With the Vector Brush Tool you can create a hand-painted look by painting freehand, variable width, lines and shapes as if you were painting on paper. Its vector characteristics means you can edit the stroke at any time.
Its variable width lines can be controlled either by velocity—most useful when drawing with a mouse—or by pressure—for use when drawing with a pressure-sensitive device.
The Vector Brush Tool, located on the Tools panel, paints by scaling or repeating an image along a path (line).
As you paint, nodes are created automatically and can be edited with the or at any time with the Node Tool.
The tool uses many of the standard line settings to control the appearance of the applied stroke. Brush types are applied using the Brushes panel.
Settings
The following settings can be adjusted from the context toolbar:
Color—the color of your brush stroke. Click the color swatch to select from solid colors, a picked color, color gradients or from your preset or custom color swatches.
Width—the brush (stroke) size in pixels. Type directly in the text box or drag the pop-up slider to set the value.
Opacity—how see-through the brush stroke is. Type directly in the text box or drag the pop-up slider to set the value.
More—click to display the Brushes dialog to access advanced brush settings.
Stabilizer—enables stroke stabilization using either a Rope stabilizer or Window stabilizer mode; the former drags the stroke end by a 'rope' to smooth the stroke but lets you introduce sharp corners at increasing rope Length (radius) values by redirecting the slackened rope; the latter will smooth the stroke by averaging sampled input positions within a Window whose size is configurable.
Blend Mode—changes how the stroke's color interacts with existing colors on a layer. Select from the pop-up menu.
Controller—controls how the brush stroke responds to various inputs:
Brush Defaults—the brush variance and controller settings stored with the currently selected brush are used. Click More on toolbar to access.
Automatic—the input device (pen tablet, Force Touch device, mouse) is detected and the brush will work automatically with that device, using the brush variance settings but ignoring the brush controller setting. You can operate devices interchangeably.
Pressure—brush stroke is only responsive to pressure from a pen tablet, using the brush variance settings but ignoring the brush controller setting.
Velocity—brush stroke is only responsive to speed of mouse movement.
Vector Brush Tool