Soft round brush creating weird shape pattern by default

[dragantomas]

Hi all,

I get this very weird looking shape pattern when using basic soft round brush in its default mode. I have tried as much as I was able to in order to fix this problem, like disabling all the brush tip shapes in the brush settings, but to no avail. 

Please have a look at the bellow screenshot to see what I mean.

Would someone know why is the brush showing this kind of the shape and how to bring it back to its normal default softness?

Thanks

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Compliments on posting a screenshot right away! 

But I am not sure what you are referring to exactly?

The banding? That might be owed to the Layers above and might improve by painting in 16bit. 

[PECourtejoie]

Hello, what does the levels adjustment layer look like? It seems that there is a lot of tonal compression.

What does the stroke look like without it?

[dragantomas]

Hi all,

first of all my appologies for my late reply, hadnt been getting email notifications for some reason regarding yoru replies here, so I thought there werent any, and then subsequently forgot about the post.

When I use lower brush opacity on the soft brush (especially at 10%), and then start increasing brightness in levels (or any other tool that increases the brightness), the banding becomes more and more prominent. But if I use higher opacity number when using brush, the banding seems not to be there between 40 and 100% opacity (when inresing the brightness). 

I have uploade another screenshot here.

[c.pfaffenbichler · Accepted solution]

The Adjustment appears to be so steep that it reveals the limitations of working in 8bit. 

Please try the same in 16bit. 

[c.pfaffenbichler · Accepted solution]

To elaborate:

Not only can the colors of a pixel in an 8bit image only have one of 256 values in each Channel, their transparency is likewise limited and this also applies to each brush tip being placed as you paint. 

The Levels Adjustment seems to make waste of roughly 90 percent of those 8bit so where originally 256 distinct values per Channel existed now there are less than 30. 

The result would not exactly appear surprising. 

[dragantomas]

Yes I have tried the same in 16bit and the problem is not there any more, correct. Thanks

[c.pfaffenbichler]

The more extreme the Adjustments in a file are the more it could benefit from a higher bit depth.

This naturally has costs: filesize, performance, … 

But it may be necessary at times. 

[c.pfaffenbichler · Accepted solution]

Though applying »Noise« for the Brush or »Add Noise« later on (even as a Linear Light-Pattern Layer) may also help mask the banding to some extent.