Mixer Brush Tool

Mixer Brush Tool

Learn to use the Mixer Brush Tool in Adobe Photoshop.

When to use

The Mixer Brush is a great tool that can be used to emulate a real-world brush that gives you control over the dryness and wetness of the brush.

Instructions

Start with Your Photo

• We will start by opening our Photoshop file containing the landscape/nature photos. 
• Choose one of the images you'd like to work with by turning on the visibility of that folder.
• Select the top layer and press Command/Ctrl+Alt/Option+Shift+E on the keyboard.
• This will merge all of your layers into a new layer at the top of your Layers Panel.
• Double click on the 'Layer 1' text and rename this layer something like 'Sample'.

Sampling From a Photo

• Click and hold on the Brush Tool in the toolbar, or press Shift+B on the keyboard until you have the Mixer Brush Tool selected.
• Along the toolbar at the top you will have options to 'Load Brush After Each Stroke' and 'Clean Brush After Each Stroke'.
• For now, we will leave both of those deselected. 
• Instead, click on the dropdown menu to choose 'Dry, Heavy Load' for the brush type. 
• Make the brush larger by holding down the right bracket key to scale it up.
• Hold the Alt/Option Key and click over a portion of the photo that you'd like to sample from the 'Sample' layer.
• Notice that your brush preview along the top toolbar now shows the area of the image that has been sampled.

Painting With the Mixer Brush 

• Press Command/Ctrl+Alt/Option+Shift+N to create a New Layer at the top of your Layers Palette.
• Press 'D' on the keyboard, and with black as your foreground color, use the keyboard shortcut Command/Ctrl+Delete to fill the new layer with solid black. 
• You can now begin brushing on this black layer and you will see that you are creating 3D-looking brush strokes.
• Instead of painting with the 'Dry' brushes, try changing this to the 'Very wet' brush and continue painting.
• You will notice that the wet brush has a smoother appearance, and this can be very useful for blending from one stroke into another. 
• Using the wet brush will also pick up some of the background color, so if you click on your background and begin dragging the brush, you should see some of the black being applied to the brush stroke as well. 
• If your brush preview has changed and you want to reset it, click on the small icon along the top toolbar to clean the brush.

Filling Text With the Mixer Brush

• After cleaning the brush, fill the black layer with solid color once again.
• Turn off the visibility of the solid black layer, and then use the 'Sample' layer to sample another part of the photo.
• Turn the visibility of the black layer back on.
• Press 'T' to switch to the Type Tool.
• Click in the middle of the canvas and type out a single letter (in this example I am using the letter 'A').
• Scale the letter up by pressing Command/Ctrl+T and clicking and dragging outwards from any of the four corners of the bounding box.
• Reposition the letter so it's in the center of the canvas. 
• Hold the Command/Ctrl Key and click on the layer thumbnail icon to activate a selection around the letter.
• Once you see the marching ants indicating the active selection around the letter, turn off the visibility of the type layer.
• Select the solid black layer and add a new layer on top.
• Begin painting on your new layer with the Mixer Brush Tool using a dry brush to begin filling the letter with brush strokes.
• If for any reason your colors are defaulting to black and white, you will need to resample the photo from the 'Sample' layer once again before turning the black layer back on and painting inside the letter.

Hints & tips

• When using the Mixer Brush Tool, the Dry Brushes will create harder, distinct edges, whereas the Wet Brushes will create smoother strokes that are good for blending.
• Some of the other settings for the Mixer Brush Tool can also be useful such as the 'Load' option. This refers to how much paint will be on the brush with each stroke.
• If you begin picking up unwanted colors when using the Mixer Brush Tool, click on the small icon along the top toolbar to clean the brush.