brush tool

Hi

The way the brush works on your image depends on the brush settings and on the layer settings that you are brushing on to.

Can you show a screenshot of your full screen with the brush tool selected. Include in it the options bar at the top of the screen and the layers panel with the layer you are brushing onto selected.

Dave

So you don't know what preset you used?  I'd guess that it was a round, fully soft brush, but factors like if you are using a tablet would make a difference.  You can reset your brushes to get back to the defaults.  Right click inside the image window with the brush tool selected, and the soft brush is the first on top left corner.  Or make sure everything (except smoothing) is unchecked in the brush panel, and move the Hardness slider all the way left.

Having said all that, there are better ways to make a sun.  Use a new layer and stamp down your sun, then copy that layer and use Gaussian blur to give your haziness around your sun.  Set the layer blend mode to Screen.