Soft Brush Problem in Photoshop CS3 - edges of brush show pink banding

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

This is my first post but I am a relatively seasoned photoshop user. When using a soft brush for anything (coloring or masking) I am getting lines and hard edges around the outer perimeter of the brush edges. For example, if I use a 600 pxl brush set to 0% hardness and start to paint on a white background, the color at the outer edges of the paint looks pinkish and it looks like there is actually a slightly pinkish hard edge where the outermost edge of the paint stops. It should just disappear into complete transparency but I am getting this weird edge.

This is happening out of nowhere too. I have been working on this machine for at least a year with the same monitor and everything. It just started happening yesterday for no apparent reason. I tried re-installing CS3 and it didn't help. I tried resetting my preferences when starting up photoshop and that didn't help either. I have not made any changes whatsoever to my monitor settings since day one and up until now it has been working beautifully.

I am on a Mac - G5 2x3.2 Ghz Quad core processors, 8 Gb of Ram. Nvidia G-Force 8800 GT graphics card, Brand new 24" flat panel LCD set to show colors in millions... also set to Cinema HD mode which was the default setting that it was set to.

This is happening regardless of color mode - RGB or CMYK and regardless of bits per channel 8 vs 16 vs 32. Files I work on are set up at 300dpi usually in CMYK mode. It happens regardless of whether shape dynamics/smoothing/etc (brush presets) are turned on or off.

I would be happy to send anyone that can help a screenshot of what I am talking about. Please help!!!

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth,

You can post a screenshot here by simply going to pixentral.com. It's free, and it provides instructions for posting a link here.

Does this anomally print? If not, it is likely video (monitor or card) related.

Can we assume that you have properly hardware calibrated the monitor? Did you try switching monitors?

Neil.

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

I only have one monitor and haven't changed any calibration settings thus far. I will try a print in one moment and get right back to you but even if it doesn't print, it is rather important to be able to tell on screen when things are transparent as you can imagine. I will try pixentral.com right now as well. Be back in a few... thanks for your help!

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

Ok - here is the link to the image of this problem (hopefully this works) Sorry, this is my first time posting here or uploading with pixentral

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1L5txHqLEU26WsX89bAiCgd4jqUFc80>

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

It's really a pain because when I mask anything it looks like there is actually a hard edge instead of a soft edge... Here is another example of what it looks like when I mask an image with a soft brush... there is a hard edge appearing.

I did run a quick print and it appears that it is in fact printing this way as well.

Believe it or not this mask was made with a 600 pxl brush at 0% hardness.

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1uHBTDYFltjQakD2sIqoPL4JPmSw0>

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

This image shows the problem very clearly... just a simple brush stroke like before but this one used black instead of blue....

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=17H8OAsFX19YKOzWt9cQgdBeMBZkS1>

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth,

The pinkish glow appears to be an afterimage -- an optical phenomenon of your eyes where you see the opposite of the color displayed, particularly if you stare at a strong color for a bit. Stare at the blue for 30 seconds and then look away onto a nearby white surface -- you'll see a strong pink afterimage.

If you are seeing color banding in the blue, that is because of the limited transition steps there are from the darkest blue to white. This is particularly evident when the tonal change is relatively small, but the width of the transition area is large. You can try adding a slight bit of noise to minimize the effect.

Neil

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth - theres really nothing WRONG with the images you have posted. The problem lies with your display. You say you have a new LCD monitor…

• Make sure your monitor is profiled - monitor profiles can be changed on mac using the Displays setting in System Preferences

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

I appreciate the help Neil but how would this account for the hardness of the edge on a black and white photo? I have a hard time believing that this is my eyes when it prints out with this banded look as well. Did you take a look at the baby photo and the black brush stroke version I posted?

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

My monitor is set to to cinema HD 1920x1200 which I believe is correct for this monitor. I have never changed the monitor settings as it has always looked beautiful on this setting and this is the default setting that it came with. I say that it is new but it is actually about a year old. I purchased it brand new though. Colors in preferences are set to millions and I went through the Display Callibrator Assistant in prefs to recallibrate but this issue still appears.

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

The serious problem you describe, with a sudden cutout of tones, may be due to some more serious fault with the monitor

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

The monitor looks perfect in every other respect. It is an apple 24" flat panel LCD.

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

It could be a dodgy or corrupt monitor profile. Try as an experiment changing the monitor profile to something else and see if this helps

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

Changing the monitor profile doesn't seem to help at all.

