Photoshop 101 - The History Brush Tool
The History Brush Tool allows you to paint and reveal previous states of images. This can be very useful in creating effects.
Revealing previous states of images
If you are familiar with the brush tool and layers this will be simple. I am going to artwork an image of a Kingfisher to bring out the colours of the feathers. The original image was taken by NatureatYourBackyard over on Flickr.
In this example I am going to turn the image black and white and then bring the kingfisher forward in colour. To turn the image black and white go to Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer. In the bottom right hand corner there is a checkbox called Monochrome. Check this and the image will go black and white.
Open up the History pane by going to Window > History. You will see the last item should be Channel Mixer. Now we are going to use the History Brush Tool to bring the colour forward. Select the History Brush by hitting Y on the keyboard. In the history panel we need to define which History Item we will be using to paint with. Next to each history item is a small box. Click in the box and you will see the history brush icon appear. Now you can paint back what was in that layer.
In the example below you will see I have painted back in the colour for the Kingfisher. I started with a wide brush and used a fine point brush to finish the details and edges of the Kingfisher.
Comments
What's this?
This is a journal entry written by George Ornbo, a web designer who lives and works in London, England.
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Nov 27 2006
Hey, thanks a bunch for the simple and straightforward history-brush tute...I’ve even taken some graphics classes that used Photoshop before and never found out what that tool was for.
I am thinking I will use this often now as I assume, the more I apply it, the more uses I will find for this interesting tool.
My only small gripe is that I think the author should have specifically told folks...that in this instance the user needed to make sure to have the history brush icon appear in the history item that was enacted just before the channel mixer item turned the image into b + w.
Nov 27 2006
Just to clarify, I made my last suggestion because I did not feel what I pointed out is completely explained by the tutorial author’s text, although it is shown in the image above the photos. While I am an experienced user of PS, a novice user may not have easily recognized that the graphic image preceding the photos illustrated the level that needed to be selected in order to complete the beautiful work.
Thanks again, I don’t mean to be a nag.