Brushes panel
The preset library for every brush. Pick the one you are painting with, or build a new one from a card you already like.
The Brushes panel is a grid of preset cards. Whichever card is selected here is the brush the active painting tool paints with, and the one Brush Studio edits.
The four painting tools each own a preset, not one shared between them: Brush, Pencil, Eraser and Smudge remember their own card and get it back when you pick the tool again, in this session and the next. Choosing a tool therefore re-selects its preset in this panel, and the category column jumps to the family that tool draws from. Picking a card while one of the four is active reassigns that tool's preset.
Opening it
Open it from Window ▸ Brushes. It is on by default.
Categories and cards
A category column on the left opens with two fixed rows, All and Favorites, followed by every preset tag, in the order they first appear: Pencil, Ink, Paint, Watercolor, Pixel, Texture, Bristle, Fill, Deform and Effects among the shipped presets. Choosing a category filters the card grid to it.
Each card shows a small stroke preview and the preset's name. Click a card to make it the active brush; the selected card gets a green accent border. The preview is laid down exactly the way the canvas paints, at the brush's own spacing and tone, so a pale brush looks pale on its card and a pixel brush shows its hard edge.
Favorites
All and Favorites are part of the column rather than tags: neither can be renamed or deleted, because neither exists as data. All drops the filter; Favorites narrows the grid to the presets you have starred.
Star a preset from its right-click menu, with Add to Favorites, or by dragging its card onto the Favorites row. Dragging onto any other row retags the preset and moves it; dragging onto Favorites only sets the flag, so a starred brush keeps the category it was already in. Right-click a starred card for Remove from Favorites.
A starred preset draws a small star in the top-right corner of its card, which is how you tell one apart while browsing All rather than having to open the Favorites row. The flag is saved with the brush library, so it survives a restart.
The behaviour badge
A small icon sits in the top-left corner of every card, on a dark rounded plate so it stays legible over whatever the thumbnail behind it happens to be. It names the preset's behaviour, the setting in Brush Studio ▸ General that decides which engine the brush paints with.
| Badge | Behaviour | What that preset does |
|---|---|---|
| Paint | Paint | Lays down the brush colour. The default, and what every watercolour brush uses |
| Smudge | Smudge | Drags the colour already on the canvas |
| Deform | Deform | Warps the pixels under the tip without adding colour |
| Fill | Fill | Fills the area the outline you drag encloses |
A stroke preview cannot show any of this: a smudge, a deform and a fill preset can all leave the same-looking mark, so the card used to say nothing about which tool it actually is. See Brush behaviours for what each one changes.
Creating, duplicating and deleting
Right-click a card, or empty space in the grid, for New, Duplicate and Delete.
- New adds a fresh preset named "New Brush", tagged "Custom", selects it and switches the category column to All
- Duplicate copies the right-clicked preset, appending " copy" to its name, and inserts it right after the original
- Delete removes the right-clicked preset, disabled when it is the only preset left
- Save writes the whole library to disk, and is only enabled while something is actually unsaved
- New Category moves the right-clicked preset onto a tag of your own, which is how a category gains members and how an empty one disappears
The same commands are on the library menu: the small button tucked directly under the category column. It acts on the library the categories organise, which is why it sits with them rather than across the bottom of the panel.
The library menu also carries Import Set and Export Set. Exporting from a category writes just that category; exporting from the Favorites row writes just the starred presets, and names the file Favorites.cbrushset. There is no search field. Renaming a preset happens in Brush Studio, where the name field sits above its parameters.
What ships with Celas Studio
Celas Studio ships with 109 presets across ten categories:
| Category | Presets |
|---|---|
| Pencil | Pencil Hard, the graphite leads Pencil 4H, 2H, H, HB, B, 2B, 4B, 6B and 8B, Charcoal, Crayon, Graphite Stick, Sketch Pencil, Carbon Pencil, Vine Charcoal, Charcoal Stick, Conte Crayon, Soft Pastel, Oil Pastel, Mechanical Pencil and Coloured Pencil |
| Ink | Technical Pen, Ink Pen, Ink Brush, Sumi Flat, Dry Ink, Calligraphy, Marker, Felt Tip, Brush Pen, Wet Ink, Sketch Ink and Ink Spatter |
| Paint | Round Soft, Round Hard, Airbrush, Oil Bristle, Gouache Flat, Chalk, Spray, Oil Filbert, Bristle Round, Oil Glaze, Dry Bristle, Palette Knife, Sponge, Acrylic, Scumble and Dry Scratch |
| Watercolor | WC Round, WC Wash, WC Heavy, WC Flat, WC Dry Brush, WC Wet Edge, WC Bloom, WC Granulate, WC Soft Blend, WC Glaze, WC Pooled, WC Long Stroke, WC Ring and WC Splatter |
| Pixel | Pixel 1px, Pixel Pen and Pixel Dither |
| Texture | Foliage, Foliage Sparse, Grass, Stone, Gravel, Rock Face, Cracks, Brick, Fur, Fur Rough, Hair, Spots, Skin Pores, Debris, Scratches, Grunge and Cloud |
| Bristle | Bristle Stipple, Bristle Hatch, Bristle Crosshatch, Bristle Comb, Pencil Hatch and Pencil Crosshatch |
| Fill | Solid Fill, Screentone Fill, Hatch Fill, Cross-hatch Fill and Grunge Fill |
| Deform | Pinch, Bulb, Twirl CW and Push (drag) |
| Effects | Sparkle, Bokeh, Light Streak, Rain, Snow, Smoke, Fog, Fire, Paint Drips and Petals |
Pencil Hard is the one the Pencil tool seeds from on its first use. It is a hard, aliased line that keeps its width and varies in darkness, which is what pencil means on a bitmap layer and what keeps the tool from feeling like a second Brush. The graphite leads below it draw like real graphite, with a grain that comes from the lead rather than from a paper texture.
Most of the library answers to pen tilt. Lean the pen over and a round brush opens onto its side; pencils, charcoal, chalk and crayon shade with the side of the lead; the Marker's chisel turns with the way you lean. Foliage and Stone stamp real leaves and stones, the Fur and Hair brushes paint along the stroke, and every watercolour lays one continuous wash.
Your library is a file of its own beside the application's settings, loaded at startup and written back at exit. New presets, edits you make in Brush Studio, custom tags and deletions all come back next session. A card with unsaved edits is marked, and Save on the right-click menu writes them out immediately rather than waiting for the exit.