STOP Changing Brush Hardness in Photoshop!
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Date: 2025-07-20
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Comments and reviews: 20
abdpsdlab
Well I knew this thanks to your previous lessons but I still use the shortcut for increasing the hardness. I always use a soft round brush and make it hard when I need it keeping a tight spacing. This doesn't give me caterpillar effects but you might ask I will have a larger thickness brush when I wll use it as a soft round brush. Well I don't care about that. Yes it doesn't bother me at all. I know exactly how large it will be due to practice so it doesn't bother that much at all. As you said you are just here to teach us tools and tricks but whatever works for us is the best for us. So I will stick with my lazy method
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Well I knew this thanks to your previous lessons but I still use the shortcut for increasing the hardness. I always use a soft round brush and make it hard when I need it keeping a tight spacing. This doesn't give me caterpillar effects but you might ask I will have a larger thickness brush when I wll use it as a soft round brush. Well I don't care about that. Yes it doesn't bother me at all. I know exactly how large it will be due to practice so it doesn't bother that much at all. As you said you are just here to teach us tools and tricks but whatever works for us is the best for us. So I will stick with my lazy method
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seguaro5923
This is an important point for anyone working with Photoshop brushes: as explained by Unmesh in the video, every brush is actually a shape that’s repeatedly stamped to form a stroke. The soft round brush, in particular, isn’t simply a hard-edged ellipse with reduced hardnessit’s an actual ellipse with a blurred edge. That distinction matters. When you increase the hardness, Photoshop has to add pixels to sharpen the blur, which is why the resulting stroke appears wider than the original brush diameter.
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This is an important point for anyone working with Photoshop brushes: as explained by Unmesh in the video, every brush is actually a shape that’s repeatedly stamped to form a stroke. The soft round brush, in particular, isn’t simply a hard-edged ellipse with reduced hardnessit’s an actual ellipse with a blurred edge. That distinction matters. When you increase the hardness, Photoshop has to add pixels to sharpen the blur, which is why the resulting stroke appears wider than the original brush diameter.
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EarthrealmWarrior
Ok. This genuinely is one of the most useful Photoshop videos I've seen. Out of all the Photoshop videos I've seen I don't remember anyone explaining what this setting actually does or how it works and I didn't give it much attention either. Can't thank you enough for making this amazing video this is so helpful. Also Krita a free drawing program has an Auto mode for Spacing, maybe you wanna explore it and see if it's something that should be added to Photoshop
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Ok. This genuinely is one of the most useful Photoshop videos I've seen. Out of all the Photoshop videos I've seen I don't remember anyone explaining what this setting actually does or how it works and I didn't give it much attention either. Can't thank you enough for making this amazing video this is so helpful. Also Krita a free drawing program has an Auto mode for Spacing, maybe you wanna explore it and see if it's something that should be added to Photoshop
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swisselle
You just solved a personal mystery of mine - always wondered why this happend, never had not stroking, it's stamping as the culprit in mind when I made my hard brush softer and vs versa. I knew I had to fix the spacing, but now I know why... And you proofed what I always say: no matter how long you are using/doing something, you will ALWAYS learn something new in every video/demonstration, no matter how skilled you are.
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You just solved a personal mystery of mine - always wondered why this happend, never had not stroking, it's stamping as the culprit in mind when I made my hard brush softer and vs versa. I knew I had to fix the spacing, but now I know why... And you proofed what I always say: no matter how long you are using/doing something, you will ALWAYS learn something new in every video/demonstration, no matter how skilled you are.
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irock58
LMAOoh my goshI never really explore the brushes even though I’m a portrait photographer and it would help with lots of things. Anyways, I always thought that the difference between the soft and hard brushes were literally just the hardness. You blew my mind. Thank you so much for all that you do. You are an absolute blessing for digital artists.
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LMAOoh my goshI never really explore the brushes even though I’m a portrait photographer and it would help with lots of things. Anyways, I always thought that the difference between the soft and hard brushes were literally just the hardness. You blew my mind. Thank you so much for all that you do. You are an absolute blessing for digital artists.
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yufers
Yes, it's annoying it does that. Also, and maybe it's just me, but sometimes if I click the square bracket keys to change the size of the brush, nothing happens. Nor will it switch between black and white by pressing X. Only way to do it is to manually change it to black, click once, then it will use the keyboard shortcuts again.
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Yes, it's annoying it does that. Also, and maybe it's just me, but sometimes if I click the square bracket keys to change the size of the brush, nothing happens. Nor will it switch between black and white by pressing X. Only way to do it is to manually change it to black, click once, then it will use the keyboard shortcuts again.
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rhym8882
omfg this is what I needed - alt and drag vertical or horizontal THANK YOU! Now, can you be a legend and tell me how can I switch quickly between select layer or group without going up and clicking it I have complex compositions and the pain of selecting layer or group and constantly changing it is real!
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omfg this is what I needed - alt and drag vertical or horizontal THANK YOU! Now, can you be a legend and tell me how can I switch quickly between select layer or group without going up and clicking it I have complex compositions and the pain of selecting layer or group and constantly changing it is real!
