Brush Studio
The full parameter editor for whichever preset is active in the Brushes panel: every slider that shapes how a brush paints.
Brush Studio edits the preset that is currently selected in the Brushes panel, in place. There is no OK or Cancel, and changes apply as you make them. The Name field at the top of General renames the preset.
Opening it
Open it from Window ▸ Brush Studio. It is off by default. Four tabs run across the top: General, Dynamics, Texture and Sub Brushes. A Reset button at the foot of the panel puts the preset back to the engine defaults.
Preview and Scratchpad
Above the tabs sits one area with two tabs of its own. Preview shows a sample stroke of the brush as you edit it. Scratchpad is a small sheet where you can try the brush for real, at the size you work at, without putting a mark on your artwork. Soft edges look there exactly as they do on the canvas, and brushes that react to speed behave the same way. The scratchpad clears when you pick a different brush.
General
| Parameter | Range | Default | What it changes on canvas |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | text | the preset's name | Renames the preset. This is the only place a preset is renamed |
| Size | 1 to 500 px | 30 px | The diameter of each dab, in canvas pixels |
| Accumulation | 0 to 100% | 100% | A ceiling for the whole stroke: passing back over the same spot within one stroke cannot push past it |
| Hardness | 0 to 100% | 80% | How soft the tip's edge fades: 0 is fully feathered, 100 is a hard edge. Procedural tip only |
| Spacing | 0 to 100% | 10% | The gap between dabs, as a percentage of the brush's size |
| Flow | 0 to 100% | 100% | How much paint each dab lays down. Below 50% the brush builds up in translucent passes instead of one flat coat, which is what makes a brush like Airbrush accumulate |
| Shape | 0 to 100% | 100% | Roundness of the procedural tip: 100 is a circle, lower values squash it into an ellipse. Procedural tip only |
| Rotation | -180 to +180° | 0° | Fixed rotation applied to the tip |
| Blend Mode | Normal, Dissolve, Behind, Clear, Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, Linear Burn, Darker Color, Lighten, Screen, Color Dodge, Linear Dodge (Add), Lighter Color, Overlay, Soft Light, Hard Light, Vivid Light, Linear Light, Pin Light, Hard Mix, Difference, Exclusion, Subtract, Divide, Hue, Saturation, Color, Luminosity | Normal | How the brush colour blends with what is already on the canvas. All modes run on the graphics card, in Pixel Mode and for watercolor too. The Brush tool options bar has the same list. Painting onto empty canvas looks the same in every mode, since there is nothing yet to blend with |
| Wet Edges | None / Light / Medium / Heavy | None | Darkens the rim of the stroke the way ink pools at the edge of a wet mark. Custom, beside it, hands the falloff to the curve button next to it |
| Behavior | Paint / Smudge / Deform / Fill | Paint | Which engine path the brush uses: see Brush behaviours |
| Anti-alias | on / off | on | Off gives every dab a hard, aliased edge, which is what a pixel-art brush wants |
| Taper | 0 to 100% | 70% | Thins the two ends of a stroke. It only bites on devices that report no pressure, such as a mouse or a trackpad, or when Pen Pressure is off on the Brush bar; a stylus supplies its own taper and this stays out of its way |
| Tilt Flank | 0 to 400 px | per preset | The width the brush paints when the pen is laid right over, for tips shaped like a cone. 0 keeps one width at every angle |
Tilt Flank is in pixels rather than a percentage, because the side of a lead is the same length however sharp its point. The pencils, charcoal, chalk and crayon use it to shade with the side of the lead.
The rows that belong to one behaviour
Below Anti-alias, General grows a small block that belongs to the behaviour you chose, and nothing else.
