Photoshop - pen tool question

OctavarIan

I'm using Adobe Photoshop CS2, and I'm working with the pen tool. I've made my outline and I'd like to stroke path with simulated pressure. However for some reason even when I check the box for it, there's no simulated pressure. Anyone know why this might be?

5uspect

It depends on what brush that the tool you select to stroke with is selected.
If you go to your brushes pallet the pressure sensitive brushes preview should widen and then narrow while the other brushes remain the same thickness.

To make a brush pressure sensitive select your brush in the main brush pallet (top right of the screen beside the Bridge Icon, not the top left) then under "brush tip shape" select "Shape Dynamics" and play with the minimum diameter slider and select the option "pen pressure" from the combo box to assign the thinning to pen pressure.

EDIT: The other options here for messing with your brushes are great. Try the grass brushes with colour jitter and angle jitter options turned on with a medium and a dark green foreground and background colours to paint some cool grass!

spidermonkey

wouldn't that option only work if you were using a graphics tablet? dont see how pressure would work when a mouse has only alive or dead buttons not pressure levels.

OctavarIan

Thanks 5uspect, worked like a charm

@spidermonkey: You don't need a tablet for this option, since Photoshop simulates the pressure for you by tapering off lines and adding more width to curves. It's for use with the pen tool since you couldn't add pressure to lines drawn with that even with a tablet.

5uspect

Yep, it will use stylus pressure normally but as OctavarIan points out the stroke path command simulates pen pressure. You can bind minimum brush diameter to other options in the brush pallet too.