[Help Needed] Photoshop Soft Brush Pixelation on Transparent Background

[Vendo]

Hello, PhotoshopGurus community.


I have been posting this all across the internet in order to find a solution quickly.




This could be a software, monitor (unlikely), or display problem that I'm having here.


My standard soft brush (when set to black) is pixelated on a transparent background.


I honestly don't know if this is a problem with my Photoshop CS6 software, its settings, or if there's something wrong with my monitor that's displaying the information on-screen incorrectly.


I could be posting these images and others may not even see the same thing I'm seeing, so that's why I provided brief descriptions in the images to explain what I'm seeing on my screen.




My dxdiag:
pastebin (dot) com/Qnk6faB6




I have searched Google for various solutions without any luck, such as:
Photoshop brush spray paint problem
photoshop soft brush brush problem
photoshop pixelated brush problem
photoshop cs6 brush pixelation
windows 8 photoshop pixelated brush
windows 8 photoshop soft brush pixel brush problem


...so on and so forth.


The closest result I got related to my problem was here:
forums (dot) adobe (dot) com/message/5948197
Posted by Kenny05, who has the exact same issue I'm having. However, what they've discussed there fixes absolutely nothing.


And here:
(dot) photoshopgurus (dot) com/forum/photoshop-newbies/27693-brush-pixelation-transparent-background.html
The user Brooke Limas has the exact same problem as well. Even they couldn't figure this out. She even posted a video: youtube (dot) com/watch?v=MpKcfyMcmCo
Surprisingly though, I discovered something new on this site's thread, regarding the use of different colors. It turns out, other colors look perfectly fine, but black is the


color which has this pixelation problem.
It's still very problematic however, as I use the color black very often in soft shades.


Again, the problem is the improper display on a transparent background.


Thanks for any help you can provide.


- V

PS:
I apologize for not going through the process of 5 posts in order to posts links here, but I don't have too much spare time.

 

[IamSam]

Set your Brush Tool mode to Normal....


Set your Brush Tool spacing to 1%.....

 

[IamSam]

Also, uncheck Transfer in your Brushes Panel.

 

[Vendo]

Set your Brush Tool mode to Normal....


Set your Brush Tool spacing to 1%.....

Well firstly, I should have mentioned that I'm not a beginner at Photoshop whatsoever.

I'm well aware that Brush Tool's mode is set to "Behind" in the image but the actual brush strokes shown were painted in Normal Mode.
If painting in Normal Mode and turning off Transfer (Transfer is on by DEFAULT when you select the standard Soft Brush), I wouldn't be posting here.

If you didn't catch it from the image I've provided: I already tried to put Spacing at 1%. You'd be surprised how many people on the internet have said to put Spacing to 1% even though I already show that I did.


Pay no mind to the settings you see in my Photoshop window, but more attention to the descriptions I provided.

 

[MikeMc]

:banghead:

Sorry !

What should a "Soft Brush" show on the edges? I would suspect the algorithm would grey an edge rather than pixelate, but what do I know.

Reading your older PSG link that was a 2010 link, and software / hardware issues seemed to be the issue there, I'm sure that wouldn't have bearing on your question?

 

[Vendo]

What should a "Soft Brush" show on the edges? I would suspect the algorithm would grey an edge rather than pixelate, but what do I know.

Reading your older PSG link that was a 2010 link, and software / hardware issues seemed to be the issue there, I'm sure that wouldn't have bearing on your question?

That's right, it should be solid in the center and begin to feather as it goes out toward the edge of the strokes as you can see in the images I provided, but for some reason the center is pixelated.
Again, this is only happening on the color Black.

I'm not sure if it's a software or hardware issue, and was hoping that providing my dxdiag would help in some way.

 

[Hoogle]

This is the problem between Raster and and Vector whilst working in Pixels then photoshop will just populate the nearest pixel hence when zoomed in at 200% the edges look pixelated.

You can make your own softer brush which I have done in the past making it from a gradient and defining it but unless you can very accurately paint exactly where the pixels are and edges this will always be the case in Photoshop.

However do the same work in Illustrator as that will be vector based you will not see this issue.

 

[tch]

Hi, I know the thread is old, but the problem so current that I registered now to share my experience.


I had problem similar to the one described here.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out and cutting to the chase, turns out this wasn't a Photoshop problem at all. It was an operating system problem (Windows 8.1 in my case).


The root of the problem is that the default image color profile in Photoshop is "sRGB IEC61966-2.1", however, due to a recent re-installation of the operating system, the default PC's color management changed to "Dell 2209WA", which is a color profile that is associated with my PC's monitor.


This cause a lot of problems, and once I replaced the PC's color profile to "sRGB IEC61966-2.1", all returned to normal (yay!)
Beyond fixing this pixelization issue - the issue I had with pixelated / non-smooth gradients also disappeared (yay!)
Moreover, this fixed a problem I had what viewing images as well: When using Windows Image Preview, I had pictures that looks terribly pixelized and the colors were off. Needless to say - this problem disappeared as well (yay!)


In short: no need to buy a new PC, no need to buy a new graphic card and no need to even upgrade the display drivers (though this one doesn't hurt).


Here are the steps to change the default PC's Color Management (ICC) Profile on Windows 8.1:

1. Right click on the desktop
2. Select Screen Resolution
3. Click Advanced Settings (small hyperlink)
4. Select Color Management tab
5. Click Color Management button (in my case, the default profile was Dell 2209WA)
6. Click Use my settings for this device
7. Click Add
8. Select sRGB IEC61966-2.1
9. Press OK
10. Select sRGB IEC61966-2.1 from the ICC Profiles list
11. Click Set as Default Profile
12. Click Close
13. Click OK to close the Color Management dialog
14. Restart your application (e.g. Photoshop) for the changes to take affect.

Attached is an image the illustrates the difference between the color profiles.
The top row depicts the 'bad' color profile (Dell 2209WA) and the bottom depicts the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 color profile.
(*) In case you don't see a problem in the top row, or you do see a problem on the bottom row - chances are that your PC's default color profile is not sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

Hope this helps.

tch.