On the extract tool under filter there is a clean up brush for detailing what you just cut out. That tool is awesome it seems to just melt away the pixels.

Is there a way to set up a brush that would paint with the same nice even flow that the clean up brush uses to erase?
Does anyone even know what the hell I am asking?

i think you can set your brush hardness on any brush for any tool ie paint brush or the eraser smudge etc... by right clicking on the image (a box will show up and give you diameter and hardness options) as far as extract goes if you don't like your results go over the image again and hit preview untill you are happy w/ your results... but i'm not sure if i understand what you are asking exactly? hope that helps
-m-

It seems there is a little something more than hardness adjustment?

those clean up tools in EXTRACT are very fancy schmancy and I believe they operate under their own "magical" rules. I'm not sure if you can duplicate normal brush/extract brush cross-overs.

But they are the cats meow! I hated the extract tool until I was at a Photoshop seminar and the dude showed us how well it can work if you know how it does its thing. Fluid mask 3 (add on plug in) does an amazing job of complex masking, but you can go a LONG way with the Extract tool fer sher!

i'm using ps 8.0 (regular cs) so all i do is choose the tool i want ie paint brush once the tool is selected i right click (using a pc mouse on a mac)... then a pop up box appears... in this box i have the options to choose the brush of my choice its size and the hardness of the brush...

i'm not sure what version of photoshop you are using so results may vary ?

do you have this option? Maybe there's something that will work for you in there somewhere.

he speaks the truth... as rein dude took the time to teach me the extract tool while on his visit to my neck of the woods

I've never had a chance to use this tool before, I much prefer the pen tool for extracting and choping, however after trying it for the last few minutes, it feels very similar to the eraser tool. I'm probably missing something obvious.

Ok Guru Reinman, no playing favorites, please enlighten all with your secrets of extraction.

Not sure if it's what you mean but in Extract if you click on "smart highlighting" in the tool options it picks the right brush size and if there is enough variance between the areas your extracting it does a great job of hugging the area your painting. Don't know if that helps or not. I did a tutorial a while back by Scott Kelby that was great for doing extracting of hair. I found the link here. Well worth taking the 3 minutes and see this.
http://www.layersmagazine.com/photoshop-fix-hair.html

I don't know what I am asking I guess. It not the extracting/erasing part of this tool that impresses me its just the fluid way that it does it. It's weird it's different than other brushes. like I stated earlier it is has almost a melting effect. I am looking to find a close setting for a brush to apply pixels not take them away.

Stew and NGSP I do have those settings the closest I can come up with is using normal default brush with hardness set to about 45%
there seems to be something else.
I am using CS3 ext. and CS4 beta( which there not much change would rather them try to make CS3 more stable first or even auto recover)