weird 'black artifacts' when using adjustment brush on photo.

Delete this Adjustment Brush, turn of Auto Mask, and try it again. I think you will find that you get good results this time.

yep its the automask.

Rimmer wrote in post #15536003
Delete this Adjustment Brush, turn of Auto Mask, and try it again. I think you will find that you get good results this time.

just curious, how does the auto-mask produce these black artifacts? i thought it's supposed to just detect the edges so you can brush easily.

anyway, is there a keyboard shortcut to enable/disable auto-mask? seems like a feature i'll miss

I don't see a shortcut for Auto Mask.

the.forumer wrote in post #15537552
just curious, how does the auto-mask produce these black artifacts? i thought it's supposed to just detect the edges so you can brush easily.

anyway, is there a keyboard shortcut to enable/disable auto-mask? seems like a feature i'll miss

I'm curious too, I'm guessing that its making the noise.

I've never seen artifacts from the auto-mask -- is there a discussion/documentati​on about this somewhere?

The problem with automask is that it uses intensity detection or something like that to figure out where the boundaries are and which pixels are selected. So in places that's noisy to highly textured, it will leave gaps like that. If you press 'O' to turn on the mask overlay, you will see holes at some pixels which are not selected. You're much better off zooming in and using a smaller brush when working around the edges. Don't forget that you have the erase option to paint over areas where you went over the boundaries.

hwan wrote in post #15538206
The problem with automask is that it uses intensity detection or something like that to figure out where the boundaries are and which pixels are selected. So in places that's noisy to highly textured, it will leave gaps like that. If you press 'O' to turn on the mask overlay, you will see holes at some pixels which are not selected. You're much better off zooming in and using a smaller brush when working around the edges. Don't forget that you have the erase option to paint over areas where you went over the boundaries.

This is exactly what's happening. Auto Mask IS finding the edges. It's just not finding the edges that you want it to. Instead, it's finding the tiny little edges of all the texture on the subject you're trying to paint.

I don't think there's currently a way to adjust the sensitivity/tolerance of the auto mask. I very rarely use it because it so often produces results like the images in the first post. I'll often brush on wide strokes then clean up the edges with an erase brush: Hold down alt to change to erase mode, and the crosshair will change from a + to a - to indicate you're erasing. Note that Erase has its own saved settings of size/feather/flow.

One thing that initially got me with the adjustment brush was that the erase brush has no option to reduce the density. It took me a while to work out that painting over an area that had been painted at say 100% density with the brush at 10% density reduced the density to 10%. I found this the hard way when I had painted in an area at 100% and then wanted to add an area next to it at much lower density. I just thought I would be able to do that by painting up to and over the area already painted in at 100%. That's the way I have been used to painting in layer masks for years, so the change was a bit of a surprise.

Alan

First, try the Overlay ("O") function when brushing and especially when erasing. Zoom in close and you can see the Overlay (reddish by default) showing you where you have brushed (and so where to erase).

As to re-brushing over an area, you need to use a New brush to do that. If you lower the opacity of the "current" brush is messes up what you have done. Just click New and you will get a new brush with the same settings of the old one. You can then lower the opacity and just increase the brush "effect".

I believe that's all correct, although I acknowledge the limits of my knowledge/understandin​g!

That automask stippling has plagued me for years! Thank you all for the explanation and solution!

As above the auto mask can result in some areas of your subject not being selected. If this happens try adding with auto mask deselected (so the whole area you want gets painted) then run along the edge with a smaller remove brush with automask selected. Because you are working just on the boundary line auto mask works much better.