Expert: LizaL - 7/26/2005

Question
I've used PS CS since it came out.  Until yesterday, my burn tool, when draged across a vacant area like sky or water would gradually and smoothly darken the affected area varying with the shape, opacity and specifications of the brush chosen.  Not any more.  Instead, unrelated to the options settings it will make oval-shaped overlapping circles that are very evident, varying with the opacity selected intead of smooth tonal graduation as with my dodge tool (working fine).  I have gone as far as to reinstall PS and still with no luck.  Any suggestions you can offer would be much appreciated.  

Answer
Hi again Marc -- after I answered your question, I just thought of something else:

Try resetting the tool from its own preset options. Select the burn tool, then go to the top of the screen at the left, click on the little tool icon and hold down your mouse button till you see the tool presets box. Then click on the flyout arrow and you'll see something like this, where you can reset the tool's prefs:

http://little-works.com/all_experts/burntool_reset.gif

Hit Reset tool, and see what that does.

Lisa


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Hey Marc,

Yeah, it *should* be simple! But I have to admit I'm kind of stumped here. I'd first suggest you trash your preferences if you're using a Mac: Go to (your username>Library>Preferences, and you'll see com.adobe.Photoshop.plist, which you should trash, as well as the Adobe Photoshop CS Settings.

If you're using a PC, usually an uninsall/reinstall will "fix" problems like this. So if you're using a PC and you've done this, and the problem persists, I'm even more stumped.

Since you're an experienced user, I'm sure you've tried changing all the exposure and brush settings. But you're not accidentally using a different brush preset, are you? Select your burn tool, then go to the Brushes tab and make sure you don't have something funky like dual brushes selected, or some combination of preset choices that would make your brush move erratically.

You probably already know, but it's fairly well hidden, so here's a visual of where the Brushes tab is (top right of your screen):
http://little-works.com/all_experts/


Something else to consider: You know how sometimes a brush tip will change from Standard to Precise, and vice-versa, and how you then have to go into your preferences to change this? I wonder if the same type of thing could be happening -- although I'll admit I've never heard of this happening with the burn tool. Anyway, next time your burn tool does this, or if it continually does this, check your Display and Cursor preferences to see if they've changed.


Let me ask you this: Have you installed any other software lately? It could be a software conflict.

Same goes for peripherals: any changes there? Sometimes hardware will make your software behave badly.

A shot in the dark: Are you using a cordless mouse? If so, are your batteries low? Do you have the right drivers for your mouse?

A similar thing happened to me the other day, although not in Photoshop. My mouse was just generally "jumping," much in the way you describe your burn tool. And this was software-related, because I'd just reinstalled the driver for the mouse, yet hadn't made the connection between the mouse and the transmitter.


Outside of those things, I'm not sure what to tell you. I tried to make your problem happen on my machine, but no luck. So I've included some links to Photoshop forums that might be better suited to answer your question:

1. Adobe support forums
http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/main.html

2. Photoshop 911
http://www.photoshop911.com/

3. photoshopsupport.com
http://www.photoshopsupport.com/faq.html


I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help! But if you find the answer, please post back and let me know -- I'd be interested in hearing what's causing this.

Lisa