Using the Art History Brush

Tutorial by Jim Caffrey

Step 1. Open your photograph and adjust it to your liking. I recommend that you resize the image to its final size before beginning to use the Art History Brush. This allows you to see the effect just as your intended audience will. For this tutorial, I resized the image to approximately 5” X 7”.

Step 2. Flatten the image if you have added layers making adjustments and then make a duplicate image. In the duplicate image, add a blank layer above the background.

This layer is labeled "Layer 1" in the screen shot

Step 3. Open the History Palette and check the box alongside "Duplicate Image"

This identifies the image from which the History Brush will take it's information.

At this point, the Duplicate Image layer should have an Icon of the Art History Brush in its check box and the New Layer should be the active layer.

Set its perimeters in the tool bar at the top of your screen.

The Art History Brush has a tendency to spread its effect over a much larger area than one tends to anticipate so I suggest that you set its perimeters to small units and then increase them if you desire. See the screen shot for my selections.

Step 5. Try a test area on your photo. Select a small area and use the brush on it. Now, go to Edit/Fade Art History Brush and adjust the opacity to your liking and make a note of the percentage level..

On the toolbar, reset the brush opacity level to the same percentage as the Edit/Fade Art History Brush level. You are now ready to begin painting.

Step 6. Paint the image with the Art History Brush. In general, I try to stroke the brush in the direction that the elements of the photograph seem to suggest. I also vary the brush size depending on the size of the elements that I am painting.

Step 7. When you have completed painting the photograph with the Art History Brush you may want to try varying the opacity of the layer for a more pleasing result.

Step 8: If you want to bring back more detail, duplicate the background layer and move it to the top level. With the new layer active, go to Filter/Blur/SmartBlur. I set the Radius to 4.5, Threshold to 42.2., Quality to Low, and the Mode to Edge Only.

After clicking OK, I inverted the layer (Ctrl/Cmd I) and set the Layer Mode to Softlight. I then varied the opacity of the layer to arrive at an image that pleased me.

In this step as in others, different photographs and different opinions will benefit from using other levels for the settings in this tutorial.

Here is the finished image.