1. Strokes of Creativity: Brush Effects

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

—Old Chinese Proverb

I like the quote above, because it sums up nicely what I think about the brush engine in Photoshop. You can indeed follow a tutorial step by step and end up with what someone intended, and that would be it. You can also follow a tutorial and then take what you learned and go further by experimenting with other features and settings. Thus, you will feed your creativity for a lifetime. As you go through this chapter, and through the rest of this book, for that matter, try to keep in mind to go out of your mind. What I mean is that you should think beyond the obvious use for the things you see here, and contemplate other directions by experimenting. Have fun fishing!