Photoshop CC 2018: Selected a brush but instead it changed to a tool

Photoshop 19.1 has an added shortcut for loading Brush Settings from presets and Recent Brushes. (command+option click-Mac  control+alt click - Windows) Selecting preset in this manner ignores tool specific settings in the preset.

Recent brushes created from preset loaded with the shortcut are tool agnostic if the tool specified for the preset differ from the tool it was loaded to.

The Recent Brushes has an icon showing tool association if show additional preset info is enabled on the panel

Hi Trevor,

Thanks for the heads up. We're looking into this.

Hannah Nicollet

I am guessing that you are using the Recent Brushes items to select the Brush. With CC 2018 presets being enhanced to allow Tool information, the recent brushes will include tool information if the Brush used was from a Tool Preset or the Brush Preset has tool information in it. If you hover over the Recent Brushes area the tool tip displayed will show if there is a tool associated with the brush. We understand that this is affecting some users' workflow and are investigation ways to lessen the impact.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Brush presets: Can't change the tool (presets locked to a particular tool).

On the whole, I'm happy with the new Brushes panel in Photoshop 2018. And I'm thrilled that all of Kyle Webster's brushes (which I'd been drooling over for years) are now included! But, thanks to one major issue, what could have been a major upgrade has become a crippling step backward in functionality:

Most brushes are locked to a particular tool.

This seems to have been a deliberate choice by the dev team, and I get why. Each tool has its own unique settings, and by making a brush tool-specific, those unique settings can be saved along with the brush. That's a great feature, but the problem is that there's no way to use these full-featured brushes with any other tools.

So now, if I want to test out different erasers, I can only use the brushes saved without tool presets (General Brushes and Legacy Brushes) and the Kyle Webster brushes saved as erasers (of which there are very few).

Please, Photoshop devs, add an easy-to-access checkbox that allows the user to either use brushes' tool presets or apply the brush to the selected tool. For instance, "Use Selected Tool" or "Use Tool Preset."

It wouldn't even need a checkbox. In my opinion that over-complicates this.
 When I right click with a tool I'm interested in THAT tool. Changing it to another tool from the recent brush list is simply incorrect behaviour. And it basically ruined my workflow I loved since the recent brushes were introduced.
So: if I see all my recently used brushes there WITHOUT tool settings attached to it I can finally use the same brush very quickly for painting, erasing or smudging. That would make it better, not worse as it is now.

(This is one of the strongest features of Clip Studio Paint: changing to transparency while painting effectively turns your brush into an eraser with the very same settings. Making this possible in PS's world sounds like a very-very good goal. )

So I'd praise this tiny addition to recent brushes but now I'm using an older version of PS because of this (and of course to have device preview :( )

This change too has prevented me from using the latest version of Photoshop, as I was very happy when able to use any of the recently used brushes as an eraser. I really tried to work with the latest version but it was too much of a hassle and there aren't a lot of eraser options in Kyle's brushes to begin with.

I know this has been a bad change for a lot of illustrators, and it would really help if there was a way to use the brushes with different tools.

Good Lord I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering what the heck was going on. Why would you make things less intuitive? 

Why on earth don't you roll back to the way it worked before and add the new behaviour as an option (by Ctrl + Alt clicking)?!

Seriously... It's annoying, restrictive and doesn't add anything. Leave that tiny icon to hint at what tool a brush was designed for. Otherwise: Please roll back, it's not useful in the slightest.

Just noticed this is marked as "Solved"..... I strongly disagree.

I hate the new update. The brushes are so frustrating to deal with. This update slowed down my workflow big time... so much so I switched back to the previous version. What were you thinking when you did that? Once they actually "solve" this issue, I'll start using the new update. Disappointed in Adobe this round.

Wow, really horrible. Can someone please tell me how to do the following:

1) Select the Background Eraser tool 2) Go to the Brushes panel and select a brush WITHOUT Photoshop jumping to the Brush tool? I don't understand Mike's answer at all Ctrl Alt click seems to have no effect.

thank you