Strange Smudge Tool Bug?

[EeveeonE83980361]

I've tried looking around the internet to find this issue, but apparently i'm the only person having this. I draw digital images in Photoshop, and the smudge tool is important for making things look a little stretched. But there's a strange issue with it. Where it's supposed to draw out the color onto the transparent layer, it instead creates this glitchy dark effect:

I'm drawing a Pokémon image for those wondering, this is a move called Swift.

Anyway, that trail looks, horrible. I already used Gaussian Blur to make the trail a bit blurry. Now I want to stretch it out, and if possible, fade it. I want it to look similar to how it looks in game (In Gen 7). I would like to know how to fade it out easily without using the annoying FG + Gradient and using that for each individual trail.

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Change your image mode to 16 bits /channel then use the smudge tool. You can always copy and convert to 8 bit at the end.

Dave

[EeveeonE83980361]

You're right. That fixed it. Thanks so much. That's useful to know.

[jakehopper]

This fixed my issue as well. Everytime I was using the smudge tool to blend a single color on it's own layer the color would get tints of a completey different color. For instance, I was attempting to blend my brown color layer so it would be a smooth transition from the color-layers underneath but the smudge tool was producing reddish and white streaks. Changing the color mode to 16 bits solved this issue.

[Michael Bullo]

I tried reproducing your issue but everything is working as it should at my end.

Have you tried resetting the preferences?

Preferences in Photoshop

"Press and hold Alt+Control+Shift (Windows) or Option+Command+Shift (Mac OS) as you start Photoshop. You are prompted to delete the current settings. The new preferences files are created the next time you start Photoshop."

[davescm]

Michael - I could reproduce in 8 bits but not in 16 bits.

Dave

[Michael Bullo]

Hi Dave. That's really interesting. I confirmed that you are correct. My initial test that looked fine was using a more saturated yellow. Using a more desaturated yellow produced a result similar to the original post. Switching to 16 bit also fixed this. Good call.