Photoshop Brush lines are pixelated and weak. Solutions?

[Julian27640947dydz]

When using the Brush Tool with a size of 3px, Hardness 100% (see brush settings below), lines come out weak and pixelated. Extremely noticable when there is color involved, but less noticable when a background is turned on. I'm at a resolution of 2000x3000px (not sure the dpi but I don't think I've changed anything). Would like to have crisper lines when using the brush. Alternatively, if anyone can suggest a method of filling in the lines without the bucket fill tool, I'd graciously accept that too!

Thank you!

[thejanebradbury]

I'm sure someone with better drawing skills will chime in, but a couple of things occur to me immediately:

• your screenshot shows your document zoom at over 600% - lines will look pixelated at that zoom;
• 3 pixels is a very fine line, pixels are square and they will never make a smooth line, there will always be some  stepping;
• are you drawing two sides of your outline and then filling the gap to give you the thicker outline?

Have you tried a thicker brush? Changed any Brush Settings to help with Smoothing (to draw smoother lines)? Are your outlines on a separate layer above the colour? 

Is this the way you've always been doing your art? I'd be trying a slightly larger brush, maybe even reduce the hardness slightly, crank up Smoothing to help me draw flowing lines, and basically just experiment until I found the magic point where I got what I needed. Also, remember to view your artwork at what will be its actual size to check for problems like pixelation.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Try a brush with 4px diameter or apply an appropriate Layer Style to the Layer. 

In general I wonder if you might not be better off doing your illustration in Illustrator. 

The Paintbucket Tool is, in my opinion, not very useful.

In your case you could try using it with »All Layers« unchecked on a duplicate of the lines-Layer after applying the Filter Maximum (1px) to it. 

[davescm · Accepted solution]

I would use Illustrator to draw the linework. That way you are independent of pixel size until you export, so lines will remain crisp and sharp. Also consider Illustrator's Live Paint for filling with colour. That way the linework can also be moved and adjusted, and the fill colour moves with it.

Dave

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I would use Illustrator to draw the linework. That way you are independent of pixel size until you export, so lines will remain crisp and sharp. 

Especially in case one needs to re-combine and scale elements from an illustration the vector-stroke would be beneficial, as it can be changed easily to »harmonize« the scaled object’s appearance.