The Pencil tool is used to draw free hand lines with a hard edge. The
pencil and paintbrush are similar tools. The main difference between the
two tools is that although both use the same type of brush, the pencil
tool will not produce fuzzy edges, even with a very fuzzy brush. It does
not even do anti-aliasing.
Why would you want to work with such a crude tool? Perhaps the most
important usage is when working with very small images, such as icons,
where you operate at a high zoom level and need to get every pixel exactly
right. With the pencil tool, you can be confident that every pixel within
the brush outline will be changed in exactly the way you expect.
![[Tip]](images/tip.png)
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Tip |
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If you want to draw straight lines with the Pencil (or any of several
other paint tools), click at the starting point, then hold down
Shift and click at the ending point.
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3.5.1. Activating the Tool
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The Pencil Tool can be called from the image-menu:
→ →
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The Tool can also be called by clicking the tool icon:
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or by clicking on the N keyboard shortcut.
3.5.2. Key modifiers (Defaults)
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Ctrl
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This key changes the pencil to a
Color Picker.
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Shift
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This key places the pencil tool into straight
line mode. Holding Shift while clicking
Button 1 will generate a straight
line. Consecutive clicks will continue drawing straight lines
that originate from the end of the last line.
Normally, tool options are displayed in a window attached under the
Toolbox as soon as you activate a tool. If they are not, you can access
them from the image menu bar through
→ → which opens the option window of the selected tool.
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Mode; Opacity; Brush; Scale; Brush Dynamics; Fade Out; Apply
Jitter; Incremental; Use Color from Gradient
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![[Note]](images/note.png)
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Note |
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See the Brush Tools
Overview for a description of tool options that apply to many or
all brush tools.
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