In this step by step guide, we will talk about everything you need to know about brushes, how to use them, every tool and setting, and how to install custom brushes.
You can do all sorts of things with brushes in Photopea. You can also select the brush tool by hitting the shortcut key B. When you have selected the brush tool, you will see a top bar with some brush options. Before you start using the brush, consider adjusting the settings to achieve the desired effect. You can click and drag the mouse to paint with the brush in a freeform manner, or you can use the shift key to draw straight lines. How much a brush size you want, this is the setting to select it. Whilst a higher opacity will give a more prominent output of the brush stroke. This setting controls how the brush strokes interact with the image. We have discussed the brush setting, now, lets talk about the brush properties. It is a very important to understand. This setting determines the size of each brush tip every time a new stroke is painted on your canvas. To give you an idea of how the brush tips spread out, with a Scatter of 0%, they will be in a perfectly even line. The Jitter settings enable you to manipulate the colors of your stroke with greater precision. By controlling how random the hues are, you can create a unique and interesting visual appeal. The same is the case with flow jitter.
In addition to the default brushes that come with Photopea, you can also install custom brushes to achieve more specific effects. Find the custom brushes you want to use and download them to your computer. The custom brushes should now be available in the Brushes panel. Using brushes in Photopea can add depth and dimension to your images. There are some differences between the brush settings in photopea. It offers a wide range of options for creating the perfect look for your images. Brush tool is an amazing tool, it is easy to master but once you have complete control over it, you can create some amazing effects with it. Great functionality & scalability.
Photopea for Beginners Activity #4: Changing the Colour of an Object
How to use the Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer to change object colours easily. If you have any questions, please ask! Download this image for the exercise: Dog on Pexels Open the photo in Photopea by either clicking on the going to File -> Open. Find where you saved the photo and open it. If your browser automatically saved it for you, it is probably in your Downloads folder.
Basic Hue Adjustment:- Click on Layer in the top menu (see right), then New Adjustment Layer, and then Hue/Saturation, or you can quickly go to the bottom of the Layers panel and click on the half white circle icon to bring up the Adjustments layer menu and then click on Hue/Saturation. This will create a new layer over the top of the Background layer, called Hue/Saturation 1, and will bring up the Properties panel for this layer. In the Properties panel click on the little two-sided arrow button to activate it, and then go to the photo and click on somewhere in the colour you want to change. For this example, it will be in the pink heart shaped glasses worn by the dog. You want a colour that is in the middle of the range, not too light or dark. The text next to the arrows in the Properties panel by “Range” should change to “Red” as it will recognize this colour is in the red colour range. Next, you can click and drag the Hue slider in the Properties panel to see the colour of the glasses lenses change. The results will not be perfect but there are a couple things we can do to refine things. First will be to adjust the colour range: Drag the Hue slider all the way to the left. In the Properties panel there is a colour spectrum with a few sliders showing what colour range has been sampled. You may notice that parts of the dog have become a little blotchy as some of the natural colours in the sampled spectrum exist in the dog’s body and ears. By moving these colour spectrum sliders around, you can adjust the specific part of the spectrum you want sampled. If you drag the handle on the right towards the left, the colour distortions in the dog’s body will start to disappear. Pull the handle on the far left over to the left a bit to correct the blotchy bits in the glasses lenses. With these adjustments, try dragging the Hue slider back and forth again to see the results. Save or export the image as you did in previous exercises.
What if you have an image with multiple parts of the same colour and only want to change one or some? Download this image for the exercise: Cat on Pexels Open the photo in Photopea by either clicking on the going to File -> Open. Find where you saved the photo and open it. If your browser automatically saved it for you, it is probably in your Downloads folder. Go to the Layers panel and at the bottom click on the half white circle icon to bring up the Adjustments layer menu and then click on Hue/Saturation. This will create a new layer over the top of the Background layer, called Hue/Saturation 1, and will bring up the Properties panel for this layer. In the Properties panel click on the little two-sided arrow button to activate it, and then go to the photo and click on somewhere in the colour you want to change. For this example, it will be in the eyes of the cat. You want a colour that is in the middle of the range, not too light or dark. The text next to the arrows in the Properties panel by “Range” should change to “Yellow” as it will recognize this colour is in the yellow colour range. Next, you can click and drag the Hue slider in the Properties panel to see the colour of the eyes change. You will notice at this point that the yellow round circles of the dappled out of focus light points in the background (commonly called “bokeh”) are changing colour along with the eyes, as well as some of the grass in the foreground. Follow the next steps to isolate only the eyes for the hue change. Click on the white square in the Hue/Saturation layer in the Layers panel to make sure it is selected (dashed lines around it). Go over to the left sidebar menu and click on the colour picker and choose black. Then select the Brush Tool. You can make the brush size bigger in the drop down menu at the top. Brush over the image to create a mask over any area you don’t want colour changes to happen. You will see the white square in the Layers panel turn black in the areas you have painted over. If you accidentally brush over an area you don’t want masked, you can either use the Undo function, or you can change the Brush colour to white and brush white over the same area to unmask it. Go back to the Hue slider and drag it back and forth until the eyes are the colour you want. At this point, the rest of the image should stay the same. Save or export the image as you did in previous exercises.
