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]

This subscription-basedsystem many software companies implement is corporate greed and avarice. Like your dog trying to natch your cheeseburger from the table while you turn your back.

[different_impression157F]

This issue continues to haunt the Adobe apps. I rely on very precise and detailed work and I've become frustrated beyond belief. A lot of my work involves digitally restoring ancient sculpture, so there's a huge range of tones, but a lot of medium/grays - and the cursor simply cannot be seen in these circumstances. Also, having a cursor with a 1 pixel border is insane in the modern world of ultra high res monitors. The black border gets completely lost in grays to blacks, and the change to a white border only happens when the background is very dark. I'm so frustrated right now - this increases the amount of corrections and work that I have to do significanly.

[rp48]

You have received a large number of compaints about this over a long period of time yet you have done nothing about it. It would be most appreciatede if we could some action on this. It exceedingly frustrating

[different_impression157F]

This issue has been pushing on Adobe for many years, and I can't understand why they haven't done anything about it. Unfortunately, the move to a subscription-based system has turned them into a 'feature-based' suite of apps, instead of focusing on correcting long standing interface and tool issues. I've seen many top designers complain heartily about this issue as well, but no one seems to be able to get Adobe to do something about it. How difficult can this be?

[different_impression157F]

How does an old version of Photoshop help? The faint cursor in midtones has been an issue for at least a decade. Once higher res monitors came into existence, a single pixel wide cursor edge was never going to work. Maybe the switch to a light cursor in midtones worked better in an older version, but I can't recall it working well in a long time.

[different_impression157F]

Daniel, you can go back in these posts for nearly a decade and see that people have been screaming about this issue for a very long time, with Adobe reps saying 'we're evaluating solutions'. It doesn't take *years* to make a critical upgrade like this. Rather, it seems that all of your resources are assigned to creating new features (many which will rarely be used, but give Adobe bragging rights and attract new subs) or stamping out the worst bugs. I can't imagine something more important for my work, where I'm dealing in a *lot* of midtones. I have to go back and edit my work a lot, because I literally couldn't see what I was doing or where my cursor was.

[Michael E Leslie]

I seem to remember one of the promises made when Adobe went to the "SUBSCRIPTION PLAN" is that with the constant revenues would give them the ability to have the resource to not only provide the subscriber to more features, but also be able to fix the problems at a quicker rate.  Well that was a half truth.  I have a proposal for them, let them suspend all subscription fees and when they get this one problem resolved they can resume the collection of FEES.  If they would do that starting right now 2022-07-18 @ 10:10 PM, I bet I would wake up tomorrow morning with notification that the problem was resloved.

“We must accept responsibility for a problem before we can solve it. We cannot solve a problem by saying ‘It’s not my problem.’ We cannot solve a problem by hoping that someone else will solve it for us. I can solve a problem only when I say ‘ This is my problem and it’s up to me to solve it.’  

[MrKoch]

That just makes it a circle not much easer to see. 

[MrKoch]

Believe it or not I believe this is a firmware or hardware issue. I say this because I've asked Apple to create a left-handed cursor for many years you would think that would be very simple. For over 20 years Apple hasn't been able to make a left-handed curse. So why should adobe be able to make their crosshairs more visible? I'm thinking there may be some secret magic security code that goes along with the cursor that makes developers scratch their head. Some of the things we could've done with resedit in OS 9 on the mac we lost when we went to a unix based system.

[barbara_a]

I agree. This is a constant and annoying problem, trying to see the brush.

When I can't find the brush, I hold down Spacebar which temporarily shows the Hand tool. Once I see the Hand tool, I know where the brush is and I release the Spacebar.

[different_impression157F]

Holding down a key to locate the cursor is only good for a moment. It can't help someone like me carefully paint something correctly, because we're working with a cursor that's effectively invisible. I then have to redo the painting, sometimes many times over, simply because I can't see the brush while I'm painting. Imagine having an invisible brush in the real world and trying to paint a canvas. It's an extremely rough go.

[different_impression157F]

I don't know if I buy either explanation. I've had this issue for a number of years now, and I've had it on both high end Macs and PCs. I now almost exclusively use a Mac, and it's brand new. I was hoping that might resolve any display issues, but ... no. I have friends who are working on PS on brand new PCs, and they have the same issue. One sees a bit more of the cursor, but it's not good for anyone. This should be the top of Adobe's list of fixes to address. And it should have been done many years ago.

[different_impression157F]

Shaking the mouse or stylus is the same as hitting Ctrl briefly to locate the cursor. Great, so at least I can place the cursor correctly. But I still can't see the cursor *when I'm using it*, which is the real issue here. We all know the tricks for locating the cursor for a *moment*, but when many of us are working with photographs, with loads of medium tones, we can't see our digital paintbrush. That's a huge problem.

[CurtyVW]

In Lightroom they use the same solution you use to make sure text is visible over a varied background; using a contrasting edge or shadow. The Lightroom brush cursor uses concentric contrasting lines of white and black. The theory of the solution is simple enough, but I have no idea the difficulty of recoding to implement it.

[mich.leclair53]

This problem is really bad when working with low-contrast photos. The cursor disappears completely. I also think the problem is worse for people whose sight may be a bit impaired. The option for a thicker border would make all the difference. I guess that's incredibly difficult to accomplish programatically.

[Andre Schneider NYC]

@MrKochjust because they didn't fix doesn't mean it's a hardware/firmware issue. Just means that they don't have interest in fixing it. They're taking our money every month and reporting profits after profits after profits, why would they spend time and money fixing something that is not affecting their revenue at all?

[Andre Schneider NYC]

@Daniel PresedoSo Adobe has been aware of this problem for years and years and haven't done anything. Should we have any hope of actually having a company that listens to their heavy users or are you guys only focused on stupid Instagram filters now?

[Andre Schneider NYC]

I'd ask everyone to post on social media (Twitter, Instagram) tagging Adobe and complaining about the problem. Social media shaming is probably the only way to get something out of them these days. I had a problem with my Adobe account and tried through phone/chat on the website to fix it for three weeks. Some 15 hours wasted on calls and chats and got nowhere. Sent a tweet tagging @adobe and they decided to fix the problem on my account in 20 minutes.

[jane-e]

@Andre Schneider NYC 

"Sent a tweet tagging @adobe and they decided to fix the problem on my account in 20 minutes."

You can also send your tweet directly to @AdobeCare. As you saw, Adobe Customer Care on Twitter is very responsive!

~ Jane

[Andre Schneider NYC]

@jane-eI wish they were fast to fix problems in their software too.

[Lumigraphics]

On macOS, shaking the mouse activates the system to enlarge the cursor but this doesn't work with the Wacom pen. :sigh:

I have a lot of problems with finding the cursor with clone or healing brush which I use a lot.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Does press and releasing the Comand key work the same for Macs as it does with Windows?  This is my goto way of locating the cursor.

[Lumigraphics]

No, Windows has a system feature to hold Ctrl but that's not a Mac feature. On the Mac, rapidly shaking the mouse enlarges the cursor but apparently the Wacom driver is broken so it doesn't work with a tablet. :sigh:

[jane-e]

@Trevor.Dennis Wrote on 3 August 2022

"Does press and releasing the Command key work the same for Macs as it does with Windows?  This is my goto way of locating the cursor."

Trevor, this is a very long thread with close to 350 replies, so you may not remember saying the same thing on 6 December 2021? Here it is for you! 😊

[CattieC]

Has anyone found a solution to this? I've been working on so many images lately where it's almost impossible to see the spot healing brush tool and am getting horrible headaches from all the squinting.