Brush tool problem

[jonwebb3]

Hello out there: I'm having an issue with Photoshop CC, version 19.0 and I have no idea how to contact Adobe for help. I'm 77-years-old and I don't even know what a forum is but it looked like a place to maybe find an answer. Following is the information about my computer - 

 As you can see, I have no idea what I'm doing. The issue that I want to ask about is rotating circles of dots when I'm using the 'Brush Tool'  or trying to clone. Below is a screen grab showing both circumstances. Cloning is especially troubling since mostly I can't see where the brush is. I would be grateful for information about how to solve this problem. 

[mglush]

Hi Jon!

We are happy to help! The question is unclear to me--are you trying to recreate the rotating dots using the Clone Stamp tool? Or is the issue that you cannot see the painting cursor? Let's work on the cursor issue first. In your screen shot, I see the cross hair cursor--is that the painting cursor, or the Clone Sourse Cursor? If it is the Painting Cursor, then you might want to change it in your Photoshop Preferences.

Are you on a Mac or Windows Machine? If a Mac, go to the Photoshop Menu and choose Preferences>Cursors and select the 

Full Size Brush Tip. This will allow you to see the circle around the brush or the area that you are painting. See the image below.

If this takes care of the issue, then your set to keep working! But if you need some direction with the Clone stamp tool, then let us know and we can help with that too.

Michelle

[jonwebb3]

Thank you so much, Michelle, for reaching out. The rotating dots present with both the brush tool or the clone stamp. The cross hair cursor you note is the clone source cursor but the rotating dots prevent seeing the specific spot where you want to paint or clone. I just want them to go away. They didn't used to br there. This issue is with aq Mac. See details above. I changed preferences to 'full size' but that madden difference. The issue is I do not have a brush tip - only rotating dots.

[mglush]

Good morning! Thanks for the reply! It sounds to me like the rotating dots means that the computer or Photoshop is trying to process something--similar to the spinning beach ball. How full is your hard drive? And how much space have you allocated to Photoshop? Check Preferences>Performance. And do you have any external drives set as scratch disks? Michelle

[jonwebb3]

Nothing has changed yet but per your questions, the 500GB hard drive is only half used. 9,908 MB allocated to Photoshop and no external drives. Oh well, but thanks.

[mglush]

Thanks for the info! Try increasing the amount allocated to Photoshop -- maybe to 20000MB and then restart your machine. Let me know if that makes a difference.

[mglush]

I meant restart Photoshop, not your machine. But it might also be a good idea to restart your machine too!

[MrPW]

The rotating dots happen if your brush is causing performance issues because it has very low spacing and/or the document is very high resolution. For example if I make a large document that has a resolution of 300000x300000 and fit it onto my screen. When I enlarge the brush and drag it across the canvas, hey presto, rotating dots until the brush stroke is complete.

If you go up to the top bar to Window - Brush Settings (click it. Sorry I don't know the Mac shorcut key). Look at the top of the brush settings there's a part that'll say 'Brush Tip Shape' in that section look at the bottom for 'Spacing' and try sliding that more to the right (not too much though or you'll end up with rows of dots instead of brush strokes 🙂

[jonwebb3]

Hello HW: Ewell, I am bot working High Res so that's probably not it. My 'Brush Tip Spacing' is at 1%. Raising it as far as 100% didn't change anything. Thank you, though.

[MrPW]

Okay. Then the only other thing I can think of of the top of my head is that maybe you've selected the mixer brush instead of the regular brush. The mixer brush can be quite demanding if the spacing is set to 1%. You can sit the cursor on the brush icon on the tool panel to check or click and hold on the brush icon to get the flyout menu. The mixer brush icon has a little blob of paint where the regular brush doesn't. 

[jonwebb3]

No help there either, but I do thank you.