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

Ok then, you need to set the monitor color, brightness and contrast controls back to their defaults as a starting point

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth,

I have never changed the monitor settings as it has always looked beautiful

on this setting and this is the default setting that it came with.

Do you have a hardware calibrator for your monitor? It is the best way to create a smooth tonal scale and accurate color. If you are seeing a hard edge in subtle tonal gradations, it could be as I described earlier and/or monitor calibration.

Neil

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

Hi Neil. I do not have a hardware calibrator for my monitor. Is there one that you would recommend?

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

I honestly think that this is an issue with photoshop somehow because I see the same results in print not just on the monitor. I have tried re-installing but it hasn't helped.

[Neil_...@adobeforums.com]

There are a few good ones out there. I'd stay away from the inexpensive Huey. Personally, I use and like the Spyder3. Others are very satisfied with the Eye-One (I believe the Display 2 model).

Neil

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks neil. This must be a photoshop problem though. When I use my gradient tool from solid black to transparent, the results are hideous! Nowhere close to transparent!

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=10C9yEuH54ISJWaOV6Y95WziTeCTA0>

[Chri...@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth - you applied "black to transparent" OVER a white document. Where the gradient was transparent, the underlying white shows through -- just like it should.

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

Hi Chris. Thanks for your feedback. The gradient actually began at the top of the image and the end point, which should be virtually transparent, was roughly at 7.5" down from the top. The gradient should not be carrying that far down the page. It should have gone to transparent much sooner and should not have such an abrupt end. It looks to me as if it was a gradient from pure black to about 10 or 15% black.

Did you take a look at the brush stroke in post 5? Look at the edges of the stroke. They appear almost wet and gray when the outside edge of the stroke should just fade into nothing and become totally transparent.

I contacted the folks at Adobe and they insist that it is a monitor issue and not a problem with Photoshop even though when we walk through all of the monitor settings they cannot find any issues. I really don't feel like lugging this 24" monitor to the apple store to have them check it out. It is a flat panel but still - who wants to go through that!?!

[Chri...@adobeforums.com]

Again, the gradient did go transparent. What is left is drawn right over the background you put the gradient on top of. As for the transitions - that can depend on your color space, your display calibration, and the settings for that gradient.

So far, your other issues do sound like a display or display calibration problem.

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth - you are going to have to get your head around the idea that its a monitor issue of some sort. Or a most likely, as I said before a profiling, or monitor settings issue. The gradient actually does look a bit weird but it looks like a SCREEN SHOT which suggests some screen profiling thing I think. Make sure its a standard black to white grad and that dither is ON

Your stroke image in Post 5 is making a perfect transition from 255 to 0 levels of grey. Measure them with your eyedropper and look at the values in the info panel. There is no posterised grey edge. On my monitor it looks absolutely fine.

Your terminology "Transparent". You are confusing people when you actually mean white to black

[Richar...@adobeforums.com]

Mark,

I agree 100%.

Rich

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth,

Here's a Pixentral tip, courtesy of Phosą:

You can use the free <http://www.pixentral.com> to upload and host
images for posting here. Just read and follow the directions.

After the image you upload is displayed back to you, scroll down and copy
ALL the text the the box labeled "HTML" for pasting in a reply here. Ignore
the code in the box labeled "Forum".

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1L5txHqLEU26WsX89bAiCgd4jqUFc80>

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

PS— I agree with all the others who have pointed you to a monitor issue.

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth, the first clue is that this problem, to my knowlege has never been seen by anyone but you, and I have been around this forum and its predecessor since the last century.
Which is surprising in itself, because lots of people have poorly setup monitors.

[g_ba...@adobeforums.com]

if a standard hard-edged brush brush paints funky on screen and prints the same funky, how is that a monitor issue

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

We haven't seen a scan of the print蓉nless I missed it.

[Steve_F...@adobeforums.com]

Everything looks o.k. to me. Reckon it's either a monitor problem or else your eyes are fooling you (after image effect). Can you measure the "pinkish" shade you describe in Info? If you can't there isn't a problem.

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

Hi everyone,
Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I really appreciate it. This has been a bit frustrating because no one else can see the issue but me I suppose. I just don't know why my monitor would change all of the sudden for no reason. I know all monitors eventually go bad but this one is only a year old and looks beautiful in every other way. No other problems with any other programs or anything. The overall color, brightness, contrast, etc are still amazing.

