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Can I lock brush opacity in CS6?

May 7, 2012 4:11 PM

Tags: #brush #cs6 #opacity

In CS6 when I increase/decrease size of my brush using alt+right-click on pen tablet, sometimes I also unintentionally change brush opacity by couple percentage (obviously my hand won't move perfectly horizontally every time I want to do it). It kills flow during work of course and I have to stick to CS5 for now unfortunatelly. Is there is any sollution? I have only found option for turning off hardness change in preferences.

2225 Views 22 Replies Latest reply: Noel Carboni, Sep 2, 2012 11:34 AM

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1. R_Kelly,

May 7, 2012 6:53 PM in reply to Chris000000

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With the regular brush tool, checking the box as below, should prevent any change in opacity and then you should only be able to change the size and hardness.
(see the tooltip that pops up when hovering over that option)
Which tool do you notice this with and did you try just using a mouse to see if maybe it's your tablet driver causing the problem?

What kind of tablet?

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2. R_Kelly,

May 7, 2012 7:13 PM in reply to Chris000000

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That may also occur if you have the Always Use Pressure for Opacity option on in the tool options bar:

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3. Chris000000,

May 8, 2012 6:24 AM in reply to R_Kelly

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"vary round brush hardness based on HUD vertical movement" turns off only ability to change brush hardness. What I'm looking to is something like "vary brush opacity based on HUD vertical movement" which could be turn off.
It's not a problem with drivers or anything, it's an UI experience problem when manipulating brush with HUD movement (horizontal or vertically).
There are some great features in CS6, but this one just kills everything. And mostly I'm doing stuff which require 100% opacity every time I paint, so even 99% ruins my job unfortunately.

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4. R_Kelly,

May 8, 2012 7:27 AM in reply to Chris000000

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Checking Vary Round Brush Hardness based on....... turns off the ability to change the opacity with the alt-right click keystroke on painting tools that support opacity.
(i'm not saying there is nothing in cs6 itself causing it, but i don't recall during the beta anyone reporting this)

How do you know there is not a problem with your tablet driver or the settings for your tablet? (the driver may not have been updated for cs6)

What happens when you just use a mouse? Does it work right?

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5. Chris000000,

May 8, 2012 8:28 AM in reply to R_Kelly

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Like I said, it's not an mouse/tablet pen issue. But to clear up doubts I have latest Wacom (intuos4) drivers and tested it on mouse. Btw it would be strange if turning this option off would disable ability to change opacity.
Screenshot says everything what I mean:

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6. R_Kelly,

May 8, 2012 8:34 AM in reply to Chris000000

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I meant leaving the option checked is supposed to disable the ability to change the opacity with Alt-right click drag.

Are you saying using the mouse produces the same results?

Does the opacity aways change by the same amount?

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7. Chris000000,

May 8, 2012 9:29 AM in reply to R_Kelly

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Yes, it disables it. But it doesn't matter, because I need my brush to be both 100% opacity and 100% hard all the time. And I'm changing brush size very often.

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8. R_Kelly,

May 8, 2012 9:39 AM in reply to Chris000000

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Probably posting a short video of the problem would help us better understand what's happening.

see this link on how:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/963429?tstart=0

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9. Chris000000,

May 8, 2012 9:58 AM in reply to R_Kelly

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I can post short vid, not a problem, but this issue is quite simple. I dont want the HUD vertical movement to change either opacity and hardness of a brush. Changing brush size when moving horizontally is enough. And that's it. What I can do now, is to disable only one of those things, hardness or opacity.

btw, link above is empty.

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10. Chris000000,

May 8, 2012 10:20 AM in reply to Chris000000

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Oh and one more thing, it would be cool to "Toggle Preserve Transparency" in multiple layers with a numpad hotkey "/", not having to click on the icon in a layer panel. Because it's working on single layer, why wouldn't it work with many

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11. Chris000000,

Jun 12, 2012 7:58 AM in reply to Chris000000

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So any progress? I would love to upgrade to cs6, any chance to have it in some update?

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12. charles badland,

Jun 12, 2012 8:10 AM in reply to Chris000000

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I dont want the HUD vertical movement to change either opacity and hardness of a brush.
How are you avoiding that in CS5 now?