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Xiox321
I usually set the spacing to 0 regardless, and then change the flow to 2% when using the soft brush. I have my stylus button set to right click, which brings up the brush settings menu and I can quickly change hardness. I've never noticed the spacing change when adjusting hardness in this way.
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I usually set the spacing to 0 regardless, and then change the flow to 2% when using the soft brush. I have my stylus button set to right click, which brings up the brush settings menu and I can quickly change hardness. I've never noticed the spacing change when adjusting hardness in this way.
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RaphaelChan888
Wow, just going by the title, I thought it was going to be uninteresting. But because I've never seen a PiXimperfect video I didn't like, (and that it was recommended next!) I watched anyway, and this mystery has finally been understood! Always something to learn from PiXimperfect!
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Wow, just going by the title, I thought it was going to be uninteresting. But because I've never seen a PiXimperfect video I didn't like, (and that it was recommended next!) I watched anyway, and this mystery has finally been understood! Always something to learn from PiXimperfect!
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polystormstudio
I was struggling with this not long ago on my 2nd pc. It was working fine on my main machine but with what I thought were the same settings, the soft brush was bleeding as I made a stroke. Had no idea it was because I was using the hard brush with soft settings!
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I was struggling with this not long ago on my 2nd pc. It was working fine on my main machine but with what I thought were the same settings, the soft brush was bleeding as I made a stroke. Had no idea it was because I was using the hard brush with soft settings!
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apeel2008
Very helpful. I usually use the keyboard/Mouse to adjust size and hardness of a brush. Never realized that there was a spacing setting that was different between the two brush styles. Will start avoiding the key/mouse method going forward. Thank you!
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Very helpful. I usually use the keyboard/Mouse to adjust size and hardness of a brush. Never realized that there was a spacing setting that was different between the two brush styles. Will start avoiding the key/mouse method going forward. Thank you!
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jmh3d
Too many giggles and that's-what-she-said jokes in this one. I've never used the paintbrush settings to a point where this became so important that I couldn't fiddle around and just get what I needed. Still, a great help to the masses as always.
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Too many giggles and that's-what-she-said jokes in this one. I've never used the paintbrush settings to a point where this became so important that I couldn't fiddle around and just get what I needed. Still, a great help to the masses as always.
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Bob4golf1
Unmesh, unrelated to this video, I took a picture of the family in the pool and the coping (blue) put a nasty color cast on one of guys stomach. I've tried to color match this cast without luck. I figured you could do it if anyone could.
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Unmesh, unrelated to this video, I took a picture of the family in the pool and the coping (blue) put a nasty color cast on one of guys stomach. I've tried to color match this cast without luck. I figured you could do it if anyone could.
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oramonteu
Thank you so much for helping us understand why it happens ! You turned on the light in the room
Unfortunately your solution is not very smooth for a intensive use of the brush... I wish Adobe could fix this pain in the a
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Thank you so much for helping us understand why it happens ! You turned on the light in the room
Unfortunately your solution is not very smooth for a intensive use of the brush... I wish Adobe could fix this pain in the a
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allzofeel
ffs, i always wondered why it did that and I used to think that PS or my hardware was glitching out, so i'd restart PS and it was working fine again. UNTIL... this video explained everything clearly and concisely, ty.
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ffs, i always wondered why it did that and I used to think that PS or my hardware was glitching out, so i'd restart PS and it was working fine again. UNTIL... this video explained everything clearly and concisely, ty.
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piximperfect
would have been good if you included the shortcut for changing to those 2 brushes. I don't know the best shortcut, but I usually use , and . to change to soft or hard if i've got one of those 2 selected already
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would have been good if you included the shortcut for changing to those 2 brushes. I don't know the best shortcut, but I usually use , and . to change to soft or hard if i've got one of those 2 selected already
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roblawson1834
Hardly ever use photoshop as i find it so complex and lightroom does most what i need. But i still watch your videos as they're masterclass teaching and just such a joy, as are your facial expressions .
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Hardly ever use photoshop as i find it so complex and lightroom does most what i need. But i still watch your videos as they're masterclass teaching and just such a joy, as are your facial expressions .
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PrinceWesterburg
I used PhotoShop 1.0 and everyone said the brushes were awful. Here we are over 30 years later and they are EXACTLY THE SAME!!!
Seriously, try Painter or Krita and you’ll have an epiphany!
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I used PhotoShop 1.0 and everyone said the brushes were awful. Here we are over 30 years later and they are EXACTLY THE SAME!!!
Seriously, try Painter or Krita and you’ll have an epiphany!
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GethinColes
Changing brush hardness with modifier keys. I’m sure I knew this at one point, but brain no work good now. I wish adobe had some tool hints for such things there must be a bundle I don’t know
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Changing brush hardness with modifier keys. I’m sure I knew this at one point, but brain no work good now. I wish adobe had some tool hints for such things there must be a bundle I don’t know
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RickNL_1980
You have such an ability to set people, that are already masters in Photoshop, a level higher over and over.. Very informative! Never thought about this one actually..
Hats off to you Unmesh!
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You have such an ability to set people, that are already masters in Photoshop, a level higher over and over.. Very informative! Never thought about this one actually..
Hats off to you Unmesh!
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