2.4 Learn How to Blend With Brushes

Hello and welcome back to this course. In this next lesson, we'll cover one of the most important things you'll need to know about Photoshop brushes and that is how to blend. Let's begin. How to blend with Photoshop brushes. Whenever you create digital art, remember there are many ways to get the same effect. And Photoshop makes this especially possible with its large selection of tools and settings. Here are a few ways of creating a blended result. One I made with the gradient tool, the second with an adjustment layer and the third by painting it by hand. Which one is which? Let's take a look. Despite these various options, learning how to blend by hand is essential for digital painting. And here is how you do it. Let's blend these two colors together. In order to help our blending stay confined to a small area, here I'll be using the rectangular marquis tool. So select the rectangular marquis tool to create a selection. First, for your brush options, make sure the hardness is set to 100% and the opacity is set to 100%. Set the foreground color to the color of your choice. Here I'll chose the blue with the eyedropper tool. Now paint some blue on the left side. Then switch to a new color to blend with. Here, I'll choose the lighter blue, pressing the Alt key to sample the color, while keeping the same settings as before. Paint the lighter blue on the right side. In order to create a fluid transition between these colors, we need to lower the opacity and hardness. Set the opacity and hardness to a much lower value. Hold the Alt key to color sample the lighter color, then start painting it over the first blue towards the middle. This is just the first pass of color. Now color sample this new color, then start painting it over the first blue to help it transition to the left. Keep repeating this process, going back and forth while sampling new colors to create a seamless transition. Feel free to try this method with various color combinations until you get better. In this case, I've decided to try out color combinations that are similar to the ones I'll be using in actual real world scenarios. So try out different monotone, skin-based colors, and neon combinations for more practice. You see, in order to blend seamlessly and become comfortable with digital painting, you'll have to change the opacity setting often. Get into the habit of doing this whenever you feel stuck. Let's take a look at the results. Great job. Blending is really this simple. Try it out yourself and continue to push for better results. Now, let's move on to our fifth tip. Which will help us learn when to use hard and soft brushes.