Page 180 - Enhancing CAD Drawings with Photoshop

4386.book Page 164 Monday, November 15, 2004 3:27 PM

164 CHAPTER 5 PRESENTING PLANS

7. From the Pattern menu, choose Reset Patterns. This option restores the patterns you erased in
step 1 to their factory-fresh state. Click OK when asked “Replace current patterns with the
default patterns?”
8. Close Photoshop and then launch it again. Photoshop builds a new Pattern menu at launch
time. My Patterns appears in the Pattern menu; select it and click OK.

NOTE You can load the custom pattern library from a file without relaunching Photoshop, but the
new library’s name won’t appear in the Pattern menu until relaunch.
You can create as many custom pattern libraries as you want, and their names will appear in
the Pattern menu.
9. Open the Pattern Picker and take a look at your custom pattern library containing the four pat-
terns you’ll use in the Kitchen project (see Figure 5.29).

Figure 5.29
Your custom pattern
library

Applying Patterns
You can apply patterns in many ways, and now that you know about the possibilities, you can choose
the right tool for the job. The Paint Bucket tool is good for completely filling a pattern into a selection.
The Pattern Stamp tool is helpful when you don’t want the pattern to completely fill an area, but pre-
fer soft edges or incomplete coverage. The Pattern Fill layer offers more control with pattern selection
and scale controls that retain editability.
Let’s try out these three methods (see Figure 5.30). To experiment, use a new blank document with
a white background.