Tutorial 158 - Photoshop’s Mixer Brush - Load and Clean

Here are four visual descriptions of photoshop's "load" and "clean" functions when used with the Wet combination preset. 

The effect is similar to traditional blending on a wet canvas.

In this example, the mixer brush is set to Wet, which means Wet, Load, and Mix are set to 50% and Flow is set to 100%. 

We are using a default Brush Tip Shape with Pen Pressure controlling the Flow Jitter only. To setup the mixer brush with Flow Jitter:

• make sure the mixer brush is selected from the toolbar (looks like a normal brush only with a drop in the corner).
• click Window > Brush, to bring up the Brush panel.
• uncheck all the adjustment tick boxes on the left, except for Transfer.
• click the word Transfer and make sure the Flow Jitter slider is set to 0 and Control is set to Pen Pressure.

Now we will work through the four combinations of the "load" and "clean" functions as described in this previous tutorial: 

https://www.patreon.com/posts/tutorial-157-5767687

Note, in the tutorial image, for each combination of "load" and "clean" I've visually described:

• the state of the tool (shown here in the white box to the left) before applying a stoke across a few colors on the canvas. 
• the stroke it's self.
• the state of the tool (shown here in the white box to the right) after applying a stoke across a few colors on the canvas.
• the result we get when painting a short, second stroke.

The brush begins either loaded or clean, then we apply the stroke, then we can see what paint is on our brush after the first stroke, and finally what happens when we paint a second stroke.

• Load switched off + clean switched on

  - The "clean blender".  

  This setting gives us the equivalent of a traditional blender that when applied to the canvas begins clean, makes a stroke that picks up and blends colors into each other, and is then cleaned after the stroke. The second stroke is only blending what's on the canvas and not applying any paint from the pickup well or the reservoir well. (the wells are explained in this tutorial: 

  https://www.patreon.com/posts/tutorial-157-5767687)
• Load switched on + clean switched on

  - The "loaded blender".  

  This setting gives us the equivalent of a blender that is loaded with pink (in this example) and cleaned after each stroke and then again loaded with pink. When applied to the canvas the stroke begins life as pink, picks up and blends colors into each other, and is then cleaned. Then pink is again loaded onto the brush (automatically). The second stroke is only applying pink again to the canvas but will blend with any colors on the canvas.

• Load switched off + clean switched off 

  - The "dirty brush".  

  This setting gives us the equivalent of a dirty brush that is not loaded with paint and not cleaned after each stroke. When applied to the canvas the stroke begins life without color, picks up and blends colors into each other. Cleaning doesn't occur so the brush gets "dirtied" with colors it picks up from the canvas. The "dirty brush" then applies these colors to the canvas in the next stroke.

• Load switched on + clean switched off

  - The "loaded brush".  

  This setting gives us the equivalent of a brush that is loaded with pink (in this example) and not cleaned off after each stroke, then the brush is again loaded with pink. When applied to the canvas the stroke begins life as pink, picks up and blends colors into each other, and is now "dirtied". Cleaning doesn't occur so the brush gets "dirtied" with colors it picks up from the canvas. The "dirty brush" then applies these colors to the canvas in the next stroke.

Try each of these combinations yourself. 

To achieve the same results as in this tutorial, make sure you've matched the settings I've described and proceed through each combination.