| Behaviour | Rows it adds | Defaults |
|---|---|---|
| Paint | Impasto, Pigment, Pigment Strength, Mix | 0%, off, 85%, 0% |
| Smudge | Smudge, Mix | 0%, 0% |
| Deform | Type (Pinch / Push / Twirl / Bulb), Strength | Pinch, 35% |
| Fill | Fill Pattern (Solid / Screentone / Hatch / Cross-hatch / Grunge), Scale (0.25x to 4x) | Solid, 1.00x |
| Parameter | What it changes on canvas |
|---|---|
| Impasto | Builds up paint thickness along the stroke and lights it with a relief effect, the way real paint catches the light |
| Pigment | Mixes the brush colour with what is already there the way physical paint mixes, subtractively, instead of the usual additive blend |
| Pigment Strength | How much of that subtractive mix is used. It greys out while Pigment is off |
| Mix (on a Paint brush) | The dirty brush: how much of the colour already under the tip the stroke picks up and carries along, so a light stroke over a dark one drags some of the dark with it instead of covering it cleanly |
| Mix (on a Smudge brush) | Widens the pick-up from a backward line into a ring, so the stroke disperses colour in a cloud rather than dragging it along the path |
| Smudge | How much of the colour under the tip is carried forward |
| Strength (Deform) | How strong the displacement is inside the tip's footprint |
Dynamics
Every row on this tab is the same shape: the parameter's name, a source, an amount and a response-curve button. The source is None, Pressure, Velocity, Tilt, Direction, Random, Fade, Random (stroke) or Barrel rotation, and None is what leaves the row switched off. See Brush dynamics for how the amount and the curve combine and how to edit the curve itself.
Twelve parameters can be driven: Size, Accumulation, Flow, Rotation, Scatter X, Scatter Y, Hardness, Shape, Hue, Saturation, Luminosity and Impasto. Hardness and Shape grey out on a nozzle brush for the same reason they do in General, and Impasto only comes alive on a Paint behaviour.
Right-click a row for Second layer, which gives that one parameter a second source stacked on the first: pressure for the bulk of the movement and a little Random on top, for instance. The menu item turns into Remove once the second layer is there, and a second layer set to an amount of 0 stays on screen rather than vanishing under the cursor mid-edit.
Texture
This tab holds the two image inputs: the nozzles the brush stamps, and the paper it stamps them on.
Nozzles
The strip at the top shows the nozzles this brush uses. Add opens the full tip library; Remove drops the selected one. A brush with no nozzle at all is the round procedural tip, which is what makes Hardness and Shape meaningful.
| Parameter | Values | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Selection | Random / Sequential / Pressure / Direction | Random | How the next nozzle is chosen when there is more than one. A curve button beside it shapes the choice |
| Interpolate | on / off | on | Blends between two nozzles instead of switching hard from one to the next |
Both rows grey out while the brush carries a single nozzle: there is nothing to choose between.
Base texture
A preview square shows the paper, with Set Texture, Remove and Invert beside it. Set Texture opens the paper library. The brush ships with no base texture, so the rows below stay grey until you choose one. Moving grain is the exception: it only needs some grain, so it stays live on a brush whose grain comes from its own tip, such as a pencil.
| Parameter | Values | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invert | on / off | off | Flips the texture's light and dark, so the tooth falls where the hollows were |
| Type | Multiply / Final | Multiply | Multiply works the texture into each dab; Final applies it once to the finished stroke |
| Scale | 0.1x to 4x | 1.00x | Size of the paper grain relative to the canvas |
| Grain (paper) | 0 to 100% | 0% | How strongly the texture modulates each dab's opacity, so the stroke picks up the paper's tooth |
| Moving grain | on / off | off | Makes the texture travel with the brush instead of staying put on the canvas, so it drags into streaks, like a dry brush or chalk pulled over paper. It greys out while Grain (paper) is 0 or Type is Final |
See Brush tips and paper for what is in the two libraries and how to add your own.
Sub Brushes
A sub brush is a second brush stamped along the same stroke as the first, which is how one preset lays down a core line and a halo, or ink and its own spatter, in a single pass. The tab opens empty with a single Add button; once there is one, the list sits on the left with Add and Remove beneath it and the selected sub brush's settings on the right.
| Parameter | Values | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Drawing | At current nozzle / Behind / In front | Where the sub brush's dab lands relative to the main one |
| Blending | Blend / Add / Subtract | How its colour combines with the main dab |
| Sync size | on / off | Ties the sub brush's size to the main brush's, which greys the Size row below it |
| Size | 1 to 500 px | Its own size, when Sync size is off |
| Sync spacing | on / off | Ties its spacing to the main brush's, which greys the Spacing row |
| Spacing | 0 to 100% | Its own spacing, when Sync spacing is off |
| Flow | 0 to 100% | How much paint its dabs lay down |
A new sub brush starts from the main brush's own size and spacing, so it lands on top of the stroke you already have and you adjust from there rather than from nothing.