Brush Cursor Disappeared

[MelindaV]

Since I updated to OS Sierra, for some odd reason the brush cursor in Photoshop has stopped showing up. It functions (I can paint with it), but I can't see it. At all. I see the results of using it, but not the thing itself. No, my caps lock is NOT on. I've tried toggling it on and off just to play with it, but no matter what I do the cursor doesn't show. No matter what preference I select, it doesn't show. It flickers briefly if I zoom in and out, but it doesn't stick around. I'm using an iMac, all standard stuff it came with, Apple keyboard, no tablet...no reason for this that I can see. I haven't changed anything other than the OS update which I'll admit can be a huge deal. I can't figure out what broke and, more importantly, how do I fix it? It's impossible to do good work without being able to see the cursor.  Help!

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/brush-cursor-disappears?rfm=1&topic_submit=tr...

[Bettina Di Virgilio]

Get to Edit/Preferences/Cursors and check if the Painting Cursors is in Norma Brush Tip.

[MelindaV]

I've checked the prefs. I've selected each one just to see if it would help. Nope. Makes no difference which pref I have selected. If I don't have "show crosshairs" I see absolutely nothing at all. If I do, at least the crosshairs show up. Not super helpful though.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Are all other cursors showing OK? 

What about the spring-loaded cursors/  With the brush selected, press and hold any of:  v, m, h, l etc, and release.  Do you see the appropriate cursor while they are held down, and then the cursor disappears again when you release thew key?

How about other tools that use brush presets like healing brush, clone tool, eraser etc.?  Do see no cursor when using them?

Back in the early days of GPU aided features like right click and drag brush cursor size and opacity,  (CS4 and CS5 if memory serves) a lot of people had issues with cursor display, like only seeing half of the cursor.  With that in mind, try disabling GPU assistance in Preferences.

If no one comes up with a fix, I hate to say it, but a Preference reset has to be tried just in case.  I hate resetting Preferences 😞

[Trevor.Dennis]

Are you seeing work paths OK?  I believe that one of the reasons the Development Team has not so far been able to make work paths more visible for the ultra high res screen people, is to do with how OSX handles blend modes, or something like that.  There just might be a link, but I suspect we'd have seen a LOT of posts like yours if that was thew case.

Have you tried different colour backgrounds?  (That just means black and white.)

[MelindaV]

Interesting. I tested all the tools you suggested. It appears that the cursor/brush will show as long as I don't move at all. Once I move the mouse, the brush goes away and I'm left with nothing. That's true of the brush, lasso, wand, eyedropper, patch, etc. But NOT the selection, move, marquee.

It does not seem to matter if I select the tool in the toolbox or use the hotkey. Once I move, the brush disappears.

I did a prefs reset from within the prefs panel...didn't make a difference. Normal Brush cursor still gone.

And, for the record,  background color or content doesn't matter.

[MelindaV]

I take it this isn't happening to any of you? Am I alone in this? That makes me very sad. LOL

[kitmulligan]

My cursor and selection brush come and go by background color.  Windows 10, everything up to date.  Started a year or so ago with an update to PS 2020.  Have tried all the tools and preferences available.  Drives me nuts as I frequently working blind and don't know what I've selected until the dotted linese show up. 

[Bettina Di Virgilio]

I'm not sure, but it seems some problem with the graphical board. Mabye when you update your system the drivers get corrupted or something like this. I'm not an expert of Mac Os, but try to update the drivers of your GPU and see if it fix.

[MelindaV]

The GPU drivers are part of the OS. They don't get updated separately. And yes, it got updated along with everything else when I installed Sierra.

Which is what seems to have broken photoshop.

[joanne0D4D]

My brush is open but I didn't open it!

my cursor is gone, GONE! So how do I select Edit when I have no curser?!

[MelindaV]

Update: So this morning, I launched InDesign and my screen flickered and went dark. Uh oh. Bad bad! So I shut the computer down, thinking it had crashed. Then I checked all the cables. Everything secure except the power cord which had pulled slightly out. Not enough to not provide power, but just a little. I shoved it back in. Restarted.

And now, upon launching Photoshop again...my brush is back. ALL the brushes are back.

