q, and figured we could collect all the Q & A in one place for easy access. I'm a thinker, I am! 🙂

First Q: I've been reading casual references to the "airbrush eraser", and have found only one reference on how to access it, which did not help in my case.

I'm using Photoshop CS2. When I click on the eraser, at the top, in the MODE box, I have BRUSH, PENCIL, and BLOCK as options, no airbrush. To paraphrase the many internet cat pics that Sindy is so fond of, "Can I has teh help now, plz?"

Over to the right, just past the flow box is an airbrush button. Click it.

Not that I knew anything about it. I just opened CS2 to see what it looked like and noticed an airbrush button.

So, what does it do?

Atomm wrote:
Over to the right, just past the flow box is an airbrush button. Click it.

Not that I knew anything about it. I just opened CS2 to see what it looked like and noticed an airbrush button.

So, what does it do?

There's a ghosted airbrush-type icon just to the right of the "FLOW:" box, then there's a small checkbox that says, "ERASE TO HISTORY"

Maybe the airbrush is simply the BRUSH with different attributes? "FLOW:" becomes active when I select "BRUSH"?

Oh wait, when I select "BRUSH", the ghosted airbrush icon is not ghosted, and I can click on it. So I need to select "BRUSH" in order to access the airbrush, apparently. I'll look into it further.

Thanks for the help, Atomm.

Post what you find.... This is new to me as well.....

Well, I haven't tested it yet, but I think what I posted above was correct. I only just started playing with the air-brush. When I used the AmigaPaint program way back when, I did a whole lot with the air-brush. I found the pixels of different but similar color had a pleasing texture and started using that for effect.

I also liked to use the air-brush in a "smudge" mode, that would move the pixels underneath in a semi-random pattern, making it possible to easily blend without leaving brush marks, or soften/smear the individual pixels. When I smudge using the Photoshop tool, instead of moving around pixels of a given color, they smear and "average", leaving a smooth area that shows up in a textured/grainy pic. A useful effect, but I'd like to get the old one back as well.

The Photoshop air-brush. . .well, it's different. Kinda odd, really, I didn't get a spray pattern, but a solid area of lighter color that grew darker. No pleasing grainy pattern, and I couldn't figure out how to coax it out. I had to go to the filters and add noise.

Congrats to anyone that read all this and followed it. Or condolences. Or both, if you like 🙂