I'm Losing My Mind

sara505

Me again, with another embarrassing question - embarrassed that after 15 years I am only now beginning to properly learn PS! I'm swimming along fine with Kelby training, retouching, whitening eyes, adding blur, then suddenly! - I have lost my brush! How do I get my brush back in CS5? I have lost the little circle that responds to sizing with the bracket keys. All I have is a little cross and it seems to be doing nothing. Thank you

sara505

sara505 wrote: »

Me again, with another embarrassing question - embarrassed that after 15 years I am only now beginning to properly learn PS! I'm swimming along fine with Kelby training, retouching, whitening eyes, adding blur, then suddenly! - I have lost my brush! How do I get my brush back in CS5? I have lost the little circle that responds to sizing with the bracket keys. All I have is a little cross and it seems to be doing nothing. Thank you

Okay - now I'm really going even crazier. After spending half an hour clicking on absolutely everything, trying to get the brush back - immediately after posing the above question, exposing myself as an idiot - I go back to my project and mysteriously, the brush is working and I have no idea why.

Richard

Press the Caps Lock key.

AFBlue

sara505 wrote: »

Okay - now I'm really going even crazier. After spending half an hour clicking on absolutely everything, trying to get the brush back - immediately after posing the above question, exposing myself as an idiot - I go back to my project and mysteriously, the brush is working and I have no idea why.

Been there; done that. All too easy to hit a key, like caps lock, without realizing it and then having no idea why some important function disappeared. There are a lot of land mines out there.

Jerry

basflt

Untitled-2.jpg

the reason you see the cross = the circle is to small to view
but the brush it still there

sara505

AFBlue wrote: »

Been there; done that. All too easy to hit a key, like caps lock, without realizing it and then having no idea why some important function disappeared. There are a lot of land mines out there.

Jerry

THANK YOU! (see, I hit the caps key )

Yes, land lines, indeed - meanwhile, an hour later...

Thanks, Richard and Jerry.

edit: that would be land MINES

sara505

basflt wrote: »

Untitled-2.jpg

the reason you see the cross = the circle is to small to view
but the brush it still there

That's what I thought, so I kept hitting the rt. brkt. key and it went up to 2000, but I still couldn't see it.

The other thing I'm wondering is, with CS5 you can adjust the brush by rt. clk. and Alt - drag rt. and lft. for size, up and dwn. for hardness. There's supposed to be a fill color in the brush, but I'm not getting it. ?

basflt

what you mean with fill color , and witch brush ?
there are many brushes and options

sara505

basflt wrote: »

what you mean with fill color , and witch brush ?
there are many brushes and options

In CS5 you can change the size of the Brush tool by pressing and holding ctrl+alt, then click and drag - right and left for larger and smaller, up and down for soft and hard.

Theoretically, when you use this option, the center of the circle that is becoming larger or smaller is filled with red (but you can also change the color in preferences). The red doesn't show up for me. It's not life or death, but is helpful in showing the hardness and softness of the brush.

pathfinder

Land mines indeed!

It is little tricks like these that are so useful to experienced users, and so aggravating to those of us who get hit with their shrapnel!

basflt

ok , found it
in preferences > performance , enable OpenGL Drawing

sara505

basflt wrote: »

ok , found it
in preferences > performance , enable OpenGL Drawing

Thanks, Bas - very helpful.

sara505

sara505 wrote: »

Thanks, Bas - very helpful.

But I guess I already had it enabled, still not colored brush.

basflt

it works for me , so there must something in your settings you have changed
sorry , but im out of idea's

btw
i use alt+drag , not ctrl+alt +drag

sara505

basflt wrote: »

it works for me , so there must something in your settings you have changed
sorry , but im out of idea's

btw
i use alt+drag , not ctrl+alt +drag

hmm...now it works...weird. I like it!

yeah, it's rt. clk. +crtl +alt for me.

Thanks for hanging in there with me:D