How to see brush tip shape on cursor?

[Karl C]

Hi, I'm unable to see brush tip shapes on the cursor, instead it just displays a circle with a 'preview' of the colour/brush tip shape inside of it (barely, it's usually too hard to see).

How can I make it so it's like Photoshop/Krita/Clip Studio where we can see the shape outline?

My system is:
OS: Windows 11
GPU: Nvidia
Photo Version: 2.6.2

Thanks for any help! Please see images for what I mean. I want the 'Krita' style.

[Hangman]

Hi @Karl C and welcome to the forums,

Try, Edit → Settings → User Interface → Show Brush Previews...

[Karl C]

Hi! I already had Show Brush Previews turned on, it toggles on/off a preview within the circle only but doesn't change the circle cursor shape. This preview is usually too hard to see unless I disabled most of the settings on the brush (I did it here just to make it very visible). ☹️

[Karl C]

Just for more context I wanted to use Photo for painting, but without cursor shape it's impossible to angle brushes by their stamp (I have Wacom Art Pen that has barrel rotation, but tilt will also work for this). Here's an example from Photoshop in the image.

Is this not possible in Affinity Photo?

Edited April 16 by Karl C

[Ldina]

@Karl C Welcome to the forum. Hmmm...I definitely see the brush shape when I use a "stamp" type brush (on Mac), so it seems to work fine for me. (Photo v2.6.2) Many of the brushes are designed for paint type 'strokes' and when you drag with mouse or stylus, they create an uninterrupted stroke (actually, very close spacing). It's harder to see the shape with these types of brushes, since the spacing is so close.

Have you tried increasing the "spacing"  in the brush settings? Below is a "cloud stamp brush" I created from a PNG image. I increased the spacing in this brush to 'separate' the clouds and put some space between them. A single click stamps a cloud. Dragging will paint clouds, using the spacing I set in the brush. When I have the paint brush and my cloud brush selected, it shows the preview of the brush perfectly, whether using a mouse or a graphics tablet. So, it's working on my Mac. I assume it's working on Windows, but I don't know for sure. Play with the brush settings and see if that helps. 

[Karl C]

Thanks! I see, so on Mac your cursor is the shape of the stamp? For me it's just a circle, even if I squish the shape of a circle brush although the cursor is also squished it makes no logical sense because it's not linked to rotation.

I uploaded three videos, the first two are Photo and the third is from Krita. As you see in Krita, we can see the shape of our brush tip clearly defined by the cursor outline (it also works this way in Clip Studio, Photoshop, Rebelle, etc.). I can rotate my pen barrel to get the right angle I need before drawing.

In the first Photo video I show the squished circle brush, the cursor is not linked to rotation which is strange to use, the brush I'm showing is a basic brush with nothing configured so it's easy to see in the preview. The second Photo video shows an actual brush I'd use for painting, it's too feint to see the preview since I have flow/opacity and other settings configured, it's showing the lowest values, so it's nearly invisible. 🤔

But if the cursor (here it's the black/white circle) instead showed the shape of the nozzle, then we could at least determine the angle we're at.

[Ldina]

I don't really use the 'tilt' feature of my graphics stylus for anything, so others may be better able to help.

I usually set the controller to pressure, direction, random or none (in pen jitter dynamics). Setting rotation jitter to 100% and the dropdown to 'direction' usually works for what I need to do. Just playing around with the 'rotation jitter' and setting the controller to 'tilt' was a bit awkward for me, but it seemed to work when drawing a 'stroke' (not so great for 'stamp'). I tested it with a solid brush, with the shape adjusted to make a long flat oval (as in your first video). I suspect that "pressure profile" to the right is probably important, and perhaps the software settings for your tablet/stylus, as well. For normal 'stamping' my image brushes work fine, and I tend to use the arrow keys on my computer to vary rotation, but I'm not really painting, like you are. Sorry I can't be of more assistance. 

If you do find a combination that works, please post it here for others to see.