Pen has white circle and doesnt always draw

[dimeolas7]

Ok will try one more question. I do not in any way have the time to learn the entire software. I need a few skills and yes i'm doing tutorials. But things arent working and ive no clue and not sure what to ask.

On this one, when I touch pen to wacom a white circle shows onscreen around point of contact and the pen or brush doesnt draw. It may after a few seconds but I have no clue what this circle is and I feel it is causing my issue. The pc is under a year old and made for 3d so it has a nice processor, vid card and plenty of ram, is not the pc. Rather failing at PS so wont be renewing my 6-month but bugs me when things dont work.

Thank you

[Abambo · Accepted solution]

Things work, beileve me, but users not always understand the problem. The white outline circle are the limits of the brush. This is a standard indication you can set in the preferences. If you reduce the size of the brush, the circle should be smaller and vice versa.

There are multiple possibilities that the broush is not working:

1. Wrong layer: effect layers do not allow painting.
2. masked out area: painting on masked out area does not show effect, but it draws fine. If you disable the mask, the effect will show.
3. Painting outside the selected area. when a selection is active, you cannot paint outside the selected area.
4. Transparency protection: Photoshop does not allow to paint on transparent areas if this protection is enabled for the layer.
5. Brush transparency or flow is low or zero.
6. etc.

When you can’t paint, it is important to post screencopies of your current situation. Trained users can tell then most prabably the cause of the problem. In very very very rare cases, a bug shows up. Don’t count on, that an inexperienced user will finde the ​killer ​bug.