My brother said to never use the 'smudge' tool on a portrait, and I learned the hard way

He's a graphic designer, and when I was working on a digital painting of my dog last month, he told me, 'Amy, that tool is for blending skies, not fur.' I ignored him and tried to soften some edges on the ears. After about 20 minutes, my golden retriever looked like a blurry potato with eyes! I had to start the whole layer over from a backup. Has anyone else gotten weirdly bad results from a tool that's supposed to help?

2 comments

2 Comments

holly_young351mo ago

Yeah that's like using a sledgehammer to hang a picture. Some tools just wreck things if you use them wrong.

king.river1mo ago

Oh the "blurry potato with eyes" is such a perfect way to put it. My buddy did that with the smudge tool on a car drawing and turned the grill into melted plastic. Some tools just have a very specific job and fight you on everything else.