Tap and hold the brush 
icon from the toolbar to bring up the Brushes panel.
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- Photoshop User Guide
- Introduction to Photoshop
- Photoshop and other Adobe products and services
- Photoshop on the iPad (not available in mainland China)
- Photoshop on the iPad | Common questions
- Get to know the workspace
- System requirements | Photoshop on the iPad
- Create, open, and export documents
- Add photos
- Work with layers
- Draw and paint with brushes
- Make selections and add masks
- Retouch your composites
- Work with adjustment layers
- Adjust the tonality of your composite with Curves
- Apply transform operations
- Crop and rotate your composites
- Rotate, pan, zoom, and reset the canvas
- Work with Type layers
- Work with Photoshop and Lightroom
- Get missing fonts in Photoshop on the iPad
- Japanese Text in Photoshop on the iPad
- Manage app settings
- Touch shortcuts and gestures
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Edit your image size
- Livestream as you create in Photoshop on the iPad
- Correct imperfections with the Healing Brush
- Create brushes in Capture and use them in Photoshop
- Work with Camera Raw files
- Create and work with Smart Objects
- Adjust exposure in your images with Dodge and Burn
- Photoshop on the web (not available in mainland China)
- Common questions
- System requirements
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Supported file types
- Introduction to the workspace
- Open and work with cloud documents
- Generative AI features
- Basic concepts of editing
- Quick Actions
- Work with layers
- Retouch images and remove imperfections
- Make quick selections
- Image improvements with Adjustment Layers
- Move, transform, and crop images
- Draw and paint
- Work with Type layers
- Work with anyone on the web
- Manage app settings
- Photoshop (beta) (not available in mainland China)
- Generative AI (not available in mainland China)
- Content authenticity (not available in mainland China)
- Cloud documents (not available in mainland China)
- Photoshop cloud documents | Common questions
- Photoshop cloud documents | Workflow questions
- Manage and work with cloud documents in Photoshop
- Upgrade cloud storage for Photoshop
- Unable to create or save a cloud document
- Solve Photoshop cloud document errors
- Collect cloud document sync logs
- Invite others to edit your cloud documents
- Share files and comment in-app
- Workspace
- Workspace basics
- Preferences
- Learn faster with the Photoshop Discover Panel
- Create documents
- Place files
- Default keyboard shortcuts
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- Use the Touch Bar with Photoshop
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- Invalid JPEG Marker error | Opening images
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- Match colors in your image
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- Customize indexed color tables
- Image information
- Distort filters are unavailable
- About color
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- Get started with selections
- Make selections in your composite
- Select and Mask workspace
- Select with the marquee tools
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- Drawing and painting
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- About drawing
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- Create and modify brushes
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- Text
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- Troubleshooting
Learn how to use default brushes to draw and paint with Photoshop on the iPad.
With Photoshop on the iPad, you can draw and paint with brushes — whenever, wherever inspiration strikes.
Not sure where to begin? Start with selecting a brush type to create your composite.
How to choose a brush type
1. Tap 
from the toolbar to select the brush tool.
2. A small triangle in the lower right corner of the brush icon represents hidden tool options. Long press the brush icon to reveal the Brushes panel.
3. In the Brushes panel that opens, you can scroll through a list of default brush types. Tap to select the desired brush type and apply to the canvas.
Note: The brush type used in your previous session remains selected when you use the brush tool again. You can always come back to the Brushes panel and change your brush.
Quickly adjust brush properties
You can adjust brush properties from the floating options panel to suit your creative work.
To bring up the tool options, simply tap the brush icon from the toolbar.
From the tool options, tap an icon to select the attribute and modify:
- Color chip: The color chip allows you to choose a color from the color picker, enter a hex color code, or enter numbers for HSB, RGB, Lab, or CMYK colors. You can swipe the color chip vertically to easily switch between the foreground and background colors.
- Brush size: The brush size option allows you to choose the diameter of your brush, which can vary in size from 1 to 1000 pixels. As you vary the brush size, you can also see the brush tip preview beside the tool options bar.
- Opacity: The opacity option sets the maximum transparency of the color you apply per brush stroke. 100% opacity represents opaqueness. As you paint over an area, the opacity doesn't exceed the set level until you complete the stroke (even when you paint over an area several times).
