Shadowing has suddenly appeared

Forum|Forum|25 days ago
August 21, 2026
11 replies
78 views

I have been editing flowers for over a month with absolutely no problem and all of a sudden I am getting shadowing appearing when painting back in on a mask layer. The only way to avoid is to leave a large gap around the edges which is totally useless and before I could paint right up to the edges of leaves.

my process is

1 open photo

2 overlay a texture background (using pace embedded as Jo other way currently works with my version

3 Add a mask layer

4 set opacity of overlay to around 40%
select mask layer and paint over parts of flower I want to see - before I could go right up to edge of leaves with no problem

5 select texture layer and adjust opacity until desired effect

worked perfect until today and now if I go anywhere near the edges of the flower, a shadow appears outside the edge and on the background texture :(

any tips on what I might have accidentally switched on would be gratefully received

thanks in advance

davescm

Community Expert

@skilled_Lighta50c You might want to increase your brush hardness. It looks like you are painting with a very soft brush.

Dave

Anshul_Saini

Community Manager

Hi @skilled_Lighta50c,

Thanks for reaching out and for the screenshots. I don’t see a Layer Style such as Drop Shadow or Outer Glow enabled on the texture layer, so that doesn’t appear to be the cause.

I also notice that the document is displayed at 700% zoom, and an unwanted edge appears around the masked area. Since you mentioned this started immediately after a Windows/graphics-driver update, could you please try the following:

1. Go to Edit > Preferences > Performance.
2. Temporarily turn off Use Graphics Processor.
3. Restart Photoshop and test the same mask again.
4. Please also check the image at 100% zoom and let us know whether the unwanted edge is visible there as well.

If disabling the GPU makes the edge disappear, that would give us a useful indication that the recent graphics update is involved.

If it remains, please go to Help > System Info, then copy and paste the complete System Info here.

Please don’t roll back Windows or the graphics driver yet; let’s first determine whether GPU rendering is actually involved.

Best,
Anshul Saini

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Sounds like a Layer Style to me. Show us a full res screen shot of your full workspace with document window and Layers panel selected, and I suspect it will be clear what is going on.

jane-e

Community Expert

@skilled_Lighta50c

Check the options bar for the Brush tool and look for a blending mode. You might reset the Brush tool to see if that fixes it. Right-click the Brush icon in the options bar (not toolbar) and choose Reset.

If it doesn’t work, show us a screenshot that includes: