I have pretty much bulled my way through using the brush for many years without really understanding the finer points (no pun intended) of it. This is all a great revelation. Thanks very much!
All I can say is wow! I feel the need to go back and redo every single image I have ever processed. This is truly invaluable information, I cannot thank you enough for sharing Greg!!
I have been using a Wacom tablet last 7-8 months - love it but never really got around to using the pressure sensitive feature. This is helpful on so many levels, particularly masking for my landscape and portrait shots! Thank you!
I can't imagine trying to learn how to use software like photoshop without youtube and people like you to demonstrate (I mean I guess I can, I've been intimidated by it, and terrible at using it for YEARS). Currently working through your dodge/burn master course and clicked through to this video to get a little more detail on brush settings. I've had a Wacom tablet for a couple years now but it's been gathering dust on a shelf since the first week I bought it until I started watching your content, and I'm growing more and more attached to the thing the further I go. Thanks for doing what you do Greg.
Glad you’re finding it so helpful! And yeah, it would have been nice if I had UA-cam to learn when I first started, so many great resources these days.
I can't agree with you more. Only use Wacom tablet - don't even have a mouse for my PS pc. After learning how to do portrait retouching, I also landed on the high opacity, low flow ( 1-5% typically), and really turned off the other pen options ( don't even like to use pressure as I think it is harder to control). I did not really think about the spacing though, so many thanks for that information and explanation!
Great tutorial Greg!! It will be fantastic a similar tutorial but oriented to the best Photoshop configuration to photography. I have a late 2012 mbp with 16gb RAM and a ssd and reveal 3 RAW files as lyers from my d800 is a nightmare...
Thanks a lot, for whatever reason i changed my brush spacing to 1%, forgot about it and then couldn't understand why my brush is SO SLOW when painting, this helped.
This is a great video. More detailed video's setting controls on Wacom tablet would be really helpful because there are not any decent videos or instructions Thanks grieg
As always good information. I use a small Wacom Intuos 5. My biggest issue has been pen pressure, most time I can't get it to work most of the time...I select the icon, but there is no indication that pressure is sensed and applied.
Through meetups app last evening I went to a intro to photo shop class hoping to learn the ropes. He did his best but it was so awful I left early. I will attend other classes that was just not the best lol! then I started looking around for who had photoshop tutorials & seen you did then remembered you had amazing videos I have enjoyed. I go yours a go and loved them! thank you! I am buying a waccom tablet because of you over black friday. If I am going to be editing a bunch I might as well get one now. My IG is @justakidfromculver if you want to check out my photos your tutorials helped me produce.
Thank you, I did learn again, what fun. I have been struggling and I mean struggling with my Wacom. I quit and put it aside. I'll pull it out again and give it another try. Any suggestions?
Patrick Allen I use it strictly for painting and cloning in Photoshop. That's it. I use trackpad/mouse for everything else. Are you struggling with those Photoshop activities? If so, how would you describe the challenge?
Thanks for responding so quickly Greg. Yes I am struggling with Photoshop activities. My Wacom seems for the lack of a better term, jerky. I am left handed so the side of my hand is on the pad. I don't know if that is messing me up or not. I guess the idea of watching an arrow go from where it is to where I want it to go rather that trying to guess where to put the pen on the pad is ingrained in my brain. Practice, Practice, Practice is what it will take.
Great stuff. For me personally their wasnt anything new. Still important information. About Flow and opacity: If you want to mask out an Area (to lets say about 20%)... how do you get it uniform when you use flow?? I used to work with flow. But I never got it uniform when I need to mask an area that needed multiple strokes to fill. E.g. a Mountain, Sky etc. Thats why I switched back to Opacity. Flow I only use for dodge and burn...
dunnymonster great. If you move been using a harder brush, you'll probably notice smoother results with that tighter spacing. And if for some reason spacing had been turned off, you'll see much more consistent strokes (with spacing off, the ends of your strokes become much stronger than the middle, as it becomes very speed-sensitive).
bijayas sapkota there's "force Touch", but not designed for that. And even if it was, would be vastly inferior to a brush. Using your finger that way is an ergonomic mess that would probably lead to sore joints after a while, and poor results anytime. Highly recommend a pen. If that's out of your budget, a mouse is much better than any trackpad/stick.
Greg Benz yeah. I was just curious about the force touch. It would be fun if Apple let use Apple Pencil in that giant trackpad tho. No need for Wacom tablet.
Benaroo Ben agreed. Using a pen on the trackpad would be incredible for traveling light (assuming you have a comfortable place for your wrist to rest). As far as I know, Force Touch is binary. I'd say only 5-10 levels of force are probably required for photography (which is way below even the simplest Wacom devices), but two wouldn't be ideal. But again, the pressure isn't really the issue when using your finger that way. All about which part of your hand you're using.
