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Bot270130165khd
Participant
September 9, 2025
Question

stroke catchup enabled but greyed out cannot disable it

  • September 9, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 116 views

I have a collection of Kyle Webster custom brushes I use regularly, particularly his watercolor brushes. There's considerable lag on stroke catchup. When attempting to disable it under the smoothing options gear icon they are checked "on" but greyed out so I cannot disable the setting.

I've reset the tool using the brush tool icon gear setting at top left of the GUI (2nd screenshot). It then ungreys the stroke catchup option but it also defaults to the soft round brush. When I select the Kyle watercolor brush again the stroke catchup is checked and greyed out. (3rd screenshot) shows the specific brush I'm trying to uncheck the catch up option on)

In checking other brushes generally, many of them show this same setting under smoothing options; checked but greyed out 

2 replies

Trevor.Dennis
Community Expert
Trevor.DennisCommunity Expert
Community Expert
September 10, 2025

Just to be sure, if the Smoothing percentage is set to zero, then the other options are greyed out.

Even with smoothing set to 1% the options become available.  This is with one of the Kyle Paintbox presets.

 

If this is what is happening then we are back to what is causing the lag. 

We need to know:

 

Brush size in pixels?

Brush spacing?

Rough system spec?

 

FYI I tried that preset at 5000 pixels with 1% spacing, and got _very_ noticable lag. 🙂

With 500 pixels at 1% spacing I still saw some lag.

The default for the preset I was using is 50 pixels and 4% and I see no lag at those settings.

I am using reasonably high end workstation.

    Noel Orridge
    Community Manager
    Noel OrridgeCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    September 10, 2025

    Hi @Bot270130165khd! Thank you for reaching out! It could be that the setting is saved as part of the brush preset itself. The brush creator likely enabled and locked this setting to ensure the watercolor brush behaves with the intended smoothness and flow. 

     

    A workaround is to create a new brush based on the settings of the brush you want to use. Go to Window > Brush Settings and look at the list of options on the left panel. If the box next to "Smoothing" is unchecked, check it. This is the master switch that controls the greyed-out options in the top bar. Now, create a new brush from these modified settings by clicking the plus sign icon (+) at the bottom right of the Brush Settings panel. You can play with the settings however you want and make it your own.

     

    If you're still experiencing lag, try turning off the GPU from Preferences > Performance, unchecking "Use Graphics Processor," and restarting Photoshop. Also, ensure Photoshop can use a good portion of your RAM (around 70-80%).

     

    Hope this helps!

    Noel
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