It is still covered under the warranty so I can take it in to the Apple store to see if they can find an issue with it. I will be sure to let you guys know what they say. I have seen this same issue on 2 other forums on other sites - one person said that after exhausting all possibilities he determined that the issue was with photoshop. The other person was getting responses back from people telling her to add noise to her files to improve the banding, which is not really a solution to the root of the problem.

Hopefully, if it is a monitor issue, recallibrating will fix the problem. I did, however, go through the callibrator assistant found in system preferences and it didn't help. Also tried to adjust the "Edit" - "Colors" setting within photoshop and that didn't help either.

Both of the Adobe support specialists that I talked to were stumped. They said that the only 2 things they could think of were the monitor or maybe the graphics card gone bad.

Anyway, thank you all again for your help. I have never used this forum before having this issue and I want to say that I really appreciate all of you stepping up to help me with my problem in such a prompt and helpful manner.

[PECour...@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth, did you double-check the print? is it really pink there?

I remember a similar issue in the past with the a setting in the preferences, something about gamma.

What are your color settings like?

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Kenneth,

You have to calibrate and profile your monitors regularly and often. It's not a one-shot deal.

Monitor profiles can and do get corrupted, monitor components drift, etc.

I'm fortunate that my CRT monitors are still in great shape after these years, but I validate the monitor profiles with the hardware calibrator puck on a daily basis and do full calibration as soon as there's any deviation.

As for your issue, you still haven't told us what kind of readings you get in the Info panel when you hover over the areas where you see the pink zone. I have tried it myself on your images and see no "pink" at all.

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

Hello Ramon,
I think that the color varies depending on what color I am using for the stroke. In that one instance it was pinkish, in other instances it may be another color. When I hover over the edge I get slight readings that are consistent with the color that I am using for the stroke. What else would you expect one might ask but I guess you have to see this on my monitor to understand what I am saying. Even though the percentages along the outer edges of my strokes read as very slight and are consistent with what one would expect to find along the edge of a soft brush (1%,2%,3%, of the color used) the edge visually appears much stronger on y monitor than the slight percentage I get from the reading.

The issue I guess isn't the fact that it's pinkish but more that I can clearly see the edge of the brush where I think it should be soft and transparent. The pinkish color was when I was using 100% C,M,Y, & K so I think that it probably is a result of that specific color combination. It almost appears, on my screen anyway, that the outermost soft edge of the brush is wet somehow.

[Zach...@adobeforums.com]

Hello all,

Did you have any luck Kenneth? I'm experiencing this problem too and I can't believe it's monitor related. I have a 30" Samsung running off of my MacBook Pro, and the problem persists on either the laptop display or the external monitor. Plus, whenever I save the graphic for web, everyone else can see the same issue but it's more apparent depending on display gamma (more so on Macs than PCs at 2.2).

I don't think it could be the display unless the color profile is somehow used when creating the image? Furthermore, I can render a beautiful gradient in Illustrator and I can view any other gradient image online just fine, I just can't make one in Photoshop.

There is an apparent banding I noticed on gradients or feathers. I'll say from 0-90% it's pretty smooth then are several very hard steps to full black. Please see image at:

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1bvXyCBJjD331mpnLJgMofQ4FDvQ>

Can someone open that up in Photoshop and let me know if you see any banding? Also, if you're on an LCD try viewing the image at an angle, that is move your head to a side of the monitor and look towards center. You can also try brightening your display with the same effect.

Thanks. This just started happening very recently - with no changes to my system other than an a recent Apple software update.

Photoshop CS3 on Leopard 10.5.6

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Photoshop CS3 on Leopard 10.5.6

…plus a laptop = a far from optimal combination. :/

[PeterK.@adobeforums.com]

If your gradient is a plain A to B gradient with no colours or adjustments in between (such as when using the plain black to white grad), and it's looking as contrasting as the example you posted with no smooth ramp from light to dark, then it's a monitor calibration issue. Your monitor is not displaying what should be a smooth linear ramp with corresponding value changes. It can also account for not showing a neutral colour at any point when it should (such as your light edges), and showing too great a variation between steps (such as pure white to the lightest colour, resulting in a hard edge as in your example.) I'm guessing that your built-in software calibrator is not doing a very good job. If a hardware calibrator can't fix your monitor profile, then I'd consider turning in the monitor for one of better quality.

