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Brush Pixelation on transparent background?


Brooke Limas

Brooke Limas

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When I use a soft edged brush on a transparent background, it becomes quite pixelated and strange looking. It's perfectly fine with a background, and only gets weird if the background is transparent. Is this normal, or did I do something?

Thanks for any help :P

And apologies if this is a silly question :3
 

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Hi Brooke I'm back.
I tried to duplicate your issue and couldn't but I have 2 quick suggestions that you should try even if you weren't having any other problems.

1. Update your video card driver
2 Reset your Preferences file

(From our future Help Files Collection)

It could be a corrupt preferences file.

If you've made a lot of changes to the Photoshop's default settings you may want to rename it to see if that's what causing the problem.

You could locate the file and rename it.
When you restart Photoshop a new preferences file will be created with the default settings.

Preferences files vary by name and location for each version,
with each version storing its own preference settings in a different set of files.

You may need to do some research on how to locate the preferences file for your Operating System and your version of Photoshop.

A few of the clues that the Preferences file has gone bad are:

Freezes and crashes.
Unusual tool behavior.
Menu commands unexpectedly not available.
Missing or blacked-out icons in the Toolbox.
Unusual colors for interface items.

You can reset the preferences file manually:

Start the Photoshop while holding down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows)
or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS X).

Then, click Yes to the message, "Delete the Adobe Photoshop Settings file?"
​
 
If that doesn't work, do the same thing on a White back ground and get us a screen shot. It almost looks like the brush hardness changed during your strokes. I know it probably didn't but it appears that way. Anyways, let us know if Steve's method works.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

I tried renaming the Preference File, deleting the Preference File, deleting the entire Photoshop Preference folder, reinstalling Photoshop, installed new video drivers, and nothing worked. :sad:

This is starting to drive me a little mad. I would have thought that uninstalling would have done it, but no...

I started noticing it two days ago. At first I thought that I had pressed a keyboard shortcut and changed something. But now that I have deleted the Preference File, and uninstalled it, I don't know.

Well, here's some more screen captures. The first one is what it looks like on a white background, the second on a transparent background. It is a normal soft edged brush with the opacity at 100%, and the hardness set to 0%.

Again, thanks for the help. I just wish I new what was going on :rolleyes:
 

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It doesn't appear to be caused by scatter, as it isn't on.

The first and third attached pictures are exactly the same, the only thing I did was turn off the white background. The fourth picture shows the "pixelation" effect that I'm talking about. All I did was zoom in on the picture, I didn't change anything.

Are you making fun of me saying pixelation? :sad: Because it is in Wikipedia, so...

Thanks for the help though, even if you really were making fun of me :P
 

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only thing I see is it is a4 400% The brush is made that way,it must of had feathering to it when saved.imo
 
Here is a step by step process of what I did.

  • Create a new document, with the settings 512 x 512 pixels, resolution of 72, and color mode of RGB 8 bit.
  • Next I create a second layer, and paint a line on that layer with a standard soft brush set to 100 pixels.
  • Then I turn off the white background layer.
That's it, that's all I do. I'm just curious if this happens to everyone and is normal. Or if something different is happening for me.

Thanks :)

*EDIT. I'm using Photoshop CS5 Extended on a 32 bit Windows 7 HP laptop. I didn't notice anything until a couple of days ago, so I'm pretty sure it's not that my laptop can't handle Photoshop.
 

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Last edited:
Okay, I've uploaded a short clip onto Youtube showing what the "pixelation" looks like.

So, is this normal, or should I keep trying to find out what's wrong?

Here is a link to the video. (I can't actually post links yet, as I need 10 posts)

www (dot) youtube (dot) com/watch?v=MpKcfyMcmCo

replace the (dot)s with periods.
 
Steve said:
Open the brush properties.
What is spacing set at?

Lower it to 1% and try it.
Steve
Click to expand...

The spacing is at 20% seemingly by default. I tried setting it to 1%, but it still has that strange pixelated edge. :(
 
How strange.. Is the OpenGL box checked? Is it even an option for you? goto Edit> Preferences> Performance> GPU Settings and see if OpenGL drawing is checked or unchecked.. i believe your laptop is more than capable of running Ps..

As far as making fun of you goes, i was absolutely not making fun of you, i know the word is in Wiki but not the English dictionary, i been using the word pixelated for awhile and every time i type it, my browser tries to correct it saying, it isn't spelled right "Hence" because it isn't in the dictionary!!

I been adding it to my dictionary for my browser the last week or so so my browser will stop trying to correct it hehe!!



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[CENTER][COLOR="red"][SIZE="3"]Photoshop Gurus Support Template[/COLOR]
 

[I]Copy the questions below & paste it in your post.[/I]
 

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