Each time i lay a brush stroke, the next time I pass near or over it, it gets darker. Is there a way to set the brush to just 1 level regardless how many times i pass near it?
see here: 

Hey aecii , is your strength set to 1 with pressure sensitivity turned off? It's hard to tell which setting may be off since the toolbar in the screenshot is on grease pencil.
My apologies. I didn't realize i left it on grease pencil. Here's the re created settings.
I made sure pressure sensitivity is off.
Strength is at 0.47 because i dont want it as harsh...
wait a minute..... OH!! I think i get it now; So strength HAS to be set at 1 so it does not behave this way...
Therefore, if i want to soften the stencil image i have to lighten it in krita/gimp first because the source is too strong. (if i'm making sense) If so, i would take the stencil into krita, create a new transparent layer, paste the stencil into that layer and set alpha to 50% so its half transparent. then bring it back to blender. Correct?
If that's the case, is there a way to do that within blender?
Still learning my way around texture/paint features.
Thanks!
wait a minute..... OH!! I think i get it now; So strength HAS to be set at 1 so it does not behave this way...
Yep! And whatever color you're painting with will tint the texture, so to soften it you could turn down the brightness of your brush to 0.5. Or you could do it the way you described, either way will work.
Unfortunately, It didn't work. Or maybe im doing something wrong still.
I reduced visibility of the stencil by 50% in krita over a transparent bg, exported to png, imported the stencil texture, set strength to 1 and sure it painted at half... but then when i painted over, it added more darkness same as having strength at 50% in blender.
I guess now im trying to find where to adjust brightness of the brush you mention.
I'll upload a video shortly showing the trouble im having. Maybe my approach is just wrong.
Video:
Oh ok, that would make sense that the opacity of the brush would be the same 50% regardless of where you change it. For the brightness of the brush, you can lower the color on the color wheel in the toolbar so that it's not pure white, or even pick a color that's more tan so that it matches the color of the balloon a bit better.
Blender will paint with 100% strenght throught a texture with grey scale levels.
So if your texture is not 100% white, blender will use grey value as a factor.
Any point under 1.0 or 100% white value will be painted as if you were multiplying your 100% stenght by the pixel value.
A 0.5 value of the texture pixel multiplied with a 100% stroke stenght will result in a 50% painted pixel.
If you paint again the same area you will get a 100% white pixel.
Using 100% strenght white brush with texture will paint the texture as it is, transfering any colour information (grey scale or RGB). Using texture mask will transfer the brush colour, regardless of any mask colour infomration. Only the mask values will be considered.
hope it helps.