painting with wacom tablet

[meris]

When I paint in PS CC, with wacom tablet, I don't seem to get a smooth gradient. Rather you can kinda see steps as I changed pressure.

This is with a brush with hardness=0.

If I paint over an area a few times, it becomes very apparent it's not natural.

What settings should I check?

[Damien Symonds]

Oh gee, turn the pressure nonsense off.

If you insist on having it turned on, you'll need to go to the Brush panel (accessed via the Window menu) and play with the spacing, the smoothing, and (I think) the shape dynamics.

But seriously, turn it off.

[Damien Symonds]

I've deleted your other thread, because it is likely related to this one.  Did you turn the pressure nonsense off?

[meris]

Yes. I found if I put spacing 1% it seems kinda OK, but with hardness 0 I can still see bands.

Look at this just 1 click. You can see the rings right? 

[Damien Symonds]

Are you saying it doesn't do that if you apply exactly the same 1 click using your mouse?  The rings, I mean?

[meris]

Yes, seems mouse & tablet are the same in this case

1 click gets rings

Drawing a line gets bands like you see.

 

[Damien Symonds]

Great!

This is very normal.  Nothing to worry about.

8 minutes ago, meris said:

Drawing a line gets bands like you see.

Wait, can you show me this?

[meris]

This one's a mouse, but the tablet looks the same too.

It's pretty apparent isn't it? More than my halo problem.

[Damien Symonds]

Don't you understand?  This is perfectly normal.  This is why you must never paint to try to fix backgrounds.

[meris]

OK, then 2 questions

1) When should I use the paint tools?

2) what's the best way to make an oddly shaped shadow that's not round? I was going to use a D&B layer and paint on it.

[Damien Symonds]

1) For painting directly onto a layer?  Almost never.  Painting is for masks.

2) Avoid doing so if possible, or if unavoidable, use multiple radial gradients.

[meris]

There's no way to make a radial elliptical is there?

[Damien Symonds]

I'm not aware of one, no