Greg Benz didn't notice how much resting the palm and just using fingers makes a big difference. Yesterday I was taking to a guy who teachers art told me how natural if feels to paint in the iPad Pro cuz of the palm detection. And today you have this video on just using finger freely.
Xahid Sakib I regularly take 5 minute shots without concern. It's not the lens, but the sensor, that would likely be in trouble (as the light is being focused on and absorbed by the more delicate sensor). I wouldn't use a long telephoto to point at the midday sun on a hot day for an hour though, at some point the sensor is probably at risk (I don't know the limit, but I can say I routinely shoot sunsets with wide angles in live view, which means continuous exposure of the sensor for very long times.)
Check the other settings like flow, spacing. If you match my settings exactly as shown here, you’ll get the same results. Can reset the brush to try to get rid of odd settings. Watch out for one pressure (test with a mouse to rule out tablet-specific issues).
1:01 I mean...I can't argue that a pen and tablet isn't better, it's significantly better. But who the hell uses their entire arm and elbow to use a mouse? Your wrist rests on the mouse pad or even better, a wrist rest, and you just move with your thumb and fingers.
You can move the mouse from one side of the of a mouse pad all the way to the other without ever lifting your wrist? I’m betting you use more of your arm than you consciously realize.
I have pretty much bulled my way through using the brush for many years without really understanding the finer points (no pun intended) of it. This is all a great revelation. Thanks very much!
All I can say is wow! I feel the need to go back and redo every single image I have ever processed. This is truly invaluable information, I cannot thank you enough for sharing Greg!!
Great!
This is hands down the very best explanation of brushes that I have ever seen. THANK YOU
I never understood the relationship between flow & opacity before, very enlightening, thank you!
Greg, your content is always so packed with high quality and nuanced information. Thank you for another video sharing your knowledge on the subject!
I have been using a Wacom tablet last 7-8 months - love it but never really got around to using the pressure sensitive feature. This is helpful on so many levels, particularly masking for my landscape and portrait shots! Thank you!
Seemanta Dutta great!
Finally understand how FLOW works, thank you very much!
I can't imagine trying to learn how to use software like photoshop without youtube and people like you to demonstrate (I mean I guess I can, I've been intimidated by it, and terrible at using it for YEARS). Currently working through your dodge/burn master course and clicked through to this video to get a little more detail on brush settings. I've had a Wacom tablet for a couple years now but it's been gathering dust on a shelf since the first week I bought it until I started watching your content, and I'm growing more and more attached to the thing the further I go. Thanks for doing what you do Greg.
Glad you’re finding it so helpful! And yeah, it would have been nice if I had UA-cam to learn when I first started, so many great resources these days.
Great tutorial, especially for newbies to photoshop. Very very helpful. Thanks Greg
Great informative tutorial Greg! Thanks
I can't agree with you more. Only use Wacom tablet - don't even have a mouse for my PS pc. After learning how to do portrait retouching, I also landed on the high opacity, low flow ( 1-5% typically), and really turned off the other pen options ( don't even like to use pressure as I think it is harder to control). I did not really think about the spacing though, so many thanks for that information and explanation!
Hugely helpful, thorough, great pace, good stuff! Thank you.
thank you! i learnt something that i can actually practice.
Great descriptions and advice Greg, thank you.
Thanks for the great video! I just got my first tablet, an XP-Pen tablet, and was having issues. This helped out greatly.
Great tutorial Greg!! It will be fantastic a similar tutorial but oriented to the best Photoshop configuration to photography. I have a late 2012 mbp with 16gb RAM and a ssd and reveal 3 RAW files as lyers from my d800 is a nightmare...
Timeless content. Thank you!
thank you learned something again.
Really helpful tips, this helped me greatly in my paintings thanks heaps!
Great!
Thanks a lot,
for whatever reason i changed my brush spacing to 1%, forgot about it and then couldn't understand why my brush is SO SLOW when painting,
this helped.
Useful information. Thanks for sharing.
Great tutorial!!
Huge thanks for that video man, much appreciated. Thank you
This is a great video. More detailed video's setting controls on Wacom tablet would be really helpful because there are not any decent videos or instructions
Thanks grieg
It's really helpfull, thankx....
Thank You very much, Greg!
Perfect! Thanks Greg!
Thanks, Greg. Very helpful explanation of the brushes and their setup. You give a very clear presentation.
The last part where you click the pressure opacity button, and the brush gets soft edges, it is not working for me. What to do? Thanks
How do I create think texture realistic acrylic paint brushes in Photoshop
Can you help me with the brush settings for sketching in Photoshop? What all I need to do? Thanks
Thank you!
As always good information. I use a small Wacom Intuos 5. My biggest issue has been pen pressure, most time I can't get it to work most of the time...I select the icon, but there is no indication that pressure is sensed and applied.
Wacom has test test area in the menu you should be able to check it there.
Also save your settings as a custom file ie PS saves future resets.
Thanks Greg. More good-oil.
Holy smokes this is the best!
