The new Adjustment brush (beta) is brilliant – but danger's ahead...

FINALLY ! Adobe saw the light and lets (Beta) Photoshop users have a new brush tool which offers a non-destructive approach to replace what they've always wanted to do with the Dodge, Burn, and Saturate tools for decades. Or to simply do what Lightroom and hundreds of photo apps do as well: act on the spot where you point at.

It's going to be crucial to let current users become aware of the fact that a 'drawing' tool actually creates an ordinary Adjustment layer, though starting out with a black mask and a white brush.

The forced switching of the color swatches is also a bit unexpected. Why not let it revert to the user's original colors, just like with the current mask behavior. And the plus and minus brush in the Options bar of the Adjustment brush can be misleading, e.g. thinking that in case of Brightness & Contrast the brush with the minus will make things less bright.

But it's a good thing, so hopefully users will quickly get used to it and learn about Adjustment layers and their masks in general.

And what does the Adjustment tool in the current web version of Photoshop do ?

The old and exact opposite. That's a pity and going to be veeeery confusing...