How do I resolve a brush spacing issue such as this one?

Question

Been using Photoshop Elements for a few years now, but yesterday every brush that I tried to use suddenly (yes suddenly as in I did nothing different than before) began to space even at the setting of 1%. Case in point, I will use the "Hard Round" 13 pixel wide brush under "Default Brushes" and set the spacing to 1%, yet it acts like its spacing is at 50% or around there. Every brush does this, and the effect became a gradual one. At first the brushes would only do this if I applied a "fade" to them, but now it does not matter what I do, I can't get the brushes to stop spacing as they do now, and I have no idea why they started to do this.
Any idea as to why they do this and how I can resolve this would be much appreciated. I am using Elements 10.
Thank you.

Answer 1

Sometimes when problems pop up for no apparent reason it could be that the preferences files had become corrupted. Here are two ways to reset the preferences.
1. The reset process might be built into your PSE version, as shown in this video:
How to Reset Photoshop Elements Preferences - YouTube
2. If your version does not have the reset option,  press and hold Alt-Ctrl-Shift (Option-Command-Shift on Mac) immediately while starting PSE. The timing is critical; you may have to try this several times. A dialog box will pop asking if you want to delete the settings file?  Click  YES.
Let us know if either of these works for you.