Why Your Procreate Brush Size Is Wrong

So the question is, why do my brush sizes look different? I get asked this question all the time. People who follow my tutorials might see me using a brush, setting it to a certain size and opacity, and then when they try to replicate it, it just looks different. It looks bigger, it looks smaller, and it just doesn't look the same. And it's a really easy fix, and it has everything to do with brush scaling. So I'll show you an example. I'll take a really vibrant color. We'll use white, in fact, so it's super clear. I'm going with a medium brush with an airbrushing. We'll set it to 2% size, 100% opacity, and you can see it represents this size. Now I can zoom in, and the brush stays consistent. It looks the same no matter what I do. And the alternate setting looks the same as long as you zoomed in the same, but you can see it can end up radically different. Now the way to make sure that you're using it in the original way that I showed you is changed with the Procreate update. So we'll go to the wrench, preferences, and we now have brush scaling, and we have options. It used to be called dynamic brush scaling, and it was a toggle with on or off, which didn't perhaps explain it very clearly, and now it's a little bit clearer. So now you can see the brush scaling is according to the screen, and that means that the brush will be locked according to the screen. It doesn't appear that way, that you'd think by looking at it that that was massively bigger than that, but it isn't. It only looks bigger on when the canvas is zoomed out. What you want is to go to the wrench, preferences, brush scaling, unlock it relative to canvas. That means it's that size when you zoomed in here, or it's that size when you zoomed out, because it's locked to this canvas and not locked to the screen itself. It's such a simple thing to change, and it can confuse people, because sometimes you might generally only zoom in and out a little bit. When you've got it set to screen, and you're only zooming in and out a little bit, it's not obvious in what ways it changes. It's more subtle. It's only when you do it to extremes that you really notice it. Generally, myself and other people that might give you tutorials will have it locked to canvas. That way, 2% will always be the same size, whether you zoomed in or you zoomed out. If you want to be notified of future little Procreate tips like this, or longer drawing tutorials like this, then don't forget to hit subscribe and the bell notification, and I shall see you back here soon.