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History Brush Tool For PS, CS3

by Mark Poppen | April 11th, 2008 | Submit to: Del.icio.us Submit to: Digg Submit to: Furl Submit to: Google Submit to: StumbleUpon Submit to: Technorati
Category: Tutorial | Topics: Graphics

I got the question “What does the History brush tool do?”. I decided to do a tutorial on it, since it’s pretty simple to explain, and this is my first tutorial. In short: When you have a colour-photo which you want in black and white, sepia or want to use any other filter on the background and make 1 object stand out in colour. Here it goes.

Step 1)
Open the file you want to edit. I took an image from Stock xchng for this tutorial. Remember: the bigger the better.
history brush

Step 2)
Turn it into black and white. Don’t use the grayscale method, but Image > Adjustments > Black and White. (or Alt + Ctrl + Shift + B).
history brush

In the next screen I just clicked OK, but you can make adjustments if you want. Just drag the sliders to your taste.
history brush

Step 3)
History brush toolThe fun part: Draw! Take your History Brush tool and start drawing. Experiment with brush-sizes (on your keyboard the “[” and “]” keys), and start drawing the object you want to put the colour back in.

Step 4)
Save your file. You are done! Wasn’t that easy? This is the after-image I created:
history brush

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About the author

Mark Poppen

Mark is a web designer from Canada. He's originally from The Netherlands where he got a few degrees in web design. After creating quite a few websites for himself he started as a freelance designer. He called his business “Allura Beheer”, which he changed into Poppen.ca when he moved to Canada. He wanted to express more of his abilities as a designer and started RotateCanvas.com as a side-project where you can find tutorials and tips about “the pretty side of web design”.