P: Brush Outline/Circle disappearing when working with masks

Report · Dec 04, 2021

There is already a discussion in the community "Brush Outline/Circle disappearing intermittently (NOT CAPS LOCK) ". But since I have figured out in detail how to reproduce the behavior and when it becomes present, I want to report the issue officialy that Adobe hopefully will fix this in one of the next upcoming patch releases.

OS Environment:

Win 10 Pro 64bit 21H1
Adobe Ps 23.0.2

The issue is only present in combination when using Masks on a layer!

Create a new document (white, black or transparent layer)
Add a Mask to the layer
Select the layer OR the mask (independent on what you want to paint)
Select the brush tool
Try to start moving the mouse quickliy and pressing the left mouse button nearly at the same time and keep the mouse button pressed
Try to repeat until the you get locked in the issue and the brush circle disappears and the mouse arrow becomes visible

When working with a mouse as input device, the chance to facing this issue is probably rare because this kind of operation, moving the mouse and clicking the button nearly at the same time is kindly unnatural.

But it looks different when using a pen tablet as input device, because now it becomes a more natural operation when hover the pen toward the tablet surface and then drop down onto the surface to start painting.

Kind regards

Report · Nov 04, 2021

I just updated to PS 2022 (I was still on 2019 previously). Now whenever I am using the brush tool, the circle showing the size of the brush will disappear sometimes when I initiate a brush stroke, and instead I see only a regular windows-style "arrow" cursor (not the crosshair - I am not pressing caps lock by mistake). This happens intermittently and seemingly randomly. It makes it difficult to work with layer masks, etc. since I cannot see the boundaries of where I am brushing.

I'm on a Windows 10 PC.

Anyone else have this issue? Any known fixes?

Report · Nov 07, 2021

I experience similar issue on my Windows 10 machine. Sometimes reducing the brush size fixes it but not always. I didn't have this issue with 2021, 2020, and 2019 versions.

Report · Nov 08, 2021

Hi, and I guess that hitting caps lock, or ALT does not resolve the issue?

Report · Dec 01, 2021

Hi,

[..] the circle showing the size of the brush will disappear sometimes when I initiate a brush stroke, and instead I see only a regular windows-style "arrow" cursor [..]

By @TimKamppinen

I can confirm the same bahavior on my environment.

Either by using the mouse or the pen tablet as input, totaly independent from the input device.

Never had the issue in the previous Ps versions.

Environment:

- Ps 2022 (v23.0.2)

- Win 10 Pro x64

- Wacom Intuos Pro

Report · Dec 01, 2021

Hi, and I guess that hitting caps lock, or ALT does not resolve the issue?

By @PECourtejoie

No this does not help, neither pressing caps lock nor pressing ALT resolves the issue.

Report · Dec 01, 2021

Hi, are the cursors flickering between the two types, arrow and circle ? Some users reported shutting down other software running (even an old version of the Adobe application manager, the predecessor of the creative cloud desktop app) fixed their issues.

Report · Dec 01, 2021

No, the cursors do not flickering between the two types.

When the bruch circle is disappearing since the mouse butten is presssed then the arrow becomes visible without flickering between those two kind of types.

If the circle disppears the arrow becomes visible, independent if the mouse is beeing moved or stopped.

Only when the mouse butten is released the arrow disappears and the circle becomes visible again.

Report · Dec 01, 2021

Now I have played a bit and I was able to narrow down the topic.

The behavior is reproducible and I will explain in detail how.

The issue is only present in combination when using Masks on a layer!

Create a new document (white, black, transparent...)
Add a Mask to the layer
Select the layer or the mask (independent on what you want to paint)
Select the brush tool
Try to start moving the mouse quickliy and pressing the left mouse button nearly at the same time and keep the mouse button pressed
Try to repeat until the you get locked in the issue and the brush circle disappears and the mouse arrow becomes visible

When working with a mouse as input device, the chance to facing this issue is probably rare because this kind of operation, moving the mouse and clicking the button nearly at the same time is kindly unnatural.

But it looks different when using a pen tablet as input device, because now it becomes a more natural operation when hover the pen toward the tablet surface and then drop down onto the surface to start painting.

Hope someone else can reproduce the problem using these detailed steps too.

Kind regards...

Report · Dec 05, 2021

I'm also having the same issue since upgrading to Photoshop 2022. It was not present in previous versions of Photoshop. Windows is fully updated, my graphics driver is fully updated.

The circle outline does not flicker, it just disappears randomly when using the brush tool. The files I'm working with have multiple layers, but there are NO masks involved, so I don't think that's the issue. (At least in my case.)

No known solution, unfortunately. Since it worked fine before PS 2022, it seems to be a bug on Adobe's part...