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13. Chris000000,

Jun 17, 2012 9:38 PM in reply to charles badland

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Simple you can't change opacity that way in CS5, only hardness, but it increase when moving tablet's pen down, so it's acceptable. Changing opacity in CS6 is not.

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14. wavenwater_mick,

Aug 5, 2012 10:05 AM in reply to Chris000000

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I've got the same problem and it's pretty anoying
I would like to have my oppacity and my hardness never affected by the hud.

Is there a way we can fix that, anybody has ever asked an administrator about that?

In Cs5, i've set my brush to be not affected by hardness by creating custom brushes! That way, I was able to avoid that problem
But I really HATE the oppacity change in cs6, normal key modifier were doing the job like a charm.

I REALLY WANT TO FIND A WAY TO AVOID THIS!

PLEASE HELP!

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15. Rinthe,

Aug 13, 2012 5:07 PM in reply to Chris000000

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This is a real problem. I'm a digital painter that uses the draggin left/right feature to change brush size often. But when you're using the HUD dragging feature to change brushes size, it'll often accidently change the opacity or hardness of the brushes based on the options.

When you're using a brush without hardness (ex. the photoshop natrual bristles). Even with the "Vary Round Brush Hardness..." option checked, it'll change the opacity instead when dragging up and down.

An option to disable both opacity and hardness control in the HUD would be VERY HELPFUL.

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16. Chris000000,

Aug 31, 2012 11:58 AM in reply to Rinthe

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so has it been fixed in the patch?

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17. Noel Carboni,

Aug 31, 2012 12:03 PM in reply to Chris000000

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What "fix" would you expect, Chris000000? This is not really a bug that can be fixed, but a feature that perhaps could use some usability enhancements.

You're hoping maybe for a new option to make the up-down motion de-configurable? No, and probably not gonna happen until the next major version release. Adobe almost never changes features in update versions.

-Noel

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18. Chris000000,

Aug 31, 2012 12:36 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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So I won't upgrade. A software is useless for me now. And whatever you want to call it Noel. I don't care if it's a bug or a feature. A product is damaged and actually it was fine. Personally for me it's a bug, releasing such a feature without an option to turn it off. I would like to upgrade to CS6, but it won't happen until the issue is solved. I know that no one care about one customer, but I think I'm not the only one here... not counting those who are wondering why the opacity is changing on the fly when drawing a stuff.

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19. Noel Carboni,

Aug 31, 2012 12:39 PM in reply to Chris000000

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I respect your position, but is it so terrible to set it to change Size and Hardness, then just watch that the Hardness doesn't change much?

Note that I don't speak for Adobe here, I'm just another user.

-Noel

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20. Chris000000,

Aug 31, 2012 1:13 PM in reply to Noel Carboni

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Yeap, because for most of my work time I'm using 100% opacity and hard round brushes for outline work.

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21. wavenwater_mick,

Sep 2, 2012 7:14 AM in reply to Chris000000

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I'm totally with you on this one!
I expected a lot from cs6 but seriously, I really think that photoshop is letting the digital artist down!
If such a feature is going to be added, Why couldn't we decide how this feature should work! (switch on n off and so on)

Also, a little joke a friend of mine said when he also encoutered this problem: «Hey Waven! you bet that on cs7, they'll make a feature to change the flow when you go on diagonal. Everybody would buy that X

Nah, seriously, Adobe really have to fix this feature or at least give us control over it!
They should have also added a mirror drawing tool just like Painter 12 did!
Now, Painter seem really better..

Stay on CS5 guys....

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22. Noel Carboni,

Sep 2, 2012 11:34 AM in reply to wavenwater_mick

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I don't mean to sound like I'm arguing here, I really don't, but you folks are artists... I assume that means you have some manual dexterity.

Yet you're saying you can't control two different options by carefully moving your stylus or mouse? I ask because I am having no trouble with it - I have steady hands but beyond that I wouldn't guess I possess any special hand-eye coordination skills. It has become so natural to me not to have to take my eyes off the screen yet be able to size a brush and make it the right hardness. It's especially not hard to keep the hardness jammed to one end of the range.

Out of curiosity, how long did you try to get used to it before you proclaimed it bad?

I'm REALLY not trying to be critical of you, and I FULLY AGREE that the various parts of the control should be configurable. I'm just trying to understand how someone can have such a different take than I do on how easy a feature is to use.

-Noel

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