brush strokes and duplication pads chiselled

Thanks for your feedback. Following the tutorials, I actually had to change some settings, but I've forgotten which ones! I wouldn't know which settings they were - with age comes memory loss.
I've reset the PS preferences and everything's back to normal.
Thanks again!

Words like 'duplicate' and 'copy' make me think you are talking about the Clone tool.  Your screen shots show a fully soft brush preset.  You can right click to chose any of the presets.  I if you choose the fully hard preset, I suspect it will work how you'd like it to.

Your second screen shot shows that you know how to change brush size and hardness using the Opt key, so try doing that and move the mouse sideways to get a hard red circle.  That will do the same thing.

Hi Viclanel51,

It sounds like you're experiencing an issue with the brush settings in Photoshop. The "chiselled" outlines and incomplete duplication might be due to the brush settings or the tool options being inadvertently changed.