6.0 Art History Brush
Used for painting
Found at # 21 in the Toolbar diagram at left
The art history brush is grouped with the history brush in the toolbar.
If it is hidden, click on the history brush's icon, and select it from
the pop-up menu.
This tool copies image data from a state you choose in the History palette, and applies it to the current active layer in a stylized or modified way. It's a little bit like applying a filter effect one stroke at a time.
This is a tool that you will learn to appreciate if you play with it. You can make radical changes to the original image and then paint from the normal image, or, do it in reverse; make radical changes, undo them, and then paint from the weird version into the normal one. The Photoshop manual suggests filling the entire image with white and then painting from the original while experimenting with various settings in the tool's option palette.
If you choose Edit > Fade immediately after using this tool, you can change the opacity of the strokes you have just applied.
The keyboard shortcut for this tool is the letter Y. Toggle between the history brush and this brush by holding down the Shift key while pressing the shortcut letter.
The illustration below, is the art history brush's options bar. To choose a brush size, and type, click on the little down arrow to the right of the brush thumbnail. A pop-up palette of available brushes will appear. For more information on brushes, please see the Brushes page.
The Opacity slider is shown, activated. Click on the arrow to the right of the percentage value box to access the slider. A high setting is more opaque, a low value is more transparent.
The box titled Mode, and showing Normal is a drop down menu of the blend modes you can choose from. The Area box determines how far from the brush strokes is affected by the chosen style. It's not the same as brush size, but you'll have to try both to see. I recommend using a small brush size and varying the Area setting.
Fidelity can be set by the same type of slider as Opacity. This setting determines how much the color will vary from the original. Lower values mean more variation.
The Spacing value limits where the art history brush will be active. In portions of the current image that are not very different from the history state that you are painting from, a high spacing setting will not allow any changes. Only parts of the current image that are very different from the chosen history state will be affected by strokes. A low Spacing value will allow painting on all parts of the image.
Shown below, is a portion of the art history brush's options bar showing the brush stroke drop down menu activated. These are the stylized brush strokes that will be used to apply the source history state to the current state. You need to experiment with all the choices to see what they're like. If you want an exact, and not stylized application of your history state, switch to the regular history brush.
The context sensitive menu, found by right clicking in the image while the tool is selected, shows this same menu.
Photoshop Tips | 6.0
Palettes | Effects
Links | FreePhotos | Animal Rights
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