Report · Dec 05, 2021

I haven't been able to reproduce this. I've asked for some other folks on the team to help try and reproduce. There may be some other secret ingredients to make it happen. (UI scaling, GPU, installed extensions or 3rd party panels - or we're simply not hitting the timing just right) Let me know if anything jumps out as a smoking gun. I tried @Belichtungsquartier steps with no luck. Maybe a screen recording of the entire Photoshop workspace demostrating the behavior may help.

Report · Dec 05, 2021

I can try to give you any information I have, but I'm not sure what the factor might be outside of Photoshop 2022 versus older versions. I don't have any 3rd party panels, extensions, or plugins installed outside of Adobe's Camera Raw. I can do a dump of the "System Info" Photoshop pulls up, if that would help.

...After playing around a bit, I might have narrowed down the circumstances in which this happens -- although it still seems somewhat random.

painting cursors set to "normal brush tip"
dodge or burn tool set to 750px
use the brush on the canvas
Edit > Fade x Tool > x%
use the brush again

Intermittenly, the circle online will disappear upon using the brush after fading the previous stroke.

I'm not sure if it has to do with timing -- if Photoshop is lagging on executing the "fade" command, and trying to use the brush again too quickly is what's causing the circle to disappear, or if it's some other factor. All I know is the problem only cropped up after updating to PS 2022.

Report · Dec 05, 2021

Hi @J453,

I have already cereated a screen recording that will show the behavior. But unfortunately there is no option to upload a video to this platform. How can I provide you this video sequence?

Kind regards

Report · Dec 05, 2021

Upload to CC files and share a link.

Report · Dec 06, 2021

Hi @J453,

please find the file at Ps2022_v23.0.2_Brush_Circle_when_using_Masks_Issue

Report · Dec 06, 2021

Or please use this dropbox link for the video file.

Ps2022_v23.0.2_Brush_Circle_when_using_Masks_Issue.mp4

Report · Dec 06, 2021

Thank you for the video, we are working on trying to reproduce the issue.

The System info may provide addtional insight to hardware and settings for Photoshop.

In Photoshop, select Help > System Info.

In the System Info dialog, click Copy.
Attach or copy the info here to this thread.

Report · Dec 06, 2021

@Belichtungsquartier If you open the Brush Settings Panel in Photoshop and observe the Brush Preview:

Please reproduce the problem with your steps.
When the cursor gets stuck > does the icon appear at that time and does it stay that icon or does it render the brush stroke ?

Report · Dec 06, 2021

@Daniel Presedo

a.) Screenshot attached when the cursor gets stuck.

b.) System Info available via dropbox Ps2022_v23.0.2_SystemInfo.txt

Report · Dec 06, 2021

@Daniel Presedo

Not OP, but I'm seeing the same as your screenshot -- when the brush's circle outline disappears, the brush changes to the generic paintbrush icon and stays that way until the mouse button is released again.

Report · Dec 14, 2021

The problem persists with the new version 23.1

Any Idea what is the root cause of this issue? Or did somebody else was able to reproduce the bahavior?

Report · Jan 22, 2022

The problem is still present with the latest v23.1.1

Is there somebody from adboe who can reproduce and confirm that behavior?
If yes, is the issue highlighted as a bug report for detailed analysis to fix this problem in one of the next upcoming releases?

Kind regards

Report · Feb 02, 2022

Any update on this?

Got a bunch of users having this issue on all our new imac 2021 Intel.

Report · Feb 05, 2022

Also confirming that this is still an issue in the latest update. No masks required in my case!

It seems that this behavior is reproducible (see screenshot re: generic paintbrush icon versus expected brushstroke preview), but there's no fix on the horizon?

Report · Feb 05, 2022

Voir la suite des programmes

Report · Feb 14, 2022

Hi, I've been using photoshop and lightroom for about 4 or 5 years now (purchased with Photography plan). Some time ago (where nothing notable changed) both lightroom and photoshop has been incredibly slow/freezing when using. Other apps and my taskbar starts flickering. Lightroom completely freezes - with no progress being made - and photoshop loads incredibly slow - normally instant things takes minutes. Until i take my mouse on another app or my taskbar, then it runs fine.
I used to have 2 1080p monitors where it didn't work on both, I replaced one of them with a 1440p and now it only doesn't work on my 1440p. I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling the apps and drivers for the screens and graphics card (GTX 1070 Ti), and nothing helps. I have tried every nvidia setting and adobe performance setting in the apps without that helping either. I even thought it was the hz difference or cables but changing those didn't help either.

I have tried every freezing/crashing fix i have been able to find and none of it helps. I haven't found anyone with the excact same problem but maybe i'm bad at googling it.

My specs are:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9900K CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz

16GB of ram

GTX 1070 Ti

1080p 60hz screen (Was my old main screen where the bug happened, now secondary screen that works)

1440p 165hz screen (Where the bug is now happening)

With those specs i can usually run just about anything at reasonable-good speeds so i have no clue why this is happening. I have attached a video of the flickering if you are wondering what i'm talking about. Thank you in advance for any help or ideas.