How to tell Photoshop to treat areas outside of the canvas as “void” instead of “100% white”?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
November 6, 2017
3 replies
1146 views

I'm using Photoshop with the Mix Brush tool to draw digital oil paintings.

The problem I have is that if you, for example, make the background black, select a dark blue color and then begin with your brush outside of the canvas (which naturally happens and is unavoidable), it "picks up" the apparently 100% white color that exists outside the black canvas, causing the paint to be way too bright. How do I tell Photoshop to treat areas outside of the canvas as "air" or "void"? (Or at least treat it as the same color as the canvas.)

I've asked many people and nobody has any idea. Looked through all the settings I could think of and I cannot figure this out. I was also told by a moderator that he was gonna re-post this after deletion (because of nonsensical replies), but that never happened, so I have to re-post it myself.

I even made a video showing exactly what I mean, so that nobody could possibly be confused about what I'm asking:

https://streamable.com/s/3q061/edfrpz?autoplay=1

To avoid the same problem happening again: Kindly don't reply if you haven't read the question.

This topic has been closed for replies.

A

Anonymous

Brush settings?

Fenja

J

johng95098828Author

Participating Frequently

Fenja: That option you're referring to only turns on/off "clean brush after each strok". It only appears to work after you've used the brush for a while.

davescm

Community Expert

Hi

There is an effect, but it is not that you are mixing with white it is that you are not mixing with anything therefore the brush starts with 100% of the paint colour that is loaded on the brush, whereas starting on the canvas it starts by mixing with black.

I have shown two sets of three strokes below. The first set is a straight stroke , the second is a "zig zag". In each set, the first started off canvas, the second started and finished in the black the third started in the white patch. You can see that starting off canvas is not the same as starting in white - but nor is it the same as starting in the black.

To get round the problem - extend the canvas temporarily so you are starting in the background colour rather than off canvas - then, once done, crop it.

Dave

J

johng95098828Author

Participating Frequently

That's the workaround I experimented with yesterday/many hours ago. However, it made it impossible to know where the actual canvas begins, and it adds an enormous amount of work to be done manually for every single painting/scene just to get around this.

I believe you when you say it doesn't mix in with white, but 100% of the color. However, that's a minor detail and the end result is the same. There must be some way to stop this undesired, weird behaviour by Photoshop, no? I mean, other than doing the highly labor-intense and confusing method of increasing the canvas and fiddling about with it and guessing where the borders are?

This is so bizarre to me. The Mix Brush tool is absolutely fantastic, but then this stupid little glitch makes it impossible to use it in practice. I can't believe it.