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Photoshop CS5’s boldest and most far-reaching innovations are its new painting tools. This upgrade adds the bristle brushes, which simulate real-world traditional art brushes, down to the quantity and stiffness of the hairs. It also adds the mixer brush, which lets you mix the foreground color with a base photograph as if the photo were rendered in wet oils.

In a recent Photoshop CS5 Top 5 video, I showed you how to combine these tools to transform a photo of Colleen (below) into a hand-brushed painting (below that), complete with textured brushstrokes.

But in order to really grok things, I need to show you how the bristle brushes, which are demanding little devils, work. (You'll have to be a member of dekeOnline to view this article.) Read more » 

For those unaware, Photoshop Top 40 is my countdown of the most essential features in Photoshop, starting with Feature #40: Reset & Purge and working my way up to #1. And lest you think it sounds like a trivial concept ("hey gang, Feature #38 is Vector Type cuz type in Photoshop is scalable, ain't that just the swellest?"), I go into detail and share tips and tricks on every topic. For free, because my name starts with a G for Giver (not Geek, although I embrace that too).

Now that I'm poised to unveil the Final 10 Features, I thought I'd ratchet things up a notch with a contest. And not just any contest either. The best contest possible. One with a winner every week with gobs of prizes from a host of sponsors.

You'll need to be a member to see what's in store. Which is a lot. Read more »