<a name="998985"> </a>The Brush tool represents a wide variety of tools you can use to mark on your document, including oils, sponges, pencils, and chalk. Brush strokes are created when you use the tools to drag on the canvas.
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<p id="999002" class="Body">
<a name="999002"> </a>On the Brush selector bar, pre-built brushes (brush variants) are arranged into recognizable categories. Corel Painter brushes are built to emulate Natural-Media tools. This lets you select a tool with a reasonable expectation of how it will behave. In an art store, if the tools in one aisle don't produce the results you want, you can try a different aisle. Similarly, with Corel Painter, you can try different brush categories to find the tool you want.
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<p id="1008616" class="Body">
<a name="1008616"> </a>You can use the pre-built Corel Painter brushes as they are, or you can adjust them to suit your purposes. Many artists use Corel Painter brush variants with only minor adjustments-to size, opacity, or grain (how much color penetrates paper texture). If you want to make more extensive modifications to a brush or create a totally new brush variant, there are controls for doing just that. Refer to <a href="10-Brushes3.html#1005040">"Customizing Brushes"</a> for more about using the Brush Creator to customize brushes, and to <a href="10-Brushes25.html#1019170">"Saving Brush Variants"</a> for how to save modified brushes as custom variants.
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<p id="999023" class="Body">
<a name="999023"> </a>Most Corel Painter brushes apply media (a color, gradient, or pattern) to an image. Some brushes, however, do not apply media. Instead, they make changes to pixels already in the image. For example, the Just Add Water brush smudges and dilutes existing colors in the image with smooth, anti-aliased strokes. Using one of these brushes on a blank area of the canvas has no effect.
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<h3 id="999026" class="Heading2">
<a name="999026"> </a>Brush Categories
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<p id="999027" class="Body">
<a name="999027"> </a>On the Brush selector bar, you can choose from a list of brush categories. Brush categories are designed with real media in mind, so you can select a tool with an expectation of how it will behave.
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<p id="1002324" class="Body">
<a name="1002324"> </a>Users of previous versions of Corel Painter may notice changes in brush categories and variants. This was done to take advantage of new brush stroke capabilities. If you're looking for a brush from a previous version, you can reload the old brush library. For more information, refer to <a href="02-Workspace13.html#999999">"Loading Alternate Libraries"</a>.
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<p id="999044" class="Body">
<a name="999044"> </a>Here are a few Corel Painter brush categories that apply media:
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<ul>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1004932"> </a><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Liquid Ink</span> brushes combine ink with paint to create a thick, liquid paint effect. Refer to <a href="10-Brushes23.html#1000445">"Setting Liquid Ink Controls"</a> for more information about setting controls for Liquid Ink brushes. </li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1004936"> </a><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Water Color</span> brushes allow you to control the wetness and evaporation rate of the paper to effectively simulate the natural media. Refer to <a href="10-Brushes22.html#1017787">"Setting Water Controls"</a> for more information about setting controls for Water Color brushes. </li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1003282"> </a><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Pens</span>, like the Scratchboard Rake and Bamboo Pen, never clog, spatter, or run dry.</li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="1002376"> </a><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Image Hoses</span> let you paint with multiple images. Image Hose variants are named in a way that tells you which animation parameter and animator is in effect. For example, the Size/P Angle/R Image Hose variant links size to stylus pressure and sets the angle randomly. Refer to <a href="17-Hose4.html#998977">"Using the Image Hose"</a> for more information. </li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="999070"> </a><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Airbrushes</span> apply fine sprays of color. Computed airbrushes carefully mirror the feel of a real airbrush in action.</li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="999082"> </a><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Oils</span> and <span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Acrylics</span><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline"> </span>give effects you'd expect from oil paints and acrylics. All of the variants cover underlying brush strokes, many are capable of multi-colored strokes, and others interact with underlying pixels to create realistic effects.</li>
<p id="1002426" class="ToDoBody">
<a name="1002426"> </a>The Smeary Flat variant in the Oils category combines Bearing sensitivity, Brush Loading, and an inverted Pressure setting for Bleed. This causes the brush to drag underlying pixels more than it applies media, resulting in a very realistic brush stroke.
<a name="1008849"> </a><i>The Smeary Flat brush variant (from the Oils category) illustrates how Bearing, Brush Loading, and an inverted Pressure setting for Bleed combine to give realistic results.
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<p id="999097" class="Body">
<a name="999097"> </a>The following Corel Painter brush categories affect only existing pixels and do not apply media:
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<ul>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="999098"> </a><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Erasers</span> let you remove color down to the paper color or white. You can also use erasers to increase color density, building toward black.</li>
<li class="SmartList1"><a name="999099"> </a><span style="color: #000000; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline">Photo</span> tools can be used for photo correction and manipulation. </li>
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<h3 id="999102" class="Heading2">
<a name="999102"> </a>Using Computed Brushes
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<p id="1008818" class="Body">
<a name="1008818"> </a>Corel Painter includes a batch of Natural-Media brushes that use a media application method called "rendered dab types" to produce "computed" brush strokes. These brushes create wonderfully realistic, continuous, smooth-edged strokes. They are fast and more consistent because the strokes are computed as you draw, not created by applying dabs of color. In fact, you can't draw fast enough to leave dabs or dots of color in a stroke because they're just not there. These brushes allow for rich features that are not possible with dab-based media application. You can take better advantage of tilt and angle, and you can paint with patterns or gradients. For information about using rendered dab types when customizing brushes, refer to <a href="10-Brushes8.html#999028">"Dab Types"</a>.
