How to tell Photoshop to treat areas outside of the canvas as “void” instead of “100% white”?

[johng95098828]

I'm using Photoshop with the Mix Brush tool to draw digital oil paintings.

The problem I have is that if you, for example, make the background black, select a dark blue color and then begin with your brush outside of the canvas (which naturally happens and is unavoidable), it "picks up" the apparently 100% white color that exists outside the black canvas, causing the paint to be way too bright. How do I tell Photoshop to treat areas outside of the canvas as "air" or "void"? (Or at least treat it as the same color as the canvas.)

I've asked many people and nobody has any idea. Looked through all the settings I could think of and I cannot figure this out. I was also told by a moderator that he was gonna re-post this after deletion (because of nonsensical replies), but that never happened, so I have to re-post it myself.

I even made a video showing exactly what I mean, so that nobody could possibly be confused about what I'm asking:

https://streamable.com/s/3q061/edfrpz?autoplay=1

To avoid the same problem happening again: Kindly don't reply if you haven't read the question.

[D Fosse]

What you describe is, as far as I can tell, not normal Photoshop behavior.

Here's a black canvas and a blue brushstroke started outside the canvas. The gray is the pasteboard:

[johng95098828]

How dark was your blue color? It looks bright to me, as if it did indeed "pick up" the white color beyond the canvas.

I'm not using some sort of special/modified version of Photoshop with different behaviour...

[davescm]

Hi

There is an effect, but it is not that you are mixing with white it is that you are not mixing with anything therefore the brush starts with 100% of the paint colour that is loaded on the brush, whereas starting on the canvas it starts by mixing with black.

I have shown two sets of three strokes below. The first set is a straight stroke , the second is a "zig zag".  In each set, the first started off canvas, the second started and finished in the black the third started in the white patch. You can see that starting off canvas is not the same as starting in white - but nor is it the same as starting in the black.

To get round the problem  - extend the canvas temporarily so you are starting in the background colour rather than off canvas - then, once done, crop it.

Dave

[johng95098828]

That's the workaround I experimented with yesterday/many hours ago. However, it made it impossible to know where the actual canvas begins, and it adds an enormous amount of work to be done manually for every single painting/scene just to get around this.

I believe you when you say it doesn't mix in with white, but 100% of the color. However, that's a minor detail and the end result is the same. There must be some way to stop this undesired, weird behaviour by Photoshop, no? I mean, other than doing the highly labor-intense and confusing method of increasing the canvas and fiddling about with it and guessing where the borders are?

This is so bizarre to me. The Mix Brush tool is absolutely fantastic, but then this stupid little glitch makes it impossible to use it in practice. I can't believe it.

[davescm]

Hi

If you use the extended canvas method, just drag down some guides (click on the ruler and drag) to show where you want your final canvas.

Dave

[johng95098828]

It can't be right that this is the only solution... or workaround, rather. Why does Photoshop insist on this behaviour? This will cause so much extra work for no reason...

[johng95098828]

I mean, I was able to set up the rulers as you said, but it looks visually quite different from having a nice canvas, so the whole "feeling" while working is completely different. Also, whenever I need to export the image or individual layers, I will have to somehow crop the "actual" canvas and it will just add up to endless hours of extra work... I hate this kind of thing. It makes no sense.

[davescm]

Hi

You can make a feature request to change the mixer brush behaviour here, where it is more likely to be seen by Adobe (this forum is predominantly user to user):

Photoshop Family Customer Community

Dave

[johng95098828]

With all due respect, I'm not going through the hell of registering yet another account. I've become allergic to it after being forced to constantly do it all the time whenever I need to report/ask anything. Nothing personal. Just sick of it.

I must be missing something. There must be some way to "set the pasteboard color" which people who use Photoshop for painting know about, because it's impossible to paint a painting as it is now (unless you use the workaround).

[fenjas29325284]

Brush settings?

Fenja

[johng95098828]

Fenja: That option you're referring to only turns on/off "clean brush after each strok". It only appears to work after you've used the brush for a while.