PS CS6 records brushstrokes - but it's not bug free.

fisj · Nov 2012

I heard yesterday that Photoshop CS6 records brushstrokes in actions, and I nearly fell out of my chair. I thought passing on the news might be beneficial for someone, since it's quite a powerful feature. I was hoping to use it to match normal and color scan data by recording me making the color seamlessly tiling, then replay the action on the normals.

In order to allow brushstroke recording, you need to enable "Allow Tool Recording" in the Actions tab options pullout. There's a neat video showing the process here:

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-tips/recording-brush-strokes-actions-photoshop-cs6/

Now for the bad news ... It appears that the clone tool has a nasty offset bug when replaying cloned brushstrokes from sources. I've whipped up a crappy, but illustrative image below to show the issue more clearly.

I'm running a fully patched up version of CS6 Extended, tried a trial on another machine, same issue. Can anyone verify this?

Computron · Nov 2012

To repeat the same cloning process on different textures, you could consider cloning using a different process.
For example, duplicate on texture, offset it and perform the equivalent of the clone tool by masking the offset layer to reveal the layer below.

Then you would do the same duplication process with your normals map and specular and just reuse the same mask. if you make an action for this it can be super quick.

But yeah, CS6 is awesome.

fisj · Nov 2012

Thanks for the response! What you describe is similar to what I've been using with CS5, but using smart layers, and duplicating, shifting and masking.

I ran some more tests using various tools. The Spot Healing, Patch, and Content Aware Move Tool and even Puppet Warp are all recorded correctly. They're not as "bread and butter" as clone or healing brush, but they can and do work. The brush stroke recording is pretty amazing, even despite this one bug.

On the Adobe forums I was able to get confirmation that this issue exists on both OSX and Win7. Guess I'll have to cross my fingers and wait for a fix in a future patch for the clone tool.

Thanks again!

cptSwing · Nov 2012

Oh wow, I didn't know about this.

Computron wrote: »

For example, duplicate on texture, offset it and perform the equivalent of the clone tool by masking the offset layer to reveal the layer below.

Then you would do the same duplication process with your normals map and specular and just reuse the same mask. if you make an action for this it can be super quick.

And this requires further explanation, itching to make an action for something like this right now

PS CS6 records brushstrokes - but it's not bug free.

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