The Photoshop CS5 Pocket Guide

6. Painting

Painting calls to mind an artist with an easel at the ocean, or a group of college students in coveralls attacking the side of a house. Some of the painting you do in Photoshop resembles the first image, but I wouldn’t count on getting the house painted digitally. Still, when it comes to Photoshop, the definition of painting is quite broad. Anything that applies color to the canvas is considered painting, whether you create a gradient, use the Brush tool, or apply a fill.

If you’re artistic and you want to capture the sense of working on a more traditional easel, you’ll appreciate a new feature in Photoshop CS5. More realistic bristle tips can create bristle streaks as you paint, as your brush would on a physical canvas. The new ...