Here are some good images to practice on: Apples on Pexels (change one of the apples to another colour) Toy Car on Pexels (change the colour of the car - this one is challenging due to the warm tones of the lighting in the whole image and through the windows of the car)
NEXT STEP: Bonus Activities Removing Someone/Something from a Photo or Earn a Badge At times, an otherwise perfect photo is ruined by colors that are dull, distracting, or simply not what you want. You can also open an image by pasting it onto Photopea. First, you need to create a new Project by going to File >> New. Step 1: Once you open the image into Photopea, click on the New Adjustment layer. Step 2: When it comes to adjusting colors, your choice of adjustment will depend on your specific goal. Step 4: In order to enhance the image colors, it’s important to make adjustments to the Saturation using the slider. Step 5: Go to File >> Export As and save your image in any desired file format. The second method we will look at is that of using the Paint Bucket option from the toolbar. Step 2: Choose a Selection tool from the toolbar and use it to select the shape you want to change the color of. To select the brown section in the below image, the best tools are the Lasso Select or the Magic Wand. Step 3: Select the object you want to change. To ensure you select the entire subject area, you can zoom by pressing the Ctrl key and then the ‘+’ or ‘-’ key to zoom in and out, respectively. If the Magic Wand does not select the entire area at once, hold down the Shift key and click on the unselected areas. In this section, we will discuss practical techniques to change the color of the outfit effectively. Create the color fill layer using the adjustment layers button from the layers panel. You can choose any color according to the color of your outfit. Step 4: Clip the color fill layer to the t-shirt layer. To do that, right-click on the color fill layer and choose a clipping mask. Step 4: Change the blend mode. Remember that the blend modes will work differently for every color; we have a white t-shirt so the Darken blending mode will work best. Here’s the before and after. If you took a photo and would love to change how it looks, you can do so in simple steps. Step 2: Go to the sidebar and select the Brush Tool. Step 4: Click on ‘New layer’ button at the very bottom of the Layers panel. Step 5: Select the transparent layer from the Layers panel and use the brush tool to color the face. After coloring the face, take care not to cover the eyes. The transparent layer will now blend with the face. You can disable the transparent layer to see the before and after results. Feel free to choose any color to change the appearance of the face. To view the final result, switch from Soft Light to Normal. There are multiple ways to change color in photopea. The most simple one is the hue/Saturation adjustment layer. To change the color of the outfit, you need to make a selection around the outfit. Use any selection tool which is more suitable for the image you are using. Press Ctrl + J to create a separate layer for the outfit. Learning how to change the color of an image is very important because it helps achieve the exact results you want. Photopea has several tools you can use for this. Brush tools are all tools, which use a "brush track". It can be a Brush, an Eraser, a Smudge tool etc. A brush has a track shape (e.g. and behaviour (it can change the shape while you draw, e.g. change the track size). Every brush tool usually draws a stroke by drawing many brush shapes (e.g. Pattern - made with a raster image. Each brush has a Size property, which measn "the thickness of the line". More brush options are available in a brush panel. You can open it using Window - Brush. Here are several sections of properties. At the top of the brush panel, there is a gallery of predefined brushes. Here is a brief description of each section of the brush panel. Spacing - spacing between consequent "shapes" of a stroke. Scatter - lets you put move each shape to the random place near the original position. Photopea supports loading custom brushes in a form of .ABR files.
How To Change Brush Color In Photoshop (Full Approach) (2026 Method)
Practical steps to change a brush color
Open the image in Photopea and select the Brush Tool (B).
Choose a foreground color in the Color Picker to set the brush color.
Adjust brush size, hardness, opacity, and flow in the top options bar as needed.
Paint on a new layer to keep edits non-destructive.
Use Hue/Saturation adjustments or masking to constrain color changes to specific areas.
Using Hue/Saturation to recolor objects
To recolor a specific object, create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and sample a color from the target area. Then drag the Hue slider to shift the color, using masks to isolate parts of the image when necessary. If parts of the image are affected unintentionally, paint on the mask with black to hide edits or white to reveal them again. This method works well for changing the color of clothing, accessories, or other single-color areas.
Tips for working with custom brushes
Photopea supports loading custom brushes in a form of .ABR files. After downloading, the brushes become available in the Brushes panel. You can experiment with Scatter and Jitter settings to create varied strokes and color distribution. Custom brushes unlock more specific effects beyond the default set.