AboutScott Valentine Expertise Author, "Real World Compositing with Photoshop CS4 (Peachpit)". Beginning to expert questions for Photoshop CS3 and CS4 Extended, including 3D capabilities. I am also an expert here for Digital Photography. Please - NO questions on Lightroom, Elements, Express or versions earlier than CS2. These questions will be discarded.
Experience Author, "Real World Compositing with Photoshop CS4" (available from Peachpit.com in January, 2009). I have been a professional level user since 1999, and have used Photoshop for photography, fine art, graphic design, web design, and technical image analysis. I have also conducted classes at the college level in both artistic and technical uses. I am currently an Adobe User Group manager.
Organizations National Association of Photoshop Professionals, Los Alamos Multimedia Users Group.
Publications CommunityMX.com, Real World Compositing with Photoshop CS4 (Adobe Press).
Education/Credentials Bachelor's degree, Physics
Awards and Honors Several awards for digital photography.
This has been bugging me for awhile now and I can't seem to solve it..
For my photoshop CS3 the brushes seems to stay flat and does not have a curve. I looked at my sister's computer and her photoshop CS3 is fine and her brushes has that curve in it.
As for my Photoshop 7.0 the brushes are fine and has the curve while CS3 does not and the brush does change after I check mark shape dynamics.
I attached a screenshot for clarification.
Answer Hi Katie,
I never noticed it before, but apparently the 'Stroke Preview' that you see in the brush options changes at some point. My panel looks just like yours. The only place I see the diameter change (the 'curve' you refer to) is in the actual Brushes Panel.
Go to Window > Brushes to show the Brushes Panel. At the bottom of that panel, you'll find the actual stroke preview. I have no idea why it might have changed, and I don't have an older version of Photoshop to test, so that's the best I can tell you.
However, I do recommend that you use the Brushes Panel whenever possible. The options drop-down is best used when you have a set of brushes loaded up for a specific task. While many folks use the options bar exclusively, it's more difficult in my opinion than keeping the panel open. Plus, you get all the options available to you immediately.
For my own use, I set up the Brushes Panel to show me the brush tip shape (known as a 'marker tip' in the help files) in the box on the right, and the preview down at the bottom. This gives me a much better idea about how the brush is going to behave while I'm painting. At the top of the Brushes Panel is a small drop-down menu (upper right). If you choose 'Small Thumbnail', you'll get the same setup I have, which makes it much easier to see several marker tips at once.
So... I can't answer your question about why it's different, but hopefully I've given you a good work-around!
Please let me know if you have any other questions or clarification :)
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