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leosn56185363
Known Participant
November 24, 2017

P: Spring-loaded tool feature is misbehaving

  • November 24, 2017
  • 89 replies
  • 28172 views

Hey some of us had sound out this issue almost 2 years ago with the "feature" on the original feedback forum that had now been closed. Almost a year had past since one of your colleague claimed to have put in a "feature request ticket", and there are still no fix nor update on the progress. 

 

Again I want to emphasis that this is no longer a feature request (that your colleague had suggested) but a bug as it's not performing in the way it's supposed be.

 

For a quick reminder to the problem. It's way too sensitive, I estimate a rough 20-30% of the time I switch to another a tool, the feature will activate, and without me hitting the shortcut key, the tool will switch back to the previously used tool. 

 

In the time since I noticed this issue, I had change and tested with 3 different keyboards, changed my PC, upgraded the hardwares, and move from Windows 7 to 10. Gone through all the photoshop updates, and yet nothing had change, the issue stayed. 

 

And meanwhile photoshop had introduced plenty of features in between but there was not a single update concerning this issue. So for god sake, can you guys do something about it? 

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    89 replies

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    J
    J453
    Braniac
    September 22, 2021

    I've asked engineering to investgate this. Hit the upvote at the top of the page if affected by this issue.

    S
    Shaun Sean5FE2
    New Participant
    September 8, 2021

    Hi, Adobe! [Redacted] and remove the spring-load [Redacted] feature in photoshop pls and thank you. Or at least give us the option to remove it. Srly how hard is it.... Get a grip, this is serioulsy so [Redacted] annoying. 

     

     

    Inappropriate language removed by moderator]

     

     

    D
    default5h07l4pzgcrl
    New Participant
    April 4, 2021

    First off, bigger issue, Spring Loaded Tools. I can find no option to disable this terrible feature, which is mentioned in this topic:

    https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/tool-changes-to-previous-automatically/m-p/9330688

    And again here:
    https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/photoshop/photoshop-21x-spring-loaded-shortcuts-more-sensitive-turn-off-toggling-between-tools/5f5f461d4b561a3d42742e80?page=2

    This is -not- something digital artists want to be bothered with. If I wasnt using photoshop, I'd switch to clip studio paint since they actually add things their users want, where as photoshop took 20 years to make the standard undo worth using again. It took me awhile to realize what was happening as I swapped my tools quickly with my hotkeys, and I am NOT impressed. No one wants their workflow disrupted because they held a key while clicking.

     

    As for Windows Ink, I'm aware you can disable Windows Ink by making a text file and changing the configuration there. This is a clumsy solution you expect from open source software - but at least open source software usually creates the configuration file for you to view and edit to your liking in the first place with most of the options you need existing within the file. Sloppy.

     

    You might ask why should windows ink have a disable option within the software?

    Because productive people do not want windows inks nasty ctrl, shift and alt notifications at their mouse pointer while using hotkeys. And enabling nasty windows ink for photoshop in your wacom preferences means you're enabling it everywhere else, like Zbrush. 

      M
      mymy2312
      New Participant
      November 23, 2020

      Stop it. I've been reading your explanations and it's nonesense. It's not a feature, it sucks and it breaks your workflow.  People complain about it and you do absolutely nothing with this. Can't do anything now, because tools just keep swaping all the fricking time. Fix the damn thing or give us an oportunity to disable this nightmare. Jesus Christ, every new update, every new version and it's getting worse and worse.

      c.pfaffenbichler
      c.pfaffenbichler
      Braniac
      November 23, 2020

      I’ve been reading your post and it’s nonsense. 

       

      • Firstly this is a user Forum, so you are not really addressing Adobe here, even though some Adobe employees thankfully have been dropping by.

      • Secondly you fail to provide meaningful details about how exactly Spring-loading Tools affect your wokflow. 

        M
        mymy2312
        New Participant
        November 23, 2020

        I'm sorry, it was a bad start. It's just drives me nuts. I didn't even realize that I'm on the wrong forum. Let me explain:
        I use PS mostly for digital painting so brush and eraser are propably my most important tools. When you draw or paint, you press those keys ("B" and "E") constantly to paint/erase something. It was fine before but now it just doesn't make sense to do anything. I'm painting something, then hit "E" to erase, move with my pen and eraser changes back to brush. So I erased with one stroke, but then I painted again with brush the next second. And the other way around - erasing something, hit "B" to paint but it's back with the brush again. I've seen this issue adressed but the explanation was that it's a "feature" and it's been in the program for over a decade. Well, then something went wrong with newer version, because I do not remember having this problem before. I'm using 2021 version now.

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          wildOGpizza
          Participating Frequently
          May 15, 2020

          I'm being forced to click on the toolbar anytime I want to change tools. When I try to use a hotkey, it will select the tool I want for about 1 second and then, on its own, switch to the tool that was previously selected. This started yesterday for no apparent reason. I've updated Photoshop and it's still doing the same thing. It doesn't do it consistently, maybe 90% of the time.  I'm using macOS Catalina 10.15.3 on a MacBook Pro 15 inch 2018.

            jane-e
            jane-e
            Braniac
            May 15, 2020

            When you press and hold a shortcut key, Photoshop will switch to that tool, then return to the one you were using when you release the key. It sounds like your computer is trying to do this. Here are some things to try:

            • Confirm that you are tapping the hot key and not doing a press and hold, then release
            • Try another keyboard
            • Reset the tools from the options bar
            • Go to Preferences > General > Reset Preferences on Quit (after backing up Actions and other customizations.