[Zach...@adobeforums.com]

If it were a monitor calibration issue, or some other hardware problem, would it not be the case that *any* gradient I tried to view, be it online, in another app, etc would show the same banding?

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

Depends on the gradient Zach. I suggest buying a calibration device like spyder, or Eye One. Its definately a monitor profiling issue, and it sounds like you are doing something basically wrong if you have two monitors behaving the same way. In your system preferences choose "displays" and the color tab. This is where your monitor profiles are chosen. You need to make a separate profile for each monitor obviously.

Photoshop is 'smarter' than most apps and uses your monitor profile in a very clever way to display colors properly on your screen. Macs these days are best set for 2.2 gamma, and that's what you should use, 1.8 was an old setting

[Kenneth_...@adobeforums.com]

Hey Zach,
No, I haven't been able to find a solution to the problem. I have been meaning to buy a monitor calibrator but I haven't gotten around to it yet. It does seem strange though that it is only happening in Photoshop and not with other programs. Makes me think that it has to be a Photoshop issue and not a monitor issue. The exact same thing was happening with me. I can tell you what not to do... don't call adobe and spend the $40 on tech support for this. I have to give them credit, they tried hard but were unable to help fix my problem. They said that it was either an issue with the monitor or possibly a problem with the graphics card. Either way, for now I am stuck with crappy gradients and bad soft brushes :(

[Zach...@adobeforums.com]

Hi Kenneth,

I was recently using a Dell VGA projector and in a hurry, hot-swapped the DVI->VGA cable. Maybe that somehow corrupted the monitor profiles? That was the only thing I have done remotely related to display/profile modification since this started occurring.

I've sent the PNG I posted above to several friends and they all see the same banding, so I wonder if the monitor profiles are somehow used when drawing the actual gradients? I've also tinkered with 8/16/32 bit display, CMYK/RGB and Proof colors with no apparent change.

I'll keep tinkering and post back if I find anything. I'm due for CS4 soon, so maybe that'll fix it.

[Buko]

If your monitor profile is bad CS4 will not fix anything.

have you guys made a new monitor profile with a hard ware calibrator? If not you need to.

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

Sorry but you are still both chasing up completely the wrong tree.

Zach, have you checked your Photoshop Color Settings? Edit/Color settings. Your RGB profile should be Adobe RGB 1998 - If you chose the monitor profile here, that will cause major problems, and is a sure fire way to get the kind of problems you both are experiencing.

The PNG you posted above has no banding - although the active area in the gradient is so small, its quite difficult to tell. But on a calibrated monitor that PNG is displaying properly.

"I wonder if the monitor profiles are somehow used when drawing the actual gradients" - no that is obviously not the case.

[Zach...@adobeforums.com]

OK... we're on to something. Thank you Mark and Buko.

So, I calibrated my monitor (again), and took Mark's advice on changing the color settings. My RGB profile was on "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" which I changed to "Adobe 1998". I then restarted my Mac and PS.

Interestingly, I don't see the harsh banding anymore, but instead I see a dither occurring around the same 90-100% value. Much like a 256 GIF, but it only occurs in that range, the rest is smooth...

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1LHRe2z76lAc7OlS30KmJJKJWb6n>

Any further ideas? Thanks for the advice troubleshooting!

PS, I then tested again with "Apple RGB" as my RGB color profile with the same effect.

[Mark_R...@adobeforums.com]

Again there's nothing wrong with what you have posted although again its very difficult to see because you've used a transparent BG.

If your RGB was the default sRGB then to be honest its not likely to be a problem related to Photoshop RGB profiles.

but instead I see a dither occurring around the same 90-100% value - again this is looking like a dodgy monitor profile, try changing your monitor profiles to a few random choices in the Display's list.

You both need to find some way to calibrate your monitors (not necessarily expensive way). Try the built in visual Apple display profiler as a starting point. If that doesn't work then its - time to buy a new monitor

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

The reason other applications do not manifest the issue is because they are NOT color managed. Photoshop is, and it uses your monitor profile to send the image pixel values to your monitor, which non-color managed applications do not do.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Unless you value your time at less than minimum wage, a hardware calibrator will very quickly pay for itself.

[Al...@adobeforums.com]

I have the same problem with my G5 Mac. GeForce 6600 card and a 30" 1920x1650 Cinema HD monitor. I'm narrowed my problem down to the video card. There are two solutions to this problem.

1) Get a new video card
2) If you want a temporary solution, change your colors from Millions to Thousands in the Display settings.