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Pixel brushes

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  1. Adobe Fresco User Guide
  2. Introduction
    1. What's New in Adobe Fresco
    2. What is Adobe Fresco
    3. System Requirements for Adobe Fresco
    4. Release Notes for Adobe Fresco
    5. Adobe Fresco on the iPhone
    6. Keyboard shortcuts
    7. Accessibility in Fresco
    8. Adobe Fresco | Common questions
    9. Get started with the user interface
    10. Upgrade to a paid plan of Adobe Fresco
    11. Upgrade storage for Adobe Fresco
    12. Supported features on iPad and Windows devices
  3. Draw, paint, animate, and share
    1. Layers
    2. Shapes in Adobe Fresco
    3. Pixel brushes
    4. Live brushes
    5. Vector brushes
    6. Mixer brushes
    7. Ribbon brushes
    8. Adjust pressure curve on stylus 
    9. Colors
    10. Paint inside boundaries
    11. Apply motion to artwork
    12. Free Transform tool
    13. Magic Wand tool
    14. Smudge tool
    15. Liquify tool
    16. Add and modify text
    17. Publish, export, and share
    18. Layer masks
    19. Access Creative Cloud libraries in Fresco
    20. Ruler
    21. Erasers
    22. Add your own font
    23. Grids alignment 
  4. Adobe Fresco and Creative Cloud apps
    1. Adobe Fresco and Photoshop
    2. Adobe Fresco and Illustrator
    3. Easily migrate from Draw and Sketch
  5. Cloud documents
    1. Cloud documents in Adobe Fresco
  6. Troubleshooting
    1. Unable to access imported pixel brushes on Windows
    2. Adobe Fresco support for Windows ARM devices
  7. Examples, ideas, and inspiration
    1. Create a logo
    2. Create tie-dye wash effects
    3. Creative illustration | Digital concept art

Learn how to draw, paint, and manage pixel brushes in Adobe Fresco.

Use Pixel Brushes   and Live Brushes   in the toolbar to access the collection of brushes for raster drawing, painting, and sketching. 

You can also import your favorite Photoshop brushes from Kyle T. Webster's ever-growing brush collection.

Discover the joy of painting with thousands of pixel brushes

How to choose and fine-tune a pixel brush

Follow these steps to choose a pixel brush and customize its settings:

  1. Double-tap the Pixel Brushes   icon to view the list of brushes in different categories and choose the brush you like.

  2. Tap on Color to open the color panel and adjust the color and opacity.

  3. From the Tool Options at the bottom of the toolbar, you can change the brush size, flow, and smoothing as required.

  4. Tap the Brush Settings   icon to adjust brush settings like spacing, angle, blend mode, stylus pressure, and more.

When you start drawing with the pixel brush, you'll notice this   icon on the layer thumbnail, indicating that it's a pixel layer.

Note:

You can add a range of mixer brushes to blend and mix multiple colors naturally while using pixel brushes.

Explore and choose from a vast collection of categorized Pixel brushes and mark your favorite ones for quick access.

Explore the various settings to change the default brush form and view the changes live in the preview box. Press the reset button at the bottom to return to the default form.

Tips to customize your pixel brushes

Types of pixel brushes

Brush Type

When to use

Basic

Make standard round brushes to create basic drawings.

Comics

Adobe Illustrator Draw comics using Cross Hatch and Halftone brushes.

Charcoal

Make gesture studies, loose sketches, or figure construction.

Dry Media

Blend sketches with paintings using Pencil, Pastel, Graphite, Crayon, and Chalk brushes.

FX

Create artwork with special effects using Clouds, Dusty, Foliage, and Ink brushes.

Ink

Create calligraphic artwork using Comics, Brush, Blake, Fountain pens, and Belgian and Classic comic brushes.

Lettering

Design sign paintings, calligraphic, blueprints, and posters using Chisel, Chunk, Comics letterer, Gritty, and Letter Rake brushes.

Marker

Render your ideas with realistic digital markers using Marker Brush and Chisel brushes.

Mixer

Mix colors on the canvas and combine colors on a brush.

Painting

Design various paintings using Canvas, Cezanne, Bristle, and Blair brushes.

Rakes

Create multi-line strokes on canvas using Grit, Short, Textured, Tilt, and Pressure brushes.

Sketching

Make sketches before painting using Pencil and Pen sketching brushes.

Pixel brush settings

As you change a setting, you can preview the effect live while drawing in the Brush Settings panel. Tap on the reset icon, at the bottom of the panel, to go back to the default settings. You can also adjust the pressure curve for better stylus pressure.

