Paint Mixer Brush - Resolve inconsist empty color functionality

[JulianB]

Say you are working on a transparent layer that contains brush strokes. Switching to the paint mixer brush with an empty "color," you can blend those existing brush strokes outward. If you attempt to blend inward, back towards your existing brush strokes, it doesn't reverse the effect, it retains it's shape like a mask. If the brush works like the smudge tool one way, it should do the same in reverse.

Please do not suggest switching between the paint mixer brush and the smudge tool.

I included a video example of the description above.

 

[Old Bruce]

I don't quite understand how a brush loaded with no colour is supposed to cover over already coloured pixels. 

The Paint Mixer Brush takes its colour from the area underneath it. Your video shows you start painting with no pigment and then as you move the brush across the area with colour your brush is picking up the colour and applying that colour. So you start out with no paint/pixel colour and then approach and cross a threshold with paint/pixel colour, the Paint Mixer Brush takes its colour from that area underneath it.

[JulianB]

On 5/16/2023 at 2:55 PM, Old Bruce said:

I don't quite understand how a brush loaded with no colour is supposed to cover over already coloured pixels. 

The Paint Mixer Brush takes its colour from the area underneath it. Your video shows you start painting with no pigment and then as you move the brush across the area with colour your brush is picking up the colour and applying that colour. So you start out with no paint/pixel colour and then approach and cross a threshold with paint/pixel colour, the Paint Mixer Brush takes its colour from that area underneath it.

Exactly! So if there's no color underneath it should take that into account and apply the negative in the direction of my strokes.

[Old Bruce]

27 minutes ago, JulianB said:

Exactly! So if there's no color underneath it should take that into account and apply the negative in the direction of my strokes.

There is no negative either.

The Paint Mixer Brush applies Paint/Pigment on top of already existing paint/pigment. No colour from the fully transparent area means no Paint/Pigment on the brush gets applied overtop the already existing pixels.

[Gripsholm Lion]

I can see Bruce's point. Mixing black and white will make grey, just as subtracting -1 from 1 equals 0; but a transparency contains no information to be subtracted or mixed. Maybe your desired effect of blending the colour with the transparency can be achieved satisfactorily by switching to the erase brush and playing with its opacity.

[JulianB]

On 5/18/2023 at 3:54 PM, GripsholmLion said:

I can see Bruce's point. Mixing black and white will make grey, just as subtracting -1 from 1 equals 0; but a transparency contains no information to be subtracted or mixed. Maybe your desired effect of blending the colour with the transparency can be achieved satisfactorily by switching to the erase brush and playing with its opacity.

The paint mixer brush smudges, it doesn't just paint, regardless of whether or not I have a color or transparent color selected. Erasing would not give the desired effect and neither would the smudge brush. The last 3 strokes provided in my example above fail to be a productive use of the tool.

[Old Bruce]

19 hours ago, JulianB said:

The paint mixer brush smudges,

I don't think that is true. It may appear to smudge but I don't think it is, it is mixing the paint from the canvas with the paint loaded onto the brush, if any. Smudge moves the pixels to a new location.

[walt.farrell]

20 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I don't think that is true. It may appear to smudge but I don't think it is, it is mixing the paint from the canvas with the paint loaded onto the brush, if any. Smudge moves the pixels to a new location.

Isn't that also what the Mixer Brush did when it doesn't have a color loaded?