Drawing problem with Paintbrush, Pencil & Eraser leaving a trail of multi-shaded over

[garysch37]

All of a sudden, while I was working on a Gimp document, in Gimp 2.10 on my Mac, instead of drawing a regular brush/pencil stroke, started drawing a weird "trail" of overlapping circles in my foreground colour at different shades and opacities. This happens with both the Paintbrush and Pencil tools, and in fact it also erases with the Erase tool in the same fashion.

Troubleshooting: I created a new document and the same happens. I exited Gimp, went back in, created a new document, and the same happens. I rebooted my computer: no help. I uninstalled Gimp and re-installed it, rebooted, changed nothing on the tool defaults, and the same happens. I remote connected to the Windows 7 Pro computer at work to see if it's something with my Mac, and Gimp works fine there (though it still may have to do with some interaction with my Mac). Another graphics app (specifically Krita) works fine on my Mac.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Gary

[PixLab]

(09-02-2023, 09:59 PM)garysch37 Wrote: Any ideas?

Oh Yes!, but it would be only a guess as we can't access your doc -> make it public

   

You can post a screenshot here directly in the forum -> https://www.gimp-forum.net/misc.php?action=help&hid=11 ,
when you do a screenshot make sure that the tool is selected, the Tool Options dialog as well and the layer's stack dialog

[rich2005]

(09-02-2023, 09:59 PM)garysch37 Wrote: All of a sudden, while I was working on a Gimp document, in Gimp 2.10 on my Mac, instead of drawing a regular brush/pencil stroke, started drawing a weird "trail" of overlapping circles in my foreground colour at different shades and opacities. This happens with both the Paintbrush and Pencil tools, and in fact it also erases with the Erase tool in the same fashion.

The first thing to check are the tool options, in particular the dynamic settings but also the brush spacing.  Try a reset.

   

[garysch37]

(09-03-2023, 02:55 AM)PixLab Wrote:

(09-02-2023, 09:59 PM)garysch37 Wrote: Any ideas?

Thanks for replying, but I don't understand why you can't access my image via that link to my Dropbox, since if I go into another browser to view my post as a Guest, the link works and I can see my image. Are you saying when you click my Dropbox link you get an error?

When I tried earlier to "Insert an image", the image displayed as a "?", so I abandoned that method and did a link instead. Anyway, I'll insert my image via its Dropbox URL now:



I'll also include my image as an attachment.

Thanks,
Gary

Quote:Oh Yes!, but it would be only a guess as we can't access your doc -> make it public


You can post a screenshot here directly in the forum -> https://www.gimp-forum.net/misc.php?action=help&hid=11 ,
when you do a screenshot make sure that the tool is selected, the Tool Options dialog as well and the layer's stack dialog

---

(09-03-2023, 07:20 AM)rich2005 Wrote:

(09-02-2023, 09:59 PM)garysch37 Wrote: All of a sudden, while I was working on a Gimp document, in Gimp 2.10 on my Mac, instead of drawing a regular brush/pencil stroke, started drawing a weird "trail" of overlapping circles in my foreground colour at different shades and opacities. This happens with both the Paintbrush and Pencil tools, and in fact it also erases with the Erase tool in the same fashion.

Quote:The first thing to check are the tool options, in particular the dynamic settings but also the brush spacing.  Try a reset.

That's it! I must have accidentally turned Dynamics on. It was a bit of a challenge (bad UX), but I managed to turn if off. I don't know why a full Gimp app uninstall and reinstall did NOT reset that, but it didn't! I originally suspected something with Dynamic Options in my tool, but the user interface is so bad (in my professional opinion, as I am a UX specialist), that I didn't see it. Thanks, Rich, for confirming that it was a dynamics issue. I've also never used dynamics, so I was totally unfamiliar with it, COMPLETELY, lol.

Problem solved!

Thanks,
Gary

[Ofnuts]

(09-05-2023, 01:48 AM)garysch37 Wrote: That's it! I must have accidentally turned Dynamics on. It was a bit of a challenge (bad UX), but I managed to turn if off. I don't know why a full Gimp app uninstall and reinstall did NOT reset that, but it didn't!

