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This lesson demonstrates how to give photographs a unique artistic look, utilising the Art History Brush. To work along exactly, you can download the photograph of our house Here. Unzip the file and open the photograph onto Photoshop’s workspace, ready to use.
Note
All settings are dependent on the size of your photograph, when using your own images, adjust the settings to suit.
Undo and Navigation Steps
Two ways of undoing steps are from the top menu, Edit then Step Backwards. Alternatively, click a previous snapshot in the History Palette.
Navigate (zoom in and pan) your image using the Navigator Palette,
or the Zoom Tool. 
Activate The Hand Tool by tapping the Spacebar, keeping the Spacebar pressed, pan your image in the usual way. 
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Open your choice of image onto Photoshop’s workspace.
Important
Once your image is open, do not resize it, in any way, other than using View then Zoom in. Resizing (or altering the photograph’s pixels in any way) prevents the Art History Brush from performing.
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Duplicate your photograph by dragging its layer over the following Create a new layer icon - and ensure the Background copy layer remains active.
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Set the Foreground Colour to White.
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Then from the toolbar, activate the Paint Bucket Tool.
From the Options bar, set the Opacity to 100%, and the Tolerance to the maximum, 255 - then left-click inside your photograph, to fill it with white.
 
From the top menu choose Window, and ensure there is a tick before History.
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Then from the toolbar, activate the Art History Brush.
Note
Choose the Reset Brushes command to work with the brush I am using -
my screen capture here shows how - you are looking to click the
Reset Brushes tab.
Now, beginning at the top of the image, left-click and slowly pass the cursor over your photograph, in a left-to-right movement. This applies the artistic effect. Your aiming to build the effect, very slowly. Therefore, at first, your image won’t be recognisable.
The following settings worked well for my (front of house) photograph - however, different brushes effect how the Art History Brush renders, and are worth experimenting with.
Note
Experiment with Mode, Opacity, Style, Area and Tolerance. Additionally, different areas of photographs can benefit from different settings - therefore, the emphasise is on experimentation - play, and find settings that provide pleasing results. In my experience, a smaller brush size provides a more accurate result.
Note
Leaving small areas of white canvas untouched, adds to the artistic feel.
Continue building up the effect, altering the settings if necessary. Be careful how you apply the Art History Brush, it works by blending pixels, and it is easy to get carried away and blur the image too much. If it happens, click a previous snapshot in the History palette, and go back a place, or two.
History/Art History Warning Dialogue
If the Art History Brush displays the following warning
dialogue.
It means the height, or width, of the image you are working with has been
altered. Just one pixel of difference will stop both brushes from performing. The Crop Tool, Image then Resize, and Rotate Canvas commands can confuse the History and Art History Tools. To rectify the problem, (from the History palette) drag the source state icon to a point before you changed the image’s size. Sometimes, Stepping Backwards (if the problem is recent) can quickly remedy the problem.
When you are completely happy with your artistic look, it is time for the next step.
 
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Still working on the top (Background copy) layer, surround the centre of the flowering bush with a selection marquee, with either the Polygonal Lasso Tool, Lesson, or, with the Elliptical Marquee Tool.
Set the Feather to around 80 - however, Feather settings are dependant on the size of your image.
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Then press your keyboard’s Delete key. This removes the area within the marquee, revealing the untouched photograph below it, and provides a crisp focal point - if you prefer a fully artistic look - omit this step.
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Press Ctrl then D to remove the marquee, and your image is complete, and ready for a border.
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From the top menu, choose Layer then choose Flatten Image.
Apply a border, then link Here to save your work.
Wendi E M Scarth. Top of Page - Home.
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