You can create and save a Tool Preset for any tool. This will remember settings that you choose. Presets for brushes are much more useful than for some tools. If you wish to use presets, you have the option of either creating a tool preset or a brush preset. Right click on the Tool Presets button to reset the tool to default settings.

Brush Presets is similar to the following 2 panels; Brush Settings and Brushes.

You can change size and hardness and select from a range of brush presets. There are many brushes available and you can also create your own.

In the second How To Guide, below, we will create a Preset for a Mixer Brush, after changing some settings. If you don't create a Preset, the next time you select a brush, it will automatically apply its default settings.

The Panel contains 2 tabs; Brush Settings and Brushes.

Brush Settings.

This panel allows you to customize any brush with a wide range of options and settings, which will change the characteristics of the brush. You can then save these brushes.

Brushes you can access a vast number of brushes, search for particular brushes and more.

Brushes are a very large subject, too large to fully go into here.

This shows the current brush load, the paint your brush is loaded with.

The image gives a live preview of the current brush load. I took this screenshot while working on the example below, hence the colors.

When you click on the drop down arrow, you will see options for the current brush load: Load Brush, Clean Brush, or Load Solid Colors Only.

This an on/off option to load your brush after each stroke. It will load it with the Foreground Color, but this will be affected by whether you choose the next option, to clean your brush after each stroke.

This is an on/off option to clean your brush after each stroke. When you begin a new stroke the color will be affected by the previous option of whether or not you load your brush for each stroke.

This drop down list contains different brush combinations, that automatically change Mixer Brush settings, including the following options; Wet, Load, Mix, Flow.

Control how much paint is picked up from the canvas during a stroke. How much color you take into another area.

Set the amount of paint on the brush.

Set the color mixing ratio for the stroke.

Set the Flow rate for the stroke.

Build up paint in the same way as a real world airbrush paint effect.

As you paint with freehand brush strokes, choose how much Photoshop will automatically smooth out those strokes, so they are not jerky.

Higher settings will smooth out the stroke more, although, you may experience lag, depending on your computer, processor, memory and graphics card.

Pulled String Mode is a brush smoothing mode for creating smooth lines with sharp corners. The brush only paints when the string is taut, so any movement within the smoothing radius leaves no brush paint.

Stroke Catch-up is a brush smoothing mode that allows the paint to continue to catch up to the cursor when the stroke is paused.

Catch-up on Stroke End completes a brush stroke by drawing a straight line from the last paint position to where the cursor was released.

Adjust for Zoom prevents jerky strokes by adjusting smoothing. Decreases smoothing when you zoom in the document; increases smoothing when you zoom out.

If you have a non round brush, you can change the angle of the brush.

It won't make any difference on a round brush.

Choose whether to sample from all the layers, or just the currently selected layer.

Painting on a new empty layer gives you the ability to edit just the brush strokes, separately to the image. However, working on a separate layer may cause a lag in the brush strokes, which makes it impossible to paint accurately. If you are affected by a lag in the brush strokes, then paint directly onto the layer, but in this case, to protect the original, it's good practice to paint on a duplicate layer.

If you have a pressure sensitive pen and tablet, you can turn on this option, so brush size is controlled by the pen pressure. If this is off, size will be controlled by brush settings.

For non pressure sensitive users, the best way to change brush size is with the square brackets keys [ ].

A pressure sensitive pen and tablet are a great advantage for digital painting.

Select the Mixer Brush Tool from the toolbar. Like most tools, it shares the button with other tools and the one that is visible will be the last tool used.

While practicing, it’s useful to clean the canvas regularly by filling with white (or your preferred colour). Keyboard shortcuts will make life much easier. These are also useful to use in editing.

Alt+Backspace fills the layer with the Foreground Colour.

Ctrl+Backspace fills the layer with the Background Colour.

You can also use the History panel to jump back many steps. After several strokes, just click on the Open state.

Click on this button on the Options Bar to open the Brushes / Brush Settings Panel.

Getting Started - keep things simple

We'll start with some simple examples, to get a feel for how the brush works. I recommend you do the same.

There are two tabs. Select the Brushes tab (red box).

Open the Wet Media Brushes section (click on the chevron at the left).

Select Kyle's Real Oils Rounded Flex Wet.

Even when you select the Mixer Brush Tool, when you select a brush, many of the brushes are not Mixer Brush tools. They could be regular brushes, or other tools. Look for the Tooltip or small icon.

The small icon (pink circle) tells you what type of tool each brush is. The example inside the pink circle is a regular brush, not a Mixer Brush Tool.

The tooltip (yellow background), that it tells you what tool the brush is. In this case it's a Mixer Brush Tool. The small icon (just above the finger) is the Mixer Brush Tool.

To demonstrate some different brush behaviors, I'll use this image of colors and simply make one stroke from left to right, with each of the settings detailed in the next step.

All strokes are made with Kyle's Real Oils Round Flex, as detailed in Step 4.

Foreground Color was Yellow.

Select the Mixer Brush Tool from the toolbar. Like most tools, it shares the button with other tools and the one that is visible will be the last tool used.

This step is the same as step 4 in the above guide.

Open the Brushes Panel.

There are two tabs. Select the Brushes tab (red box).

Open the Wet Media Brushes section (click on the chevron at the left).

Select Kyle's Real Oils Rounded Flex Wet.

Even when you select the Mixer Brush Tool, when you select a brush, many of the brushes are not Mixer Brush tools. They could be regular brushes, or other tools. Look for the Tooltip or small icon.

The small icon (pink circle) tells you what type of tool each brush is. The example inside the pink circle is a regular brush, not a Mixer Brush Tool.

The tooltip (yellow background), that it tells you what tool the brush is. In this case it's a Mixer Brush Tool. The small icon (just above the finger) is the Mixer Brush Tool.

We will create a Brush Preset, to save the changes we made to the brush settings

Open the Brush Presets.