            ~ Jane

             

              F
              Community Manager
              FeedbackCommunityMemberCommunity Manager
              Community Manager
              May 4, 2020
              The springloaded tools feature really messes with my workflow when painting digitally, as I switch between brushes and erasors very often as I paint. This leads to a lot of accidental switches back to my previous tool without wanting to.
                M
                matth82139050
                Participating Frequently
                May 6, 2020
                i am in same boat as Gustav. This is costing me alot of time and frustration. is there any way to kill "spring loaded tools" in 2020 ps? 
                L
                leosn56185363Author
                Known Participant
                April 23, 2020

                Hi, is there a way of disabling the spring-loaded tools function.

                 

                Since I updated my Photoshop a couple of days back, the Spring-loaded tool function had gotten way more sensitive, and had being highly disruptive to my work process. I tried doing clean installation and rolling back to previous version, and even changing my keyboard, but the problem persist, my brush and eraser will keep switching between themselves randomly. Do get back to me soon

                  E
                  espaki1
                  New Participant
                  May 4, 2020

                  I would also like to disable this feature.  It does seem more sensitive than it used to be and completely disrupts my painting/hotkey workflow.

                    W
                    wakenthedead
                    Known Participant
                    March 27, 2020

                    Lately this started happening, I don't know why, maybe because I updated PS?


                    I would be drawing and then I press 'E' to switch to Eraser and erase a line, then back to press 'B' for the drawing brush, and draw again, I will lift the pen from my wacom tablet after that line is drawn and it switches back to Eraser on it's own.
                    This makes it so when I'm working fast, I erase when I mean to draw and vice versa.
                    It doesn't happen all the time and it seems to happen more when I'm switching fast between eraser and brush and also when I change the eraser or brush size (with my custom shortcuts 'W' and 'Q', although I reckon it isn't because of the custom shortcuts as I had been using them before, forever, without any trouble.)
                    Any ideas? As this happened to anyone before?

                    Things I've tried for a fix and didn't work:
                    - Reset photoshop preferences
                    - Reset all brushes
                    - Uninstall/Reinstall Photoshop
                    - Reinstall wacom drivers
                    - Updating Windows and all other PC drivers
                    - Re-saving the brushes I'm using without the 'Include tool Settings'

                    Update:

                    Upon research, I found this is the problem: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/turn-off-toggling-between-tools

                    Spring-Loaded Hotkeys.

                    Any advice on how to turn this bug feature off?

                     

                    Update 2:

                    The main prob is that it recognizes my W and Q custom hotkeys for increasing and decreasing brush size to alternate between brush and eraser. So if I really want to make the brush go big or very small, I keep the key pressed and it happens, normally it wouldn't, I suppose it's picking up after the PS update. But yeah, the feature/bug exists

                    Update 3:

                    Found a solution, reverting back to an older version of Photoshop got rid of the issue, good job on yet another amazing update Adobe! /s

                      W
                      wakenthedead
                      Known Participant
                      March 27, 2020

                      Upon research, I found this is the problem: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/turn-off-toggling-between-tools

                      Spring-Loaded Hotkeys.

                      Any advice on how to turn this bug feature off?

                        G
                        gabrieller91354199
                        New Participant
                        November 24, 2017

                        Even after the last update, Photoshop is still having this problem with shortcuts.

                        In short, whenever I change tool through the keyboard, after changing the brush size, the tool reverts to the previously used one. For example, if I use the eraser and then select the brush, I can zoom in or increase the brush size or do anything else, that the tool "automatically" reverts back to the eraser.

                        But the problems is, the pattern doesn't always work. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, and I can't understand why.

                        Also, when I'm using the text tool and writing, I can hit the space bar a couple of times and suddenly the keyboard loses focus, as if I'd clicked out of the text.

                        I tried to reset the preferences but nothing, it didn't work. Am I doing something wrong? Is it something I missed in the preferences?

                        I updated Photoshop from 2015.5 to 2018 (on Windows 7 Ultimate) and this never happened with the previous version.

                          ryan_edwards
                          ryan_edwards
                          Inspiring
                          January 8, 2019

                          same for me I don't want to upgrade to cc2019 b/c of the lag etc.

                          cc2018 I can make it switch tools if I manually click them (what a waste of time)

                          using shortcuts gives the behavior of switching to the tool I want then reverting back to the previous tool (such a hinderance)

                          then I kind of fixed it *I think* by using the 'adobe cleaner' tool which just uninstalls your photoshop (gee thanks) but then when I started using ESTK/script listener it went back to being broken.  Just sucks because if its caused by enabling script listener I am SOL as I like to record actions/listen in.

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