Depth

The second main option that controls how our brush and texture interact is Depth, which is found directly below the Mode option we just looked at. Depth determines how visible the texture appears inside the shape of the brush. At a depth value of 0%, the texture is completely hidden from view and only the brush itself is visible. As we increase the depth value by dragging its slider towards the right, the texture becomes more and more visible until finally, at a depth value of 100%, the texture appears at full strength inside the brush. Keep an eye on the preview area at the bottom of the Brushes panel as you drag the Depth slider to see the effect it has:

Here's a simple brush stroke with Depth set to 0%. The texture is completely hidden:

The same brush stroke with Depth set to 50%. The texture is now partially visible (Mode is set to Multiply):

And here's the brush stroke with Depth set to 100%. The texture is now fully visible inside the brush (Mode set to Multiply):

Texture Each Tip

If you look closely at the brush strokes in the above examples, you'll notice that the texture (pattern) repeats over and over again inside the area I've painted. In other words, I'm simply painting the texture into the document. This is Photoshop's default behavior for the Texture dynamics, and it's exactly the behavior we want if we're trying to create the illusion that we're painting on some sort of textured surface like canvas.

Photoshop gives us another option, though, and that's to apply the texture directly to the brush tip itself, which means that the texture will be re-applied each time Photoshop stamps a new copy of the brush tip as we paint, giving us much more of a textured brush appearance and less of the repeating pattern we see by default.

To enable this feature, select the Texture Each Tip option directly above the Mode option:

By turning on the Texture Each Tip option, we enable the other options (Minimum Depth, Depth Jitter and Control) that were initially grayed out and unavailable:

Control

Just as we've seen with the Shape Dynamics and Scattering sections, Photoshop gives us various ways to dynamically control the depth value of the texture as we paint, all of which are found in the Control drop-down list at the bottom of the Texture options:

By now, if you've been following along from the beginning of this series, these options should look familiar to us. Fade will gradually reduce the visibility of the texture inside the brush stroke over the number of steps we specify (25 is the default number of steps). Pen Pressure allows us to control the depth by adjusting the amount of pressure we apply to the tablet with the pen, and Pen Tilt changes the depth value as we tilt the pen forward and back. Here's a brush stroke with Control set to Pen Pressure. I've increased the spacing between the individual brush tips to make it easier to see the changes in the depth value (Mode is set to Subtract this time):

Minimum Depth

If you want the texture to be visible to some degree at all times, use the Minimum Depth option to control the lowest depth value that Photoshop will use. Drag the slider left or right to adjust the minimum value. I'm going to set my minimum depth to 50%:

Here's the same brush stroke as before (with Control set to Pen Pressure), but with the Minimum Depth value now set to 50%, the depth never drops to the point where the texture is no longer visible:

Jitter

Finally, we can let Photoshop randomly change the depth value for us as we paint using the Jitter option. Drag the Jitter slider towards the right to increase the amount of randomness that Photoshop will apply to the depth:

As always, we can use Jitter by itself to add nothing but randomness to the depth value, or we can combine it with any of the Control options to add a little randomness while we dynamically control the depth value with pen pressure or any of the other options. Here, I've set Jitter to 100% and turned the Control option to Off, letting Photoshop randomly choose the depth value of each new brush tip. I've also set the Minimum Depth value to 0%, giving Photoshop a complete range of depth values to choose from:

Invert and Scale

There's two additional options found at the top of the Texture dynamics section. Invert will swap the original brightness values of your texture, making dark areas light and light areas dark. I don't find much use for this option but it's there if you need it. Use the Scale slider to change the size of the texture as it appears inside your brush. Keep in mind, though, that textures (and patterns) are pixel-based and follow the same general rules for resizing as images. Making the texture smaller is usually okay, but scaling it much beyond it's default size of 100% can make it appear soft and dull:

We've now covered the first three of Photoshop's six Brush Dynamics categories! Up next, we'll look at how to combine two different brushes together using the Dual Brush options!

Or, jump to any of the other Brush Dynamics categories using the links below:

• Shape Dynamics
• Scattering
• Color Dynamics
• Other Dynamics

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