P: Make the brush cursor easier to see (too thin, not enough contrast with some colors)

[michal_j]

In last updates I'm having problem seeing brush (paint and healing) cursor when working with colors similar to cursor grey (grey or brown midtones for expamle).

Sometimes cursor changes to white, but for very short time and very randomly.

So it's really hard to see where I'm just gonna paint or heal. It is really annoying and tiring.

[johna34581168]

18 months!!! It's been over 2 .1/2 years

[Mark.Dahm]

The cursor's ability to flip white or black was implemented on the CPU, which is able to analyze the pixels below the brush so that the tip color can dynamicaly switch between white (against dark average pixel values) or black (against white pixel values). This implementation never really addressed the mid tone values where either white or black values don't offer much contrast, but as long as the canvas resolution remained 1:1, it seemed good enough for a long time.

Once higher resolution displays came along, it rendered the brush tips hard to see across almost all values because the size of a single or double pixel line shrunk down to something that was just too small to make out at all. 

In May of 2021 when Daniel responded, we were looking at drawing the brush tip with the GPU, and changing the behavior to a white inner circle with a black outer circle. This would have eliminated the dynamic contrast switching of the old brush to a static tip that only ever looked one way, however we could not get the performance of the GPU rendered brush realiable and fast enough to compare to the current brush, so we went back to the drawing board.

We now have a proposed solution that offers user-controlled 'outline thickness' for the brush, and it's going into testing this week for feedback. It may not address every problematic use case, but it's the first bite of the apple and I think a good step forward. We are still committed to exceeding the visibility and matching the performance of the current brush at all resolutions and across a wide range of brush tips, and while I'm sure there may be some complex tips that suffer a bit from the new behavior, if it's good enough for general use case, then we'll move forward.

For those that may not know, all customers may download a separately installable Beta version of Photoshop that can run alongside the currently generally available version, and newer features are often being test-driven in that version of Photoshop. You can find it under the Beta section of the Creative Cloud app. When we move into the phase where it's in the Beta, I can update this thread.

I apologize for the time that's it has taken to nail down a fix for this; there is always a long going on between keeping the lights on and building new features, and we've never forgotten about the need to address this problem.

[Chuck Uebele]

Any improvement would be helpful, @Mark.Dahm.

[Pete Prue]

Can someone please come pick me off the floor!!!

But all joking aside it's fantastic to know that the community has finally been heard and this issue has gained the long awaited attention it's needed. Thanks for the update Mark 👍🙏

[jane-e]

Thank you to you and the team @Mark.Dahm !

Jane

[WaterKat]

Holy moly a coming beta solution to this invisible cursor problem, HURRAYYY !!!  Thank you!  
Thank you for listening, even if we were all waiting and walking blindfolded for a long long while, this is a cool drink of water!
Heading to the beta now and hoping it shows up there soon. 

[Jqqerry]

finally!!! In fact, even if you introduce it to a regular release version other than beta right away, no one will object.(Of course, we know you're prepared for a possible bug)

[Lumigraphics]

Its just too bad that you can't get hardware cursor support. I mean, there are four players on desktop - Intel, nVidia, AMD, Apple. That would eliminate any performance issues.

[Mark.Dahm]

@Lumigraphics , the challenge there was to implement in such a way that older GPU cards and systems with 'compromised' GPUs wouldn't lose their cursors if we cutover to pure GPU rendering. 

[ericdavisoz]

It's late 2022 with the latest PS and still the same problem on my 5K 27in iMac. My workaround, when I lose track of the spot healing brush circle, is to hold down the Option key turning the brush into a target icon (or the ⌘ key shows a pointer), move it to the desired spot, let go the Option key or ⌘, and click to heal. 

A colour option would be really nice though.

[robtmccann]

But giving the outline the capacity to be any color like the guides is not an option? 

[Mark.Dahm]

@robtmccann, we will look into that. But that alone would not be sufficient; this became an issue with the prevalence of high resolution displays, and the first order problem is to allow for larger brush tip lines so they can be seeable; color customization will be a future effort.

[dwr57]

This thread started in 2016 (6yrs ago) that's a lot of eye strain and underperformance.

[robtmccann]

So the thing so many of us have been clamoring for for years will happen, but after you do something else first. 

[Mark.Dahm]

Not something else entirely. Not that custom colors has no value, but if the tip is invisible due to high resolution displays, the color of the tip will not matter. Razor thin, even for a customizable color, isn't going to help.

First order bit is to make it so that you can easily spot the cursor. Then assigning custom colors, if its still useful, would make for a good next step.

[jane-e]

Kudos to you and the Photoshop team for finding a way to fix the invisible brush tip, @Mark.Dahm !

[LAWRENCEcanDRAW]

I have always used the Standard Tip but never found it an issue if it does disappeared when I paint for a moment due to the fact that I am using a tablet so I know where my brush is. However, if the tip were to be a colour... I might find that distracting. Hard to say without testing it but I might constantly think it is a part of my digital artwork. Hey, as long as I can hit Legacy in Preferences I will be happy!

[Daniel Presedo]

If you want to try the new Brush Cursor options in the  Photoshop (Beta) 

How to use:

1. Create a text file
2. Save the file as a plain text file named PSUserConfig.txt
3. In the Text file add this…
   
   BrushTipOutlineStrokeWidth 3
   
   (0-3) This Increases the brush cursor outline.
   0 is the default in the shipping version of Photoshop.
   This Beta is using 1 as a default.
    (Thank you Scott Valentine for making this graphic!) 
   
   
4. Save the file/Place the file in the Photoshop settings folder:

For Windows: \Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop (Beta) Settings\

For macOS: //Users/[User Name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop (Beta) Settings/

5. Launch Photoshop.
To change setting you must quit Photoshop and change the brush tip value in PSUserConfig.txt, and then relaunch Photoshop. 

[Sonofmidgard]

Created the folder and put it into PH setting and nothing happened.

[Daniel Presedo]

@Sonofmidgard 

In the Photoshop Beta path > if you want to send a screenshot or copy of your path to daniel at adobe dot com, I can help sort this out. 

[Jqqerry]

PS2023(24.0)PS Beta set Brushtip3PS2023(24.0)PS Beta set Brushtip3

I'm very satisfied. I applied 3 immediately after seeing the update of beta. I'm so satisfied that if there's no particular problem, I'd like it to be added to the official release right away. @Daniel Presedo Good Job!!!!!!

[Stephen Cherry]

So i see an answer listed as a correct answer. It gives no useful information and was posted almost 18 months ago. Is there an actual answer that addresses this issue?

[Jqqerry]

@Stephen Cherry  PS beta has a something fix to try on this. You can try

[lfullerunc]

What's the fix.  I have the beta but have not seen anything on this.

[PECourtejoie]

Hello, @lfullerunc  see six posts before yours, see: https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-bugs/p-make-the-brush-cursor-easier-to-see-too-th...