Paint with the Mixer Brush

Last updated on Oct 4, 2026

Learn how to use realistic blending techniques to mix colors on the canvas and vary paint wetness across brush strokes in Adobe Photoshop on desktop.

The Mixer Brush tool simulates traditional painting by blending colors directly on the canvas as you paint. Use it when you want to create natural color transitions, apply varied paint wetness, or achieve painting effects that mimic physical media.

The Mixer Brush uses two paint wells: a reservoir that stores high capacity paint and deposits the final color, and a pickup well that continuously samples and mixes colors from the canvas. This dual-well system enables realistic color blending.

Select the Mixer Brush and load paint

Select the Mixer Brush tool from the toolbar.

To load paint into the reservoir, press Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (macOS) on the canvas to sample a color. Alternatively, choose a foreground color from the toolbar.

Note

When sampling paint from the canvas, the brush tip reflects any color variation in the sampled area. To use uniform colors instead, select Load Solid Colors Only from the Current Brush Load pop-up menu in the options bar.

Configure Mixer Brush settings

Choose a brush from the Brushes panel.

In the options bar, select the Current Brush Load swatch to open the pop-up panel.

Select Load Brush to fill the brush with the reservoir color or Clean Brush to remove paint from the brush. To perform these actions automatically after each stroke, select the automatic Load or Clean options.

From the Preset pop-up menu, choose a preset that combines Wet, Load, and Mix settings, or configure each setting individually.

Adjust Wet to control how much paint the brush picks up from the canvas. Higher values produce longer paint streaks.
Adjust Load to specify the amount of paint in the reservoir. Lower values cause strokes to dry out more quickly.
Adjust Mix to control the ratio of canvas paint to reservoir paint. At 100%, all paint comes from the canvas; at 0%, all paint comes from the reservoir.

Select Sample All Layers to pick up color from all visible layers instead of only the current layer.

Apply paint with the Mixer Brush

Drag in the image to paint with the current brush settings.

To paint a straight line, click a starting point in the image, hold down Shift, and click an ending point.

To build up color gradually in one area, hold down the mouse button without dragging. This airbrush technique works when Enable airbrush-style build-up effects is selected in the options bar.

The Mixer Brush continuously blends colors as you paint. Experiment with different Wet, Load, and Mix combinations to achieve a range of painting effects, from subtle glazes to thick impasto strokes.

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