When you first see a Bert Monroy digital painting, you'll be amazed by two things: first, that what you see is actually digital artwork; and second, that it was drawn entirely from scratch, not painted over a scanned photograph as is common. Monroy sees himself as an artist who paints with pixels rather than oils, and at first glance you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.

As with any painter, brushwork is key to Monroy's success, and he exploits Photoshop's new brush features whenever he can. Although Photoshop has let you make custom brushes for some time now, Photoshop 7 introduced the notion of Brush Presets, which gives you more control over the frequency and patterning of the strokes. Monroy uses them extensively when creating photorealistic foliage. In fact Adobe liked his grass and maple leaf brushes so much that they were included in Photoshop 7.

In this excerpt from his recent book, see how Monroy uses Photoshop 7's Brush Presets to create lush, realistic-looking leaves and grasses.

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