Photoshop giving you a pixelated brush?

Photoshop brushes sometimes cause you problems – although most of the time they are your friend. One annoying thing that recently stung us was the pixelated brush problem. When we went to mask a photo for a sticker project and use the brush with a soft setting, it came out pixelated…..and we couldn’t work out why.

After a bit of coffee, we found the problem! The shortcut for brush is B – and the shortcut for the pencil tool is ALSO B.

We were using the pencil tool instead of the Brush tool, and as a result had that horrible pixelated look.

How do you solve the problem of a pixelated brush?

It’s an easy fix – go to the sidebar, open the Brush panel, choose brush instead of pencil and the problem is solved 💥

While Photoshop is a great programme – for stickers we need 300dpi images for print, or ideally vector files.  If possible, use illustrator!!

Need more help designing your sticker?

If you’re still stuck having issues preparing your sticker artwork files, check out or FAQS page or feel free to get in touch with us directly. We’re pretty good at solving problems and are always happy to help 😉