- Hardness: The hardness setting controls the size of the brush’s hard center. Select a value that is a percentage of the brush diameter.
- More brush settings: Tap the three dots icon to bring up the settings panel. To learn more about brush settings, see More brush settings.
Apply more brush settings
To access more Brush settings, tap the three dots (
) icon at the bottom of the tool options bar. You can modify more brush settings as desired:
- Blend mode: The blend mode determines how the active layer blends with the layers below it. Tap the blend mode icon to see a list of available modes. For more information, see Blending modes.
- Roundness: The roundness setting specifies the ratio between the brush’s short and long axes. Select a percentage value. A value of 100% indicates a circular brush, a value of 0% indicates a linear brush, and intermediate values indicate elliptical brushes.
- Angle: The angle setting specifies the angle by which an elliptical or sampled brush’s long axis is rotated from horizontal. Select a value in degrees.
- Flow: Flow sets the rate at which color is applied on your canvas as you move your finger or stylus over an area in your document.
- Smoothing: Smoothing produces smoother curves in brush strokes. Higher values apply increasing amounts of intelligent smoothing to your strokes. This option is most effective when you are painting quickly with a stylus; however, it may produce a slight lag time in stroke rendering.
- Use pressure for size: Selecting Use pressure for size varies the diameter of the brush based on the brush pressure applied while painting.
- Use pressure for opacity: Selecting Use pressure for opacity varies the opacity of the brush based on the brush pressure applied while painting.
You can now bring all your custom brushes into Photoshop on the iPad. Follow these simple steps to load your favorite brushes in Photoshop on the iPad:
-
-
In the Brushes panel, tap the '+' icon at the bottom to load more custom brushes while you work:
Discover new brushes: Use this option to discover and download hundreds of free brushes to work with.
On selecting Discover new brushes, you are taken to the Kyle Webster page in your web browser. You need to be signed in to see the brushes. Once you download an ABR brush file, you can simply tap and open it in Photoshop on your iPad from the iOS files app directly. You can also add it by tapping the '+' icon from within the Photoshop app.
Import from files: Add any supported ABR brush file by tapping the brush file saved on your device.
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In the Brushes panel, tap the three dots (
) icon at the upper right corner to manage your brushes:Manage brushes: Opens the Manage brushes panel.
Reset to default brushes: Resets your Brushes panel to show the default brushes only.
Learn More: Leads you to the Helpx article that describes all of the features that are part of the Brushes panel in Photoshop on the iPad.
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Additionally, in the Manage brushes panel:
- You can tap the three dots () icon at the upper right corner to Import from files and Reset to default brushes.
- You can tap the three dots () icon beside a brush category to see the following options — Rename brush group and Delete brush group. You can also rename or delete specific brushes within a category.
- You can control the visibility of your brushes with the hide/show toggle button, present beside a brush. Turn on the brushes that you want to view and use on the go. Disabling a brush doesn’t delete the brush but only turns off its visibility.
Tap Done to save your changes.
- You can tap the three dots (
You can now use a brush you wish in any of your Photoshop documents and unleash your creativity.
You can also create your own brush in Adobe Capture and import it in Photoshop on your iPad. To learn more, see Create brushes in Capture and use them in Photoshop.
Adjust Pencil pressure sensitivity
In Photoshop on the iPad, you can adjust the pressure sensitivity of your Apple Pencil for a more precise brushing experience while compositing. To manage Apple pencil settings, do the following:
- Tap the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the home screen.
- In the App settings dialog, choose Input > Apple Pencil.
- Under Apple Pencil, set the Pressure sensitivity slider to make your brushing experience perfect while working in Photoshop on the iPad.
At the Light end of the slider range, you get dense brush strokes with soft pressure applied on the Pencil, while at the Heavy end of the slider range you need to apply firm pressure on the Pencil to achieve dense brush strokes. It is easier to obtain fine brush strokes when the slider is set toward the Heavy end and bold brush strokes when the slider is set toward the Light end. - Choose the appropriate amount of sensitivity to get the desired effect. Close the App Settings dialog when done and start using brushes on your composite.
Use touch shortcuts
While using the Brush tool you can activate the primary touch shortcut to access the Eraser version of your Brush, and activate the secondary touch shortcut to switch to the Eyedropper tool.
To know more about how to use the touch shortcut, see Touch shortcuts and gestures.
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