Drawing with Brushes, Shapes, and Other Tools - Photoshop Elements 13: The Missing Manual - page 613

▪ Brush Settings . Clicking this button brings up the Brush Settings panel, which offers
oodles of ways to customize your brush, all of which are covered in the next section. If
you're using the Brush tool for artistic purposes, it pays to familiarize yourself with these
settings, since this is where you can set a chiseled stroke or a fade, for example.
▪ Tablet Settings . One of the biggest differences between drawing with a mouse and draw-
ing with a real brush is that, on a computer, it doesn't matter how hard you press the
mouse. But if you've got a graphics tablet , an electronic pad that causes your pen move-
ments to appear onscreen instantly, you can replicate real-world brushing, including pres-
sure effects. Click this button to see settings that let you tell Elements which brush char-
acteristics should respond to the pressure of your stroke. Graphics Tablets tells you all
about using a tablet.
TIP
If you ever want to return a brush to its original settings, click the four-line square in the
upper-right corner of the Tool Options area, and then choose Reset Tool.
To actually use the Brush tool, adjust the Tool Options settings, make sure the color you
want to paint is the foreground color ( Choosing Colors ), and then simply drag across the im-
age wherever you want to paint.
TIP
If you're used to painting with long, sweeping strokes, that technique can be frustrating in
Elements. That's because when you undo a mistake (by pressing Ctrl+Z/ ⌘ -Z), Elements
undoes everything you've done while you've been holding down the mouse button. In
tricky spots, you can save yourself some aggravation by using shorter strokes so you
don't have to lose that whole long curve you painstakingly worked on just because you
wobbled a bit at the end. (In these situations, the Eraser tool [ The Eraser Tools ] is also
handy for tidying up.)
To draw or paint a straight line, simply click where you want the line to start, press and hold
Shift, and then click where you want the line to end; Elements draws a straight line between