Using the Art History Brush Tool in Photoshop

The Art History Brush tool is an interesting variation on the plain old History Brush tool. Both paint over an image by using information from a previous state. The Art History Brush tool, however, includes several choices in the Options bar that let you apply brush-stroke effects to your image as you paint:

-->Style: The Style menu contains various-shaped brush stroke styles, such as Tight Short, Loose Medium, Dab, or Loose Curl. Although their names describe the look of the strokes fairly well, you’ll want to experiment with them to see exactly what they look like.

-->Area: This option controls the area covered by the paint stroke independently of the brush size you select. The larger the size, the more area that’s covered, and the more brush strokes that are applied per movement.

-->Tolerance: This option adjusts the amount of the change applied to your image. A low tolerance value lets you apply strokes anywhere in the image, regardless of color values. A high tolerance limits Art History strokes only to areas that are very different from the source state or snapshot, thereby making your image not quite as dramatically different from the original.

The result of using these options is an interesting hand-painted effect that you can control quite easily after you’ve had some practice. The Art History Brush tool often works best when you use a state that is quite different from the state you’re painting over. For example, you can apply a heavy filter that makes the image almost unrecognizable and then use that filtered image to paint with the Art History Brush tool. You can even completely fill an image with color or texture and work with that. To paint with the Art History Brush tool, follow these steps:

1. Apply any effects you want to use to a chosen state.
2. Click in the far-left column in the History palette to select the state you want to use as the source for the Art History Brush tool.
3. Select the Art History Brush tool from the Tool palette.
You can also press Y or Shift+Y to select it.
4. Select from the choices in the Options bar.
Several of the options, such as Brush, Mode, or Opacity, are similar to the options available with the ordinary Brush tool. The new options are Style, Area, and Tolerance.
5. Paint with the brush to get the effect you want.
Don’t forget that you can use the History palette to reverse Art History strokes that you change your mind about!