Eyedropper access for Smudge tool with Finger Painting

Thanks for the reply, Jeff.

I did see something about option/alt being a toggle for Finger Painting but found that that didn't actually work, so I thought maybe they abandoned it. I just checked again, and find that when Smudge is the active tool, option key does nothing at all.

I'm sort of puzzled why they would have broken option-for-eyedropper consistency in favor of a Finger Painting toggle. If I'm using Smudge, I usually want Finger Painting one way or the other for a long stretch, and I'm fine taking a trip to the top bar to change it. It's the eyedropper that comes into use with such frequency as to require a good shortcut. 

I'd settle for holding down the I key instead, but in fact on my system (Photoshop 26.10.0), it acts as a hard switch to the eydropper. Which is just as well, because that's the behavior I expect: I key for hard switch to eyedropper, Opt for temporary switch.

Maybe I jinxed Photoshop with custom shortcuts. But even if the program were behaving as you say it does, I stand by my suggestion, both for conformity to Photoshop's other option-eyedropper patterns and for the importance of an eyedropper shortcut over a Finger Painting shortcut.

Actually pressing the Option or Alt key with Finger Painting selected toggles Finger Painting Off/On

Without Finger Painting checked the Option/Alt key toggles Finger Painting On/Off

To sample colors while the Smudge Tool is active you can press I for the Eyedropper Tool, select your color then release the I key which should take you back to the Smudge Tool.

Still though i agree it would be nice be able to access the Eyedropper directly while using the Smudge Tool.