Shoelace artifact when using soft pressure brush.

When using the default, “Soft Round Pressure Size” brush in Photoshop, I am experiencing an issue I’ve found out to be called the “shoelace” or “aglet.” You can see it in the images I’ve provided, but essentially, I have these small “aglets” at the ends of my strokes when using pen pressure as the control for the size of my brush. These “aglets” appear no matter the setting, driver, hardware, user profile, or pen-tip adjustments that I’ve tried so far. In my experience, what I’m seeing is a light “hotspot” when I put my pen down (if using opacity/flow below 100%), and when I pull up, I get the aglets. I am in a digital illustration class, and my professor uses this brush for our exercises, making it difficult for me to keep up with the class.

Below I will list out, to the best of my ability, my relevant hardware/software specs as well as the diagnostic tests I’ve tried. This happens across all hardware and driver installs:

Software -

• Windows 11: version 10.0.26200 build 26200
• Driver: NVIDIA 610.88 (game ready version)
• Adobe Photoshop: version 27.9.1
• Huion: v15.7.6.1858
• Wacom: version 6.4.13-4
• Tourbox: latest update (version info is not obvious)

Hardware - 

• Processor: Intel Core i7-9700K
• RAM: 32GB
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070
• Huion Pro Kamvas 24 (4K)
• Wacom Intuos Pro M
• Tourbox Pro Console

Diagnostic tests:

• Running earlier versions of photoshop (no change)
• Resetting PS preferences (no change)
• Deleting PS preferences folder and allowing PS to make its own (no change)
• Ensuring that the brush I’m using is indeed PS’s default brushes (no change)
• Testing brushes one setting at a time (the problem specifically happens when using pen pressure to denote brush size)
• Uninstalling Wacom driver to favor Huion (no change)
• Uninstalling Huion driver to favor Wacom  (no change)
• Toying with Windows Ink, Pen Pressure sensitivity, and Pen Pressure graphs (no change)
  • I did this in every configuration of driver install (Huion+Wacom installed, ONLY Huion, and ONLY Wacom)
• Using a different Windows user profile (no change)
• Changing my physicality, playing with how much pressure I use when putting the pen down and taking it off (no change)

For posterity, I have been using ChatGPT to walk me through the diagnostic portion of this issue. I have tried many things, and this is the summary of all those things as provided by ChatGPT, in case I missed something from before:

“Here’s the condensed troubleshooting log so far:

• Confirmed the brush settings
  • Default Soft Round base
  • Hardness 25%
  • Spacing 25%
  • Shape Dynamics → Size → Pen Pressure
  • Minimum Diameter 0%
  • Professor’s lower opacity/flow tested
  • Result: aglets/hot spots remain.
• Tested Photoshop’s built-in “Soft Round Pressure Size”
  • Same artifact.
  • This ruled out your custom brush preset as the cause.
• Opacity / Flow
  • Tested low values matching your professor and high values to expose the problem.
  • Lower values merely make the artifact harder to see; they do not remove it.
• Smoothing
  • Tested different smoothing percentages.
  • Disabled smoothing completely.
  • Tested catch-up-related possibilities.
  • Result: smoothing can affect how visible/long the tail looks, but the underlying aglet remains.
• Shape Dynamics
  • Normal Pen Pressure size control produces the artifact.
  • Interestingly, the earlier Size Jitter 100% + Pen Pressure test did not produce the tails/hot spots.
  • This remains an unusual clue.
• Huion pressure test
  • Initially stopped responding entirely.
  • Huion Software Diagnosis showed blank WinTab32 version fields.
  • Repaired Wintab32.
  • After reboot it correctly showed:
    • v32: 9.00.00.01
    • v64: 9.00.00.01
  • Huion’s pressure-test window started working again.
  • This fixed a real Huion WinTab problem, but did not fix Photoshop's aglets.
• Windows Ink vs WinTab in Photoshop
  • Tested Photoshop through Windows Ink.
  • Repaired WinTab and deliberately switched Photoshop to WinTab.
  • Result: essentially identical aglets either way.
  • So the artifact is not specific to Windows Ink or WinTab.
• Older Photoshop versions
  • You had already tested older Photoshop releases and still saw the aglets.
  • Photoshop 26 also had a separate issue where your current Huion setup wouldn't draw at all.
  • Therefore this doesn't appear specific to Photoshop 27.8.
• Second tablet: Wacom Intuos Pro / Pro Pen
  • Reinstalled the Wacom software.
  • The Wacom produces the same Photoshop aglet artifact.
  • This was a major result because it made defective Huion hardware much less likely.
• Wacom Tip-Up Assist
  • Tested with Tip-Up Assist disabled.
  • No meaningful improvement.
• Wacom Tip Feel
  • Made pressure slightly firmer.
  • Aglets arguably got worse, not better.
• Wacom Click Threshold
  • Restored normal Tip Feel and slightly increased Click Threshold.
  • Result: aglets essentially unchanged.
• GPU acceleration
  • Tested Photoshop with Use Graphics Processor OFF.
  • Restarted Photoshop and reproduced the strokes.
  • Result: no difference.
  • GPU acceleration is therefore very unlikely to be responsible.
• Completely fresh Photoshop preferences
  • Renamed/reset Photoshop's preferences so it generated genuinely fresh defaults.
  • Tested the stock pressure brush before restoring custom settings.
  • Tested GPU on/off in that clean state.
  • Result: aglets remained.
  • This rules out migrated/corrupt Photoshop preferences pretty strongly.
• Huion completely removed
  • Uninstalled the Huion driver.
  • Disconnected the Huion from USB and power.
  • Restarted Windows.
  • Used only the Wacom and Wacom driver.
  • Result: aglets survived.
  • This essentially rules out Huion software interfering with the Wacom.
• Fresh Windows user account
  • Tested Photoshop under a newly created Windows user profile.
  • Result: aglets survived.
  • So the problem does not appear to come from your normal Windows profile, per-user Adobe settings, or per-user tablet configuration.”

I know that was a lot, but I wanted to give as much detail as possible. If anyone knows a fix, I’d love to hear about it. I’m kind of at my wits end. For now, I am going to try and just work with the artifact, using brush settings that don’t match my professors but get me close enough so I don’t have to continually clean up the aglets as I go. If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate you.