Hello from Spain. This is my first forum post.

I've been using design and animation tools since the Zx Spectrum era. I've been testing Krita these months and It's really an awesome program. The krita team was very kind to add my first request in the 3.0 features, a 1px cursor brush.

One of the features that I like the most about Photoshop paint engine is the ability to turn off spacing. When I uncheck the spacing checkmark the brush dabs are velocity dependent, that is, If I move the pen slowly the spacing is closer to 1 and if I move it faster the spacing increases accordingly. This specially useful for smudging. Using any smudge brush (I prefer a bristle brush) with no spacing, and with pressure sensitivity linked to opacity produces a great blending, if I move my pen slower, the blending is smoother and if I move it faster it produces interesting textures as the spacing is less pronounced so the texture of the brush (bristles in my case) shows up.

This particularity is something that I was unable to replicate in any other software. Gimp and Krita come close to get a similar result, but I can tell I tried every possible combination of paint dynamics and I get many inconsistencies, I'll try to explain them later.

So Krita has a very good way to set dynamics to get the desired brush setting. So I linked the "spacing" to "speed". the problem is that krita has an upper limit in spacing so if I move the pen very quickly the spacing doesn't get higher than that limit; I have both tried to raise the spacing to the top, to the bottom and "auto". None of these settings works as well as in Photoshop. It's difficult to explain but it seems that the amount of spacing depends on the initial speed of the brushstroke, so if I make a fast line and then I slow down without lifting the pen, the spacing remains the same. So it's not possible to smudge paint that way.

It's a bit difficult to explain and it's better to see in first person. I have included an image and a video, but I think all looks more clear in the image.

By the way, the "spacing with velocity" feature was included in Photoshop since the first versions in the nineties, so I think it's not really difficult to accomplish something like that; but I fear that to get something like that would need a rework of Krita's brush engine. I hope not.

Image: http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/2313/2u3otk57kj1h113zg.jpg

Video: https://youtu.be/aIZLlwoEEIE

Hi! Had some time to play with Krita to try and get the results you want! I used Bristles_wet as a base and set smudge mode to dulling, turned off auto spacing and changed it to 3.2 (this may depend on the size of the brush tip so just experiment to see what works)

Here are some pictures of the settings and an example test: http://imgur.com/a/8vyZv

I tried my best to make is similar to your picture. Hope this helps!

Thanks for the answer Ramskulls. Certainly you got a close result unsing your settings. My problems is more related to how the brush works more than the result. I can get similar results but I'd like to be able to archive them using the method I explained, as I find it has a more comfortable workflow, as I get the results I want (both a smooth smudge or a rough textures) with just a brushstroke, it saves time and, as I said, I find that more comfortable to work that way.

Yesterday I found this topic and this user is in the same situation as me, and at the end of the post he explains the issue better than me I think:

https://kritawithmohit.wordpress.com/2014/05/18/to-smudge-or-not-to-smudge/