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Brush Blurry


I

ISitude

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Hi all!

I've come across a problem in Ps CC. I create a brush and define it as a new brush. And then I open up a photo which is 5616x3744. Resize the photo ...Image > Image Size > Pixel Dimensions, down to 1000x667. When I use the new brush on the 5616x3744 the brush is nice and crisp, but when I use the same brush with no adjustments on the 1000x667 the brush is blurry.

In the attached image the top watermark is perfectly rendered, and bottom watermark is the blurry one.

Do you know what could have caused this irregularity? By the way, it is the same result for any new brush created ...grrr.

Thanks in advance!
 

Attachments

  • brushblur.jpg
    brushblur.jpg
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From your description, I'm not sure exactly what your workflow was, but I'm guessing that to produce the above examples, you used the brush on the high rez canvas, and then down-rez'ed it to 1000 px wide to compare it to the case where you started with a 1kpix wide canvas and did everything at that size.

If that's what you did, your brush has exactly the same amount of blur in pixels no matter what the dimension of your image, but the blur is a smaller fraction of the larger image, so that when you down-rez the large image by a factor of ~5x to bring it down to 1000 pix wide, the blur (in pixels) is also reduced by the same factor.

If I guessed wrong about how you prepared the above images, let me know.

T
 
Several things come to mind for me here.

This may be from anti-aliasing. Photoshop uses anti-aliasing to smooth the edges of scaled items. With custom brushes it's quite noticeable.

A custom brush retains the opacity information of the original pixel image used to create it. If you start with a soft-edge shape, you'll have a soft-edge custom brush.

When creating text based custom brushes, make sure you have the anti aliasing set to CRISP.

Screen Shot 2013-12-30 at 9.40.53 AM copy.png

Screen Shot 2013-12-30 at 9.41.02 AM copy.png

Make your custom text brushes large. About 200 px or larger.

When using your brushes, make sure your Brush Mode is set to normal, and opacity and flow is set to 100%.

Screen Shot 2013-12-30 at 9.54.56 AM copy.png

I think Tom is right. After you down sized the image, you of course had to reduce the size of the brush, which then began to show the anti-aliasing.

I suggest adding the watermark to the larger image before down sizing.
 
First of all just let me say it's nice to be back amongst fellow gurus. Not since the good old days of Greg's PST forum have I participated in solving a problem as troublesome issue as this one seems to be ...and of course I'm prolly overlooking the obvious ...sigh.


I think Tom is right. After you down sized the image, you of course had to reduce the size of the brush
Click to expand...

No. That's the problem. As I mentioned the brush size (and all attributes thereof) are the exact same as when used in the full size as with the downsized. Here is the work flow...

Open up a RAW file do some post camera whatever and then ...Image > Image Size > Pixel Dimensions ...change the Width and Height ...(Document Size will change accordingly except the Resolution which will remain the same). Are check boxes are at Default.

...note that only the image size was changed, and NOT it's Resolution. All changes were done via Pixel Dimension dialog ...and nothing else was changed through the Document Size dialog.


Thanks again!
 
Just quick recap...

Nice and crisp new brush on full size ... when brush is used on downsized it renders blurry ... image Resolution stays unchanged in downsized image.

Thx!
 
Sam: "I think Tom is right. After you down sized the image, you of course had to reduce the size of the brush"

Sorry, but I never said this. In fact, I guessed the opposite, ie, that the OP kept the size of the brush the same in both cases, and this is what he confirmed.

So, after clarification from the OP, I still think my earlier explanation is appropriate.

Say the blurry edge on the brush is 10 pixels. When painted on an image that is 5kpix wide, this blur is 1/500th of the size of the image. However, when painted on an image that is 1 kpix wide, the same amount of blur is now 1/100th of the size of the image, hence 5x more noticeable.

Think about it in the extreme case of using the same brush (same settings) on an image that was only 100 px wide. Of course it would be super blurry.

The 1/500th vs 1/100th percentage difference is still in effect and still highly visible whether you view the two images on your monitor, filling the screen in both cases, or whether you down-rez both images to 700 px wide for display in the forum.

Finally, if by the term, "the resolution", you are referring to the 72 ppi or 300 ppi numbers given in PS's image resize dialog box, just forget them. They are totally meaningless (and possibly even misleading) in this discussion. All they do is convert pixel dimensions to a print size on an attached printer. For viewing on the web / on a monitor, this number is completely ignored. We have had several earlier threads on exactly this.

Similarly, when printing a file at most mass market print services, kiosks, etc. they also ignore this number and instead, figure out what ppi to use from the size (in inches) that you have requested.

HTH,

T
 
Thanks T, for the reply!

Say the blurry edge on the brush is 10 pixels.
Click to expand...

Is this to say the brush was created with a slight blur? Because that is not the case here, the brush is created crisp and clean. And when you use the phrase "down-rez", what exactly are you referring to by using the word "rez".

Are you saying that by reducing the Pixel Dimensions, through the work path I previously mentioned, the doc's resolution is effected too? Thereby effecting the clarity of the brush, as evidenced by a slight brush blur?
 
Tom said:
Sorry, but I never said this. In fact, I guessed the opposite, ie, that the OP kept the size of the brush the same in both cases, and this is what he confirmed.
Click to expand...
Gotcha, misinterpreted what you said.
Tom, again after reading carefully, what your saying makes sense.




I'm admittedly lost here, so will one of you help me out here!
This image was originally 4752 x 3168px x 72. On this large image I created the smaller of the two watermarks.

I then used Image Size to reduce the image down to 1000 x 667px x 72.

I did not alter the size of the brush I originally used before!
PLEASE NOTE the size of the brush, compared to the size of the image!

You would have to reduce the size of the brush to fit the newly re-sized image!!

Screen Shot 2013-12-30 at 7.56.51 PM.png

Please explain what I must be missing!
 
Hi! I found a related Ps CC New Brush issue posted on the inner webs to add to this saga...

photoshopforums dot com / custom-brush-issue-with-photoshop-cc-vt27275 dot html

...seems I'm not alone and this could indeed be a software issue.
 
No probs I.S. ;)

Update: After a lengthy call with Adobe they were able to duplicate the issue ...and are now pushing the ticket further up the line. Personally speaking I think it is a code error or code oversight within Ps CC new brush aliasing functionality ...or maybe something as minor as a downloading error.

Hoping for a quick New Year's resolution!

Happy New Year my fellow Gurus!

And thanks again for your thoughtful responses!!

>place the clicking mugs of beer icon here<
 
Guys - Sorry I dropped off the edge of the earth. My computer has slowed to probably 5% of its former speed after I replaced a blown video / GPU card and I'm embroiled in trying to fix it.

I'll get back to take a look at your problem after I fix my own. LOL!

T
 
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