I'm also having problems with the smudge/blur brush. My tablet (Samsung Note 10.1) was bought so I could do my work on the fly using a touch sensitive stylus with Photoshop. However the smudge brush simply isn't working as it should and this all but renders PS redundant in my portable work flow as I use this particular brush a lot.

Like the original poster my smudge brush seems to be simultaneously burning/darkening. The harder I lean the more the image underneath darkens. Likewise if I lift the pen off between strokes each successive stroke darkens. Do it a sufficient amount of times and I end up with black even if I'm blending along the edge of 2 pale hues! I'm a very experienced Photoshop user so I'm fairly confident that the fault lies not with my brush settings but rather seems to be an unwanted side effect of the brush.

As the Note tablet is a new device I'm guessing that there will be more complaints about this popping up as and when the Note becomes more popular as a creative tool. Meantime I find myself unable to do the work I bought the tablet for in the first place.

Any ideas what software I can use to work around this? I need something which will allow me to work in layers with a smudge tool enabling me to - for example -  smudge and blend cross hatched lines to create a highly finished tonal surface. Ordinarily I would use PS for this! The ability to import this precisely smudged image into PS Touch for further editing would be a large bonus.

But you have reproduced the burn tool/ smudge effect.

Here is my simulation in Photoshop CS6 using a properly functioning smudge brush below the dotted line:

Everything is as it should be with no darkened pixels. Above the dotted line I have used a combination of the burn brush followed by the smudge tool to simulate the effect you have achieved. I'd say your image bears more in common with the top half result than it does with the bottom which confirms that the smudge brush isn't working properly.

Ian Wylie wrote:

 

But you have reproduced the burn tool/ smudge effect.

Here is my simulation in Photoshop CS6 using a properly functioning smudge brush below the dotted line:

 

Everything is as it should be with no darkened pixels. Above the dotted line I have used a combination of the burn brush followed by the smudge tool to simulate the effect you have achieved. I'd say your image bears more in common with the top half result than it does with the bottom which confirms that the smudge brush isn't working properly.

Yes, I see it now. (I tried this in Photoshop Elements too; I got exactly the result below the dotted line.) It's almost like PS Touch is shoving the same-colored pixels together, intensifying the shade while simply warping it with a different color.

Hello. I have the same problems on my note 10.1. But the problem with smudge tool is just the most noticable from a bunch of similar problems with other tools. For example blur tool also change colors. What is even more strange simple brush tool also change  colors when it have the same color as background and when opacity is low (10% for exmple).

Here is my example. I have  used only one color to draw it. Only one color!

1 - blur

2 - smudge

3 - brush with the same color and low opacity.

One more interesting thing is that in Play market you can find photoshop touch v1.3.0 ... but stock version that comes with the tablet still have v 1.2.0. Will it have an update somewhen?

P.S. Sorry for my English

Yes thanks Ignacio.