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Q
quiet.paul
Participant
August 20, 2021
Question

Photoshop CC 21 Brush Hardness Issue

  • August 20, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 417 views

I've been having this issue where my brush hardness and opacity will slowly decline over time.

 

Occurs with any brush, whether I'm using as brush or erase tool. If I use default hard round brush it starts off at 100% hardness & opacity, and a few minutes later I'll notice that it's gone down to 97% in hardness and opacity. I have to manually reset the opacity and hardness back to 100% or switch to a new brush altogether.

 

Same issue happens with my smudge brush - smudge strength will slowly decline from 100% strength to 95% after a few minutes of using the brush. Only setting that I could find was this: "vary round brush hardness based on HUD vertical movement"in Tools Settings - dunno if this is the right setting to looks for, but the issue persists whether it's checked on or off.

 

I am using Windows 10, which is up to date. I've also tried completely resetting photoshop preferences and uninstalling/re-installing photoshop, but issue persists. Had this issue for 2-3 months now and it still occurs to this day.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

S_Gans
Community Expert
S_GansCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 24, 2021

Sounds like a brush preset. Please send a screenshot of your brush settings.

Adobe Community Expert / Adobe Certified Instructor
Q
quiet.paulAuthor
Participant
August 28, 2021

Thanks for the response. It's not a brush preset issue because it was persisting across all brushes, even default hard round brush after reinstalling PS and resetting preferences. Even with all custom brush settings wiped and everything set to default, issue still persisted. However...

 

I actually just discovered what was causing the issue outlined in this support thread. Holding alt + right click, then dragging horizontally changes your brush size - which is something I do often - but dragging vertically changes your [brush opacity/flow/strength/etc] depending on the brush. If you drag even slightly diagonally instead of just horizontally, the opacity ends up changing along with the brush size.

 

I never knew that you could drag vertically to change opacity. At least now I know the cause and am prepared to adjust when it happens. Ideally, I'd like to disable the [alt + right click + vertical drag to adjust opacity] feature altogether. Any suggestions on how to do this? / is it at all possible?

Q
quiet.paulAuthor
Participant
August 28, 2021

I realized I never located this support thread before because I kept searching for "how to stop brush opacity from changing" or "brush opacity issue" - and hadn't, until recently, considered searching for "how to adjust brush opacity" and then working backwords to see what I may have been doing to cause the issue.

 

Lesson learned: always pays to look at an issue from multiple angles and perspectives

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