Three reasons:

• In this terribly bad UX there are buttons to reset application settings. Reinstalling an application to reset settings is a completely abnormal behavior  caused by numerous apps that don't provide this minimal functionality. And on multi-user computers (think of a family PC...) whose settings are you going to reset when reinstalling?
  
• If you update Gimp maybe you want to keep perfectly working settings. And what is the difference between an update and a reinstall with the next version...
  
• There is a lot a lot more data in your Gimp settings (in practice,  your Gimp user profile) than the size of a couple of brushes and the Dynamics setting.There are usually many assets that you have added over the years (and forgot where you go them from...): brushes, patterns, fonts, scripts, plugins. Gimp pays some respect to the user's data, which is a concept that is often overlooked by Windows applications.
  

In the preferences, you will see several places where you can reset some or all the options to "factory settings". Your Gimp profile is also not buried deep down an intractable "registry", but exists as a standard folder that you can easily backup and erase.

Reinstalling is very rarely necessary.

Maybe you want to change how Gimp keeps your options between sessions.

(09-05-2023, 01:48 AM)garysch37 Wrote: I originally suspected something with Dynamic Options in my tool, but the user interface is so bad (in my professional opinion, as I am a UX specialist), that I didn't see it.

I have been in that business too, and for one that does the work there are ten that criticize. This said all suggestions are welcome.

[garysch37]

Thanks so very much, Ofnuts, for your reply and clarification therein.

My apologies if I offended anyone with my complaints on a part of the user interface or otherwise in Gimp. I guess I just felt compelled to express my frustration a little bit. I know in other places in this forum people have suggested an on/off switch for Dynamics because it is not obvious (I discovered these suggestions in my researching Dynamics after Rich's advice).

I agree, there are buttons to reset application settings, which is wonderful that Gimp provides, though I don't see any specifically for Dynamics like the other settings, and don't see an obvious one resetting the entire application. But, as you mentioned, I may not want to wipe out all asset settings I've established over time.

I agree that with doing a simple update of any application, including Gimp, you want to maintain all currrent settings, since you are only upgrading to a new version of the software. This is, in my opinion, a vital feature for all applications, including in Windows (though adhering to that *requirement* in Windows by developers is sketchy, as you mention). However, there is a difference between upgrading and unintalling/reinstalling. With the latter, the expectation is that all aspects of the app are removed upon uninstallation, and the reinstallation is like the software is installed for the first time on this computer. Now, I will admit that my understanding of macOS is very dated, since I haven't actually created (programmed) any applications on the Mac since Classic Mac days near the beginning, in the 1980s, lol. At that time, all data were stored in the resource/data fork of the executable itself. Since "uninstalling" an app on a modern Mac is "supposedly" done (advertised as such, even by Apple) by simply moving the app into the Trash, I assumed this was still the case. But I know I've run across the application data folders in the user ~/Library folder, but totally forgot about this in my rant--my rant to myself and to this community (doh!).

With Windows, an app's data is all over the place, including the insane Registry, so Uninstall requires a program (software that needs to be executed by the operating system) to carry it out. But of course I'm wrong about modern Mac OSX, because it needs that too, since clearly my uninstalling by just deleting the app itself and then reinstalling left Gimp's Dynamic settings intact, because that did nothing with the data files in the various ~/Library subfolders, or the various cache files and other hidden files all over the place. So it left me totally befuddled as to what was going on with my brush. My apologies for my ignorance and lack of mindfulness, since this issue just has never come up for me yet in the 8 years owning a Mac. I now understand that like in Windows, on a Mac you need to run some kind of uninstaller, except it's actually shockingly NOT as well built into macOS like it is in Windows! By the way, I haven't today actually found a native Gimp Uninstaller, not for the Mac anyway (maybe I should officially suggest that). So I would have had to have used some other third party "cleaner" to fully uninstall Gimp. Oh well, you learn something new everyday, as the cliche goes.

Thanks for your feedback, and thank you for all your work on Gimp. It truly is a remarkable application provided as Open Source and free!

All the best,
Gary