+Left Coast glad you’re enjoying these tutorials!
Through meetups app last evening I went to a intro to photo shop class hoping to learn the ropes. He did his best but it was so awful I left early. I will attend other classes that was just not the best lol! then I started looking around for who had photoshop tutorials & seen you did then remembered you had amazing videos I have enjoyed. I go yours a go and loved them! thank you! I am buying a waccom tablet because of you over black friday. If I am going to be editing a bunch I might as well get one now. My IG is @justakidfromculver if you want to check out my photos your tutorials helped me produce.
+Left Coast awesome, you’ll love it.
thank you! I look forward to the journey. I spent the past 8 months learning photography, light room & using a mac next is photoshop and premiere.
Thank you, I did learn again, what fun. I have been struggling and I mean struggling with my Wacom. I quit and put it aside. I'll pull it out again and give it another try. Any suggestions?
Patrick Allen I use it strictly for painting and cloning in Photoshop. That's it. I use trackpad/mouse for everything else. Are you struggling with those Photoshop activities? If so, how would you describe the challenge?
Thanks for responding so quickly Greg. Yes I am struggling with Photoshop activities. My Wacom seems for the lack of a better term, jerky. I am left handed so the side of my hand is on the pad. I don't know if that is messing me up or not. I guess the idea of watching an arrow go from where it is to where I want it to go rather that trying to guess where to put the pen on the pad is ingrained in my brain. Practice, Practice, Practice is what it will take.
Great stuff. For me personally their wasnt anything new. Still important information.
About Flow and opacity: If you want to mask out an Area (to lets say about 20%)... how do you get it uniform when you use flow??
I used to work with flow. But I never got it uniform when I need to mask an area that needed multiple strokes to fill. E.g. a Mountain, Sky etc. Thats why I switched back to Opacity.
Flow I only use for dodge and burn...
I notice that there is no mention of what setting is advised for "smoothing" Any ideas?
Cheers
I recommend none for photography.
Thanks so much... ..@@gregbenzphotography
Excellent tutorial. Can I ask, what is the default spacing set by PS? Is it set to 10% already? ☺
dunnymonster default is 25%. If your right-click the brush icon in the toolbar, you can reset the brush to defaults.
Greg Benz Thanks so much for your help, I've been set to default all this time :-( Gonna change my settings to the ones you advise right now :-D
dunnymonster great. If you move been using a harder brush, you'll probably notice smoother results with that tighter spacing. And if for some reason spacing had been turned off, you'll see much more consistent strokes (with spacing off, the ends of your strokes become much stronger than the middle, as it becomes very speed-sensitive).
Have you tried if the MacBook Pro trackpad can be used for pressure sensitivity?
bijayas sapkota there's "force Touch", but not designed for that. And even if it was, would be vastly inferior to a brush. Using your finger that way is an ergonomic mess that would probably lead to sore joints after a while, and poor results anytime. Highly recommend a pen. If that's out of your budget, a mouse is much better than any trackpad/stick.
Greg Benz yeah. I was just curious about the force touch. It would be fun if Apple let use Apple Pencil in that giant trackpad tho. No need for Wacom tablet.
Benaroo Ben agreed. Using a pen on the trackpad would be incredible for traveling light (assuming you have a comfortable place for your wrist to rest).
As far as I know, Force Touch is binary. I'd say only 5-10 levels of force are probably required for photography (which is way below even the simplest Wacom devices), but two wouldn't be ideal. But again, the pressure isn't really the issue when using your finger that way. All about which part of your hand you're using.
Greg Benz didn't notice how much resting the palm and just using fingers makes a big difference. Yesterday I was taking to a guy who teachers art told me how natural if feels to paint in the iPad Pro cuz of the palm detection. And today you have this video on just using finger freely.
is long exposure photography harmful to camera lenses???
Xahid Sakib I regularly take 5 minute shots without concern. It's not the lens, but the sensor, that would likely be in trouble (as the light is being focused on and absorbed by the more delicate sensor). I wouldn't use a long telephoto to point at the midday sun on a hot day for an hour though, at some point the sensor is probably at risk (I don't know the limit, but I can say I routinely shoot sunsets with wide angles in live view, which means continuous exposure of the sensor for very long times.)
Greg Benz thanks. :-)
when i have 100% opacity it's like i have 50% opacity, i can't get the color to be solid
Check the other settings like flow, spacing. If you match my settings exactly as shown here, you’ll get the same results. Can reset the brush to try to get rid of odd settings. Watch out for one pressure (test with a mouse to rule out tablet-specific issues).
1:01 I mean...I can't argue that a pen and tablet isn't better, it's significantly better. But who the hell uses their entire arm and elbow to use a mouse? Your wrist rests on the mouse pad or even better, a wrist rest, and you just move with your thumb and fingers.
You can move the mouse from one side of the of a mouse pad all the way to the other without ever lifting your wrist? I’m betting you use more of your arm than you consciously realize.