Drawing with Brushes, Shapes, and Other Tools - Photoshop Elements 13: The Missing Manual - page 612

NOTE
One very cool feature of Elements' brushes is that any changes you make to a brush
are reflected in the little brushstroke thumbnail in the Tool Options area.
▪ Size . This slider lets you adjust the size of the brush cursor—anywhere from 1 pixel up
to sizes that may be too big to fit on your monitor (the maximum is 2500 pixels in dia-
meter or in the longest dimension). You can also click the pixel value next to this slider
and then type a new size. Figure 12-5 shows yet another way to adjust settings like brush
size using your mouse. Or, as you're working, you can press the close bracket key (]) to
quickly increase brush size, or the open bracket key ([) to decrease it.
Figure 12-5. You don't need to grab a slider to adjust its setting. Just put your cursor over the
word “Size,” and the cursor changes into a pointing hand with a double-headed arrow. That's
your cue that you can scrub (click and drag) back and forth right on the setting to make
changes—left for smaller or less, right for larger or more. This trick works anywhere you see a
slider.
▪ Opacity . This setting lets you control how thoroughly the brushstrokes cover what's be-
neath them. You can use the slider, type in any percentage you like (from 1 to 100), or
scrub as shown in Figure 12-5 . The maximum—100 percent—gets you total coverage (at
least in Normal mode—see the next bullet).
▪ Mode . Here's where you choose the brush's blend mode (you'll learn more about the
various modes later in this chapter). What you choose here determines how the brush's
color interacts with what's in your image.