Hi all
You may already know about this, but I didn't, and it's one heck of a time saver. In CS5, if you're using any brush tool, you can hold down the control/option keys (on a Mac - not sure if it would be control/alt on a PC) and drag your cursor from right to left across the brush circle to change the size and up and down to change the hardness/softness. Dragging it to the right makes it larger, and dragging to the left makes it smaller. Up is softer; down is harder. You can see the change in the top menu. I've taken several webinars lately that have shown that shortcut, and I love it.
My screen doesn't show it, but the instructor got a red circle within the circle that showed the changes as he was making them and the red disappeared when he stopped dragging. I'll have to look into that, but at least you can use the shortcuts. I thought using the brackets was great, but this is even better.
Cheers,
GK
Hi GK,
Thanks, I didn't know that! I've done the bracket keys to enlarge the brush, but not the short cuts you mentioned.
Margie
Hi GK,
Nothing beats learning a new shortcut that makes things faster and more fluent. I love this shortcut and since CS5 I have coded this as a button on my Intuos 4, rather than having each separately on the wheel, which made working even faster again.
I am not sure if this makes a difference with this hot key, however, did you have your caps lock on when you tried this? Be interesting to see what is causing you not to see the red brush size image. I could imagine it would be very annoying without it.
JB
Hi GK,
What a great tip! The buttons on my pen were dedicated to bigger and smaller brush, now I can use them for something else.
Hannie
Hi GK,
You can ignore my last assumption, the caps lock does not make a difference.
It is funny how some things just push you to find an answer. Try this.
Open Photoshop and go to Preference, then Performance.
Here you will find a check box under GPU settings. You need 'Enable Open GLDrawing' to be checked for this to work.
Once checked, restart Photoshop and hopefully you should have the red dot.
JB
Hi JB
Thanks for checking on the red spot for me. Strangely, my check box is greyed out for Open GL Drawing. I wonder if it's because I don't have the Extended version of CS5. Not a big deal. I can use the cursor without seeing the red, and it still works fine. I keep my softness at a constant value most of the time, so I wouldn't use that much anyway.
I'm about to post my latest restoration, and I have to say that one little shortcut made a huge difference in the time it took, especially as I had more cloning than I normally do. Love those shortcuts!
Cheers!
GK
GK, If your Open GL Drawing is grayed out it can mean 3 things:
- the most obvious is that your video card doesn't support Open GL Drawing and you need a new one
(check the specs on your Mac to see what model video card you have)
- the video card does support Open GL Drawing but your computer is older and will become unstable by the use of Open GL Drawing so the system will disable the Open GL (it should give you a warning before this happens)
- the video card needs new drivers
Hope this helps,
Hannie
Thanks, Hannie. Any of the above could be an issue, as my Mac Pro is about 5 years old and I haven't upgraded any of the drivers. I'll be using what I have until it gets tired of battling with your muck monsters and gives up the ghost, as the only work I've been able to get since I left my job has been pro bono. Good for exposure, but doesn't help the pocketbook at all! To be honest, I'm very happy with the hardware and software I have for the time being. It's served me very well!
Hugs!
GK