photoshop issues

[hulkster]

not sure if this belongs in the artwork forum or not, but i need some help with photoshop. 

see the attached pic, and what im having problems with is the fuzziness of the edges of the circle.  i just used the elipse tool to make an oval, and then tried to fill it in with the paint bucket...but the edges are fuzzy.  im a photoshop newb, but im experimenting, and what i want do here is to get the paint bucket to not do the fuzzy stuff...but a solid crisp color.  how do i get it back to the way it was?

[patrickl]

If you're using the ellipse tool, why do you need the paint bucket? It already fills the ellipse with the fill you want.

Did you maybe use the "elliptical marquee tool"? If so then check if you have something else than 0 in the feathering box.

[Mamed for life]

Hi,

Wont that still give a fuzzy edge (albeit less noticeable)?

Would the best best be to make it in Illustrator and bring it in: that way it's a vector (or draw a crosshair and use the pen tool in Photoshop)? Coming from a guy who hates Illustrator, I hate to admit that it does have it's uses!

MfL

[scotthh]

I have a few Ideas:

1. How big is the file you're working with? If you're working at the dpi you're going to print at, you won't have any unintended fuzziness.

2. In the Layers dialog box, double click the shape you created, probably  "Shape 1". Make sure the blend mode is normal and the opacity and blend sliders are at 0 or 100%. Fiddle around, see what PS can do.

3. I agree with patrickl, there's no need to paint your oval. You just go double click the box on the left size of the shape 1 layer and get a "color picker" where you can change the color.

4. I just made an oval, and when I tried to paint it, it first needed to rasterize the shape. Then it filled my oval with the new color and it was pretty sharp. Make sure your paint bucket tool isn't set to a mode that paints fuzzily.

[patrickl]

Hi,

Wont that still give a fuzzy edge (albeit less noticeable)?

Would the best best be to make it in Illustrator and bring it in: that way it's a vector (or draw a crosshair and use the pen tool in Photoshop)? Coming from a guy who hates Illustrator, I hate to admit that it does have it's uses!

MfL

In photoshop things like ellipses are vector objects too. Or at least they can be if you want.

But indeed if it's printable artwork you want then illustrator or CorelDRAW is the way to go. If this is for a website or for editing pictures or something then Photoshop will do fine.

[Malenko]

do you have anti aliasing enabled on either the ellipse tool or the fill tool?

[hulkster]

do you have anti aliasing enabled on either the ellipse tool or the fill tool?

how do i check if its enabled?  usually i see the check boxes at the top and i can check off anti aliasing but when i select the elipse tool...no check boxes.  where do i go to check the options for the tool ive selected?

like, i know how to add effects and stuff...but i dont know how to disable effects that are already enabled. 

[Joystick Jerk]

I'll assume you were using the Elliptical Marquee tool, as you can't really use the standard Ellipse tool in conjunction with the Paint Bucket. When you click on the Elliptical Marquee tool, make sure your option for the tool are set to a Feather of 0. The options should be along the top row of the screen, assuming you're using one of the CS versions of Photoshop.

[patrickl]

do you have anti aliasing enabled on either the ellipse tool or the fill tool?

how do i check if its enabled?  usually i see the check boxes at the top and i can check off anti aliasing but when i select the elipse tool...no check boxes.  where do i go to check the options for the tool ive selected?

like, i know how to add effects and stuff...but i dont know how to disable effects that are already enabled. 

Anti aliassing isn't the problem from your example. That only makes the edge fuzzy up to one pixel. It basically puts gray tones on pixels around the ellipse to make it look more like a smooth shape.

I don't think you can turn it off for object rasterizing. If you really insist on an aliased ellipse (with jagged edges), you can turn it of when using the ellipse marquee tool. Pick the elliptical marquee select tool. In the toolbar set "Feather" to 0 and remove the check from Anti-alias. Create the selection on your image and fill it with the color you want. If you remove the selection (or zoom in) you will see the jagged edges.

I added a example with an anti-aliassed vector ellipse on the left and an aliased ellipse on the right.

[markrvp]

I'll assume you were using the Elliptical Marquee tool, as you can't really use the standard Ellipse tool in conjunction with the Paint Bucket. When you click on the Elliptical Marquee tool, make sure your option for the tool are set to a Feather of 0. The options should be along the top row of the screen, assuming you're using one of the CS versions of Photoshop.

This is the first thing I'd check.

[hulkster]

sorry for leaving my thread here.  i forgot about it!  anyway, im not using the eliptical tool.  im using the pen tool.  i just drew the circles as an example.  im trying to create custom shapes and stuff, but its still fuzzy looking.  do your solutions/recommendations change?

[Joystick Jerk]

Hard to say what's happening then. The best tip I can give you is to not use the paint bucket tool. It's a ---smurfy---, archaic tool left over from the days of MS Paint. If you need to fill something, use Alt-Backspace to fill with the foreground colour, and Ctrl-Backspace to fill with the background colour. Those will be in a sense "perfect" fills unaffected by tolerance level and self-anti-aliasing settings.

Also, if you want to do custom vector shapes, you'd do much better if you got your hands on a copy of Illustrator. Photoshops vector tools are just completely ass-backwards and unintuitive.

[bfauska]

Check which paintbrush you are using.

[patrickl]

Are you really using the Pen tool (looks like an ink pen) or are you using the Brush tool (looks like a brush). I guess bfauska assumes you are using the brush tool and to be honest I think so too. If so then the first suggestion would be to not use the Brush tool. If you insist on using it anyway then indeed set your brush as hard as possible.

Use the pen tool and you get vector graphics. These automatically fill (when closed) and don't give fuzzy edges.

I don't agree with Joystick Jerk that the vector tools in Photoshop are "ass-backwards". They pretty much work the same way as in Illustrator. I actually use them a lot for creating smooth and exact selections. When editing photo's it's much better to use vector a selection then to just rely on a steady hand.

I do agree that Illustrator would probably be a better choice to draw shapes.

if that still doesn't help, do you have a picture of how the ellipse looks like before you fill it? A full screenshot might help even more.

[hulkster]

well im at work right now so i dont have a full screenshot to show you right now.  however i am using the pen tool, and not the brush tool.  im creating anchor points, and closing the anchor points...so yeah im definitely using the pen tool.  it doesnt autofill though when i close, so when i right click and do "make selection" i then go to the paint bucket and fill it in, and thats when it looks all faded and stuff. 

when i use the elipse tool or rectangle marquee tool or whatever and make a basic shape, i did notice that i had AA turned on, so i unchecked that and used the paint bucket and it looked fine (no blurred edge).  however im still having the problem with the custom shapes/pen tool. 

[patrickl]

When you draw a shape with the Pen it shoudl fill with a color after you close it. Perhaps the color you choose is white (or the same as the background at least). The toolbar with have a color selection box. You can set the color of the fill there. If you drew the shape already you can set the color for instance by double clicking on the color box of the Layers for teh shape.

Why the make selection doesn't work I don't know.  i use that too and it shoudl work. Perhaps you set a Feather Radius in teh make selection dialog? That should be 0 otherwise indeed you get a fuzzy edge, but I guess you tried that already.

I cannot imagine that antia alias had anything to do with the fuzzyness though. It's really very hard to notice anti alias unless you zoom in really far on the object. It only fills in the pixels in the corners of the jagged edges.