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brucekorb
brucekorb
Inspiring
February 27, 2026
Question

How can I restore my tools? I cannot paint in the masks.

  • February 27, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 90 views

The backslash key flips the default brush colors back and forth.

Any attempts to paint black on a white mask yields no change.

To my eyes, this looks like a normal brush to me:

 

moments prior to the anomalous behavior, it was all working fine. Obviously, I stumble fingered some tool mode change key, but since it was a stumble I have no idea what it was. I find it interesting that I can change the default brush color from black to white and back again. I hadn’t known that was possible before. Not terribly useful ‘cuz “X” works fine, but interesting.

 

Anyway, the tools state is “normal” and the image mode is “RGB” the flow and opacity are 100% and shift-lock is off. No clue as to what else to check for.

 

Help? :)

    2 replies

    brucekorb
    brucekorbAuthor
    Inspiring
    April 2, 2026

    I have to ask a question as a reply to an earlier question because the Googled advice of “and click the "Post to community" or "Ask a Question" button” refers to buttons that DO NOT APPEAR on my page. It’d be interesting to know why neither one appears. Perhaps I should select a bug report.

     

    Anyway, apparently I am misunderstanding something:

     

    I made a virtual copy of an image in LR and then chose “edit a copy in PS with lightroom adjustments”. When I sent the image back to LRc, there was no copy made and the new image overwrote the .TIF file original. My original (with Google AI adjustments that cannot be replicated ‘cuz I’m out of usage tokens) is ** COMPLETELY GONE **. I am quite beyond irritated. Yes, I still have the pre-Google raw file, but I am very much not happy. What should I have done?

    brucekorb
    brucekorbAuthor
    Inspiring
    April 2, 2026

    “Never mind.” For whatever reason, the “POST” button now shows up, so I’ve posted this question under a proper subject / question banner. 

    jane-e
    Community Expert
    jane-eCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    February 27, 2026

    ​@brucekorb 

     

    The options bar for the brush says the blending mode is normal, so that’s okay (first thing to check!)

     

    • Type “D” to change your swatches to pure black and pure white in case they are a little off, then type “X” to switch. You can also use the icons next to the swatches.
    • Check your layers panel. Is the blending mode Normal there?

    If this doesn’t help, show us your layers panel.

     

    Jane

    brucekorb
    brucekorbAuthor
    Inspiring
    February 27, 2026

    Thank you. It didn’t help. (Also:

    • even if it weren’t pure black & white, it still should affect the mask, and
    • the backslash toggling the default brush colors was weird )

    I am trying to merge detail from a lower layer by masking the top layer.

     

    brucekorb
    brucekorbAuthor
    Inspiring
    February 27, 2026

    I just shut down PS and restarted it. Whatever the tool mode was, it was a transitory mode. It is behaving normally now.

     

    I’d still be interested to know what state PS is in that would cause the backslash key to toggle the default brush colors (“default” and not “current”) and also cause painting on a mask to fail.

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