Photoshop Brushes How-To

Creating a brush with sharp edges

Photoshop by default makes the edges of all brushes pretty soft. These settings will make the brush edges almost fully aliased.

• Brush Palette
  • Texture: checked
    • Texture each tip: checked
    • Depth: 100%

Keyboard shortcuts

Changing brush size

To increase and decrease brush size and hardness while dragging on the brush, hold down the Control + Option ( ⌃ + ⌥ ) keys while dragging the pen or mouse.

Drag left and right to decrease and increase the brush size.

Drag down and up to decrease and increase the brush hardness.

Of course, square brackets [ ] increase and decrease brush size. Also, curly brackets { } increase and decrease the brush hardness.

Selecting brushes

With the Brush Tool selected, right click to access the Brushes Preset Picker.

With the Brushes Preset Picker closed, the comma key , will select the previous brush in the palette, and the period key . will select the next brush in the palette.

Toggle between layer color and layer mask

Command + backslash ⌘+\ switches focus to the Layer Mask.

Command + 2 ⌘+2 switches focus to the Layer Color.