Why Did My Brush Opacity or Blend Mode Change Without Me Touching the Slider?
Why the settings bleed between tools
Brush, Clone, and Smudge look like three separate tools, but they read from the same four underlying values: brush size, opacity, edge hardness, and blend mode. That's intentional — it means picking a size once generally carries over sensibly if you switch tools mid-edit.
The side effect is that Clone and Smudge each have their own Size/Opacity/Hardness/Blend sliders, and adjusting those also updates the shared value behind the scenes. If you lower Clone's Opacity to blend a patch subtly, then switch to Brush, the Brush can start painting at that same lower opacity — even though the Brush panel's own slider still visually reads 100%, because nothing forced it to refresh.
The same applies to Blend mode: setting Clone to Multiply for a shading effect and then switching to Brush can leave new brush strokes rendering in Multiply too, which often looks like the stroke is "underneath" the existing artwork rather than painted on top of it.
How to reset it
- Switch tools through the tab, not mid-stroke. Clicking the Brush tab (rather than just clicking on the canvas) is what triggers the values to resync from Brush's own sliders.
- If it still looks off, nudge the slider. Drag Opacity or Hardness by even one step and back — this forces the value to re-read from the slider's actual position.
- Double-check Blend mode specifically. It's the setting most likely to produce a confusing result (strokes looking "behind" existing content) rather than an obviously wrong number, so it's easy to miss.
None of this affects anything already painted — it only affects the settings used for your next stroke, so there's nothing to undo once the sliders are reset.
Mid-edit right now? Open the Draw tool in ZURAPIC and check the Blend dropdown on the Brush tab first — it's the one most worth a quick glance after using Clone or Smudge.
Last updated: August 10, 2026