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.

[Sonofmidgard]

Don't screen record it. Use the camera of your smartphone or tablet to illustrate the horrible photoshop flaw.

[Sonofmidgard]

How do I get legacy back in photoshop 2022?

[ElPi ngas]

https://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/restore-legacy-brushes-photoshop-cc-2018/

[Sonofmidgard]

Any news about improvements? When will that be fixed? With Photoshop 2030 maybe?

[Sonofmidgard]

I still can't see the brush cursor in mid-range tones with legacy brushes. Photoshop is still broken.

[Sonofmidgard]

I fixed the problem by using an old version of Photoshop. Maybe the problem will be fixed with the 2030 version.

[DIGI-POSTER]

Set the size of the brush, clone tool, healing brush and then press the CAPS Lock key to switch to the crosshairs. Then, you can press the bracket keys to increase or decrease the brush size. Not perfect but a least you can see the cursor.

[CurtyVW]

I remember this problem clear back to version 2.5 in the early 90s up to CS3 in late 00s, especially when working on retouching scans from black and white negatives. A couple of years ago, after I retired, I started back in scanning old negatives and was surpised it was still a problem this many years later. I thought I was just going to have to live with it. This week, after working on black and white for a couple of weeks straight, I decided to see if their was something new in the latest Creative Cloud version that I did not know about. I found this thread today and did find a useful workaround in toggling the control key to locate the brush. It certainly beats wiggling the mouse on my 5K 27" iMac, but I am surprised that 30 years later this hasn't been addressed. I guess most people work on color digital images and it isnt as big a problem for them. But I do thank the participants in this thread for the helpful hint. I will keep checking this out to see if their is ever any progress.

[Sonofmidgard]

It is the same problem working in color. I do touch-up work for a ladies' fashon company. There are a lot of mid-tone flesh colors where I have to guess where the cursor is. It is a hit and miss procedure.

[Beltran Espinosa]

Thanks, I think it'll work, even though the icon of the tool is a little bit annoying.

Much better.

[Trevor.Dennis]

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.

By @michal_j

This is going to be on a par with using a sledge hammer to crack a nut, but if you are using Windows then Lazy Nezumi Pro has what it calls a Mega Crosshair option

With it enabled, you get a very unsubtle crosshair that covers the entire screen as below.  The Pause Mega Crosshair while Drawing option causes it to remain at the starting location of the tool, but I have not worked out why this might be useful.

LNP does not work with OSX systems.

[Sonofmidgard]

In pther words, it is not a solution.

[Andre Schneider]

So Adobe, it's been years and this huge problem is still not fixed. So much for "the subscription based method will be much better for the users because we will be able to fix bugs faster without having to wait for the next release". Yeah right.

[Marilyn23955402qjik]

The cursor disappears, very diffcult to retouch. In the past it worked fine. Tech support claimed he could see it easily but all these posts about this issue confirms my problem with photoshop. Really slows down the flow of work

[raminolta]

April 2022 and such an obvious flaw has not been fixed yet. Amazing.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Seeing as this appears to be an ongoing issue for some people, it would be helpful to tie down the conditions under which the cursor becomes difficult to see. 

The Subject of this thread specificually mentions the Brush Cursor.  I am forever losing my cursor, but not especially in Photoshop, but not so much with the brush tool.  Out of interest, I just tried to hide my brush cursor but they are all still visible.

I am using Windows and have my document window on a 32 inch 2560 X 1440 pixel.  This is with Windows 10.

If you are one of the people with this issue, what OS are you using?

What screen size and resolution? 

How do you have your cursor set in Preferences?

Can you show us some screen shots that show the problem?

[ElPi ngas]

Hi Trevor, @Trevor.Dennis The problem is mostly that the OS (i use windows but apparently according to some people on this thread also happens on Mac) won't scale Photoshop cursor even if enabling scaling from the display options in Windows.
You can have all the ugly crosshairs you want, but if you are working on a 4k display and the cursor is 1 pixel thick, you will lose track of it over some colors/textures.
This would be easily fixed if in photoshop would be a feature to add custom cursors or change the thickness of the cursors like the brush or the ones that are 1 pixel line shapes.
As you'll see in the pics attached (the only way to show how it actually looks is taking a photo of the monitor) the cursor have only 2 states: White (when the image below reaches certain threshold of darkness) and Dark (1px black and 1px white for clear content).
The cursor is really difficult to see on that surface, FURTHERMORE , something I can't show in photos is that is really hard to track in my 60hz panel (pantone calibrated and all that fancy stuff) when you move the cursor over the problematic colors. That's the worst part in my case: the movement is the easiest way to lose track of it. Again, if one simply could thicken the cursor's lines a couple of pixels extra this DECADES LONG issue would be probably solved.

[ElPi ngas]

OS Windows 10 64bits Version 21H2, by the way

[laAdobe]

Until PSHP makes the brush outline color changeable, the adjustment layer to temporarily colorize the layer you're working on works great. Thanks NB. Note: You'll need to change to RGB mode if you are working on grayscale.

[joecos55]

The brush in photoshop (healing, Clone, and Paint) are getting harder to see.  once in a while and I don't know why my brush will turn white.  this seems to be an ongoing issue for some time now, why can't we have an option to change the color so there is better contrast with the area of the photo I am working on.   

[ebenostby]

This is kind of silly, isn't it - a basic usability issue that's been active for well over 5 years and acknowledged by staff.

My solution was/is to buy a mouse-locator app for OS X. There are several - I currently use something called Simple Mouse Locator, but there are others.

[Jqqerry]

omg Hasn't this problem been solved yet? As far as I remember, this inconvenient problem has occurred since 2018.

Some people have said that the problem is a specific symptom that only occurs on high-density displays(hidpi), but it is not.

Also its not abut OS problem.

Something changed...No one knows, and don't know when, but... Something's broken. In the past, there was no such inconvenience when working on precise Dodge Burn.

[yelm]

Seriously, this is such an old issue. Giving users the ability to thicken or change cursor colors would help immensely.  Not just the paintbrush, but all of the tools. In particular, I'm having a hard time seeing the clone stamp.

(Making the brush cursor larger doesn't really help, and it throws me off. For example, the cursor for the eraser becomes larger than the actual tool, makign it difficult to precicely control.)

I didn't have this problem until I switched from Windows 10 to a M1 Mac with a much higher resolution display (5K). IDK if it's a Mac issue, or if it's my new display that's making it so noticeable, but it's infuriating. 

[Andre Schneider NYC]

It's a high res display problem. Adobe said it was aware of it long time ago, yet does nothing to fix it.

[Jqqerry]

I have tested both HD and FHD displays and there is a problem. It's not only high-res display.

In the really older version of Photoshop, there's no such problem.

Also @yelm  Problem occurs regardless of Windows/Mac OS. There's nothing wrong with your Mac.