Photoshop CS4 Brush resize on the fly for photoshop CS3

Ken — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:30:28 +0000

Hey hey, more Autohotkey goodness for CS3 users, brush resize on the fly, CS4 style!

First download a free copy of Autohotkey

Save a textfile called “cs3resize.ahk” and copy and paste the code below into that file and save it. Then doubleclick it to run the script.

By default the script uses the M key to trigger, you can change that by looking at the comments in the code below.

Select the brush tool, then hit M and move your mouse or pen up and down (NOT left and right) on the screen and watch your brush resized on the fly. Hit M again to return to normal drawing mode.

The script simply sends out the left and right bracket keys when the mouse/pen is moved up and down. You can easily make copies and this script and bind other hotkeys for brush hardness or anything else in photoshop that has increasing and decreasing values.

;CS3 Brush Resize on the fly #ifWinActive ahk_class Photoshop {


;Mess with this if moving the pen takes to much CPU

setbatchlines, 500ms 
;Bad things will happen if you change this.

#MaxThreadsPerHotkey 2
bbrake=1 
Coordmode, mouse, Screen 
;This is the shortcut (m) you use to activate, look in AHK Help for keycodes.

;Make sure this is not bound to any function in photoshop.

m::

    MouseGetPos,, old_mousey 
    if bbrake

    {

        bbrake=0

    }

    else if !bbrake

    {

        bbrake=1

        return

    } 
    loop

    {

        MouseGetPos,, mousey 
        if ((mousey=old_mousey) and (bbrake != 1))

            continue

        else if bbrake=1

            break 
        if (mousey > old_mousey)

        {

;Mouse move up. Change to a key you have set in photoshop cs3 to increase something.

            send, {[}

            old_mousey:=mousey

        }

        else if (mousey < old_mousey)

        {

;Mouse move down. Change to a key you have set in photoshop cs3 to decrease something.

            send, {]}

            old_mousey:=mousey

        }

    } 
return

}

DVD Recommendation: Scott Robertson – Basic Perspective Form Drawing

Ken — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:56:09 +0000

If you have ever wanted to learn how to draw things in perspective the tutorial by Scott Robertson Basic Perspective Form Drawing is a goldmine.

Scott starts out gentle by teaching by example how to draw guides for 1,2 and 3 point perspectives. Then building on that to draw simple boxes and planes. Moving on we learn how to draw ellipses in perspective. With these basics learned, Scott shows how to extrapolate shapes in perspective, translating simple shapes using some very cool tricks.

The tutorial then goes on to drawing complex shapes such as car bodies, organic shapes, and planes in perspective using the techniques demonstrated in earlier lessons.

If you come away from this DVD having gone through and learned all these techniques for drawing in perfect perspective, you can do some amazing stuff with ease. This tutorial is an absolute goldmine that is not to be missed if you want to learn how to draw complex technical shapes.

The techniques are all shown from a top view of Scott drawing freehand on paper; but can easily be translated to programs such as illustrator or Photoshop. In fact, many of these techniques will be easier to execute on a computer, where you don’t have to have perfect freehand line-drawing skill.

You can find the DVD at the Gnomon site here It’s available as a direct download and is only 39 dollars; and the video quality is great – unlike a few other tutorials I purchased at gnomon where the quality was to low to properly see what was going on.

For 39 dollars its a bargain.

Kens Photoshop Blog » Painting And Drawing

Photoshop CS4 Brush resize on the fly for photoshop CS3

DVD Recommendation: Scott Robertson – Basic Perspective Form Drawing