Hardness

Use the slider to adjust the size of the hard center of your brush. The brush stroke is blurred at the minimum value, while the clarity of the brush stroke is sharp and clear at the maximum value.

Spacing

Use the slider to adjust the spaces in your brush strokes. The brush stroke is continuous at the minimum value, while the brush stroke is separated like a dotted line at the maximum value.

Angle

Use the slider to tweak the angle of your brush so you can draw chiseled strokes. The roundness of your brush tip should be a smaller value for getting brush strokes with sharper angles.

Blend mode

Choose an option to set how two colors blend.

Control the color blend while drawing on the same layer

Scattering

Choose how you want the brush tip to scatter along the axes to create a spraylike stroke.

Color dynamics

Enhance any paint's color, hue, saturation, brightness, jitter settings, and color dynamics while drawing any stroke.

Transform your designs using brush settings like Hue jitter, Saturation Jitter, and more

To modify your color dynamics, tap on Brush settings and then on Color dynamics to pick one of the brush options from below: 

Brush settings

Used to

Off

Specify no control over the color variance of brush marks.

Fade

Vary the color of paint between the foreground color and the background color.

Pen Pressure / Pen Tilt / Stylus Wheel / Rotation

Modify the paint color between the foreground and background colors based on the pen pressure, tilt, position, or rotation.

Hue Jitter

Define a percentage by which the paint hue can vary in a stroke. Type a number, or use the slider to enter a value. 

Saturation Jitter

Choose a percentage by which the paint saturation can vary in a stroke. Type a number, or use the slider to enter a value. 

Brightness Jitter

Mention a percentage by which the paint brightness can vary in a stroke. Type a number, or use the slider to enter a value.

Purity

Increase or decrease the saturation of the color. Type a number, or use the slider to enter a percentage between –100 and 100.

Apply per tip

Specify changing color for each distinct tip stamp in a stroke. If unchecked, dynamic changes occur once at the beginning of each stroke.
Note:

To set a percentage by which the paint color can vary, type a number, or use the slider to enter a value. 

Shape Dynamics

Set the size and roundness of the brush.

Import more pixel brushes

Photoshop pixel brushes are industry-standard brushes. In addition to the default pixel brushes, import Photoshop brushes saved to your library, or choose from the vast collection of celebrated brushmaker Kyle T. Webster.

Follow these steps to import more pixel brushes:

  1. Select the + icon at the bottom of the Pixel Brushes panel.

  2. Do the following:

    • For Kyle T. Webster's brushes, select Discover new brushes and sign in to adobe.com.
    • For your favorite pixel brushes, select Import from files, navigate to the downloaded file, and select the file.
Kyle T. Webster brushes for Creative Cloud members
Kyle T. Webster brushes for Creative Cloud members

Manage brushes

You can hide all the brushes you never use by hiding entire Pixel brush categories or any individual brushes within categories.

Note:

At least one brush collection must be visible. You cannot hide all of your brush collections.

Brush management
Brush management

Follow these steps to manage your brushes:

  1. Tap Pixel brushes   

  2. Tap the More options   icon in the upper-right corner, and then tap Manage pixel brushes.

  3. Select the category of brushes that you want to hide and toggle the setting to off. You can also hide specific brushes within a category.

  4. Tap the Show all or Hide all options at the bottom, to show, or hide all the pixel brushes.

Hide and show brushes

Brush stamp preview

Brush stamp preview enables you to use pixel brushes and erasers more precisely by creating patterns the moment your finger or pencil touches the screen surface. Your brush stamp preview is set to Off by default.

Note:

Live brushes or Vector erasers can also use the brush stamp preview feature.

Enable brush stamp preview
Enable brush stamp preview

Follow these steps to enable the brush stamp preview:

  1. Select Settings > App settings. 

  2. Choose Input > Brushes. You can increase or decrease the stamp size by altering the brush size. 

  3. Set the Brush Preview indicator, which is set to Off by default, to Brush stamp. 

  4. Click Pixel brushes   icon, select any brush from the menu, and pick a color from the Color wheel.

  5. Touch down the canvas and see that the stamp preview has a clear outline for identification.

  6. Move around and with every stroke see the stamp preview.

Here are some sample previews of brush stamps: 

Sample preview of brush stamp with pixel brushes

Sample preview of brush stamp as oil paint

related resources

Now that you've started drawing, painting, and working with pixel brushes, take a step forward and learn about live brushes, mixer brushes, and vector brushes.

Talk to us

If you have a question to ask or an idea to share, we would love to hear from you. Share your thoughts with the Adobe Fresco Community.

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