Photoshop Art History Brush Questions

[John Newton]

After the previous excellent art history brush tutorial, I started playing with this for the first time and subsequently have a few questions for the experts.
1. The art history brush doesn't seem to want to let me paint over the entire image, but seems to arbitrarily mask out areas. Is there some control or threshold I over this I'm missing?
2. Is it possible to automatically apply strokes to an area (like Painter?)
3. Is it possible to stroke a selection or path?
4. What is your preferred art history brush for mimicking a long brush stroke? Despite fiddling with the controls, the art history brush "long" stroke looks more like a sqiggly worm; not quite as naturalistic as a brush stroke.
5. Is it possible to define new variants ie (medium loose; short & curl)
6. Does anyone know how to effectively use the dual-brush option with this? This seems to be an intriguing approach, but not used by many folks.

Thanks for any help/advice you have

John

[DannyRaphael]

Hi John:

Full disclosure: I've used the Art History Brush maybe a dozon or so times, so don't confuse me by any stretch as exceptionally knowledgeable with this tool.

Given the above here's a swipe at your questions based on what I know (or at least believe)... Perhaps we'll get a few more willing to take a bite at the apple later on.

...A few questions... :
1. The art history brush doesn't seem to want to let me paint over the entire image, but seems to arbitrarily mask out areas. Is there some control or threshold I over this I'm missing?
* Not that I know of. The results you’re getting (not getting) might be a function of the Tolerance setting. According to the HELP text, “A low tolerance lets you paint unlimited strokes anywhere in the image. A high tolerance limits paint strokes to areas that differ considerably from the color in the source state or snapshot.” Might be somehow related to the combination of brush size youre using and the value specified in the Area parameter.

2. Is it possible to automatically apply strokes to an area (like Painter?).
* I’ve only dabbled in Painter, but I believe the answer is, “No” if you mean can one apply the Art History Brush effect to an entire layer all at once in small increments until satisfied with the degree of application, then stop. It’s a manual, “apply it where you want it” kind of deal.

3. Is it possible to stroke a selection or path?
* I’m ass-u-me-ing you mean apply the Art History Brush to a selection or path. If true, yes for the selection. For the path, you’d probably have to convert the path to a selection first.
* Why I’m picking fly specks out of pepper: The term “Stroking a path” is sometimes associated with applying the EDIT > STROKE command to a path, which I believe is doable if the path is converted to a selection.

4. What is your preferred art history brush for mimicking a long brush stroke? Despite fiddling with the controls, the art history brush "long" stroke looks more like a sqiggly worm; not quite as naturalistic as a brush stroke.
* I generally stick to “Tight Short” or “Dab.” The rest (to me) render results that are “Way too weird” for me. With PS7, the additional brush options open up the possibilities considerably. I just installed PS7 a couple days ago, so I’m barely up to speed in this dimension.

5. Is it possible to define new variants ie (medium loose; short & curl)
* Not as far as I know. Variations will come (now) from PS7 brush settings / options.

6. Does anyone know how to effectively use the dual-brush option with this? This seems to be an intriguing approach, but not used by many folks.
* Not sure what you mean by this one. Is “dual-brush” a PS7 feature?

Hope this helps...

~Danny~