I have no idea why. Surely a slight lack of power wouldn't do that? I have no idea. I did have it reset the prefs before, but it didn't appear to make a difference until this hard shut down. So...yeah. I have no idea why, but problem solved. Leaving this here just in case someone else has this issue...um, check your power cable LOL

[hwormser]

For what it's worth, I had the exact same problem, except that I can't identify anything in particular that precipitated it. So you're NOT crazy.

I didn't make any system updates or do anything that I can think of that made the cursor disappear. (I'm using Photoshop CC 2017 on MacBook, OS 10.12.6.) The brush tip cursor would show if I hit the Shift key, but as soon as I moved it, the cursor would go back to crosshairs. Restarting my computer seems to have solved it. So perhaps your power cable issue was a red herring and the restart is what set things right again.

[mattperko]

Is there any resolution to this? I'm fully up-to-date with Photoshop and my OS and this is driving me nuts.

[lawrence_michael_clemmer]

Same computer, same problem, pretty much same everything. Pressed the Option button while using brush and two large circles appeared around the crosshairs. Seems to work.

[lewrob]

Has this been solved? I'm having the exact same problem.

[cacnyc1]

In accessibility->display preferences I turned off "shake mouse pointer to locate" and restarted and the brush shape does not disappear mid stroke. It may start off by disappearing on click, but if I reclick I can complete a brush stroke without interruption. BTW there was another OS update a couple of days ago that is worth trying. Also, I sometimes have issues with key and mouse combinations when chrome browser is running— not that I think it is related here, but it is worth trying without chrome running.

[JP1701]

THIS IS THE ANSWER! Thank you so, so, so much!

[julians22495659]

I am so relieved that this has helped you! This problem gave me such a
headache and am really glad to have spared you that trouble. Best wishes my
friend!

[andrewzo]

I recently started running into this exact same problem too. the brush cursor however will only disappear when I zoom in after 200%. (usually disappears at 300% and 400%) contacted adobe, and they said it is not their problem....

[younl38116201]

Just solved the problem by switching document mode to RGB ! Can't explain why, but the problem is only on CMYK files. Anyone else ?

[julians22495659]

I have a fix which I received from Ruchi at Adobe.

I am using Photoshop 2020 on a Wacom mobile studi pro 16 for reference. 

1. Open notepad

2. Type the following

# Use WinTab

UseSystemStylus 0

3. Save as PSUserConfig.txt

4. The file needs to be placed into the correct folder. I could NOT save it directly to the correct folder while I had notepad open because the folder did not show up. In my case, I needed to press

Windows key + r (simultaneously) 

Type "appdata" (the reason for this was the "appdata" folder did not show up for me. If you experience a similar problem then you should be able to do step 1 above and type (missing folder name) with successful results).

The folders you need to click in order (also known as "the path") are as follows. 

1. From file explorer click on the left hand side, the disk with the operating system (almost always the C: Drive)

2. Click "Users"

3. Click "user name" (the profile name you created when setting up your device. Shows when you login to your device"

4. Click "appdata"

5. Click "roaming"

6. Click "Adobe Photoshop 2020" (its 2020 in my case but may be a different version depending on which one you own)

7. Click "Adobe Photoshop 2020 settings" (again, will mention your version in the file name)

8. Save the file here if you are saving directly from notepad or manualy click on the notepad folder and drag it into the folder. Be sure not to accidently highlight one of the folders at the top or it will place it into that folder. Drag it to the bottom of the list to be sure.

Finally, launch Adobe and hopefully you never need to deal with this problem again. If this doesn't work, I truly feel for you because nothing is more frustrating, but you can contact Adobe directly through a chat at the link here. Just copy paste this post and tell them it didn't work and they will have further solutions. 

[AlbireoR]

Sadly this did not work for me.  My brush never stops painting but is still invisible.  I had to remove it to get it to stop painting. 

I've tried this method, hard resets, going back to previous versions, messing with my power cable and resetting settings and none of it is working so far.  Will continue to try things and if something works I'll edit this post.

edit:  Turns out when my Windows updated it turned off "Show Cursor" within the Windows Ink settings.  It shows up fine now.  😄

[ryder_s]

This DID work for me,
Cintiq Pro 24. + Dell 4k & Precision 7400 display. 

Thank you. Hopefully this doesn't happen again.

[Skoolbus777]

julians22495659,

Your post saved my job. THANK YOU! 

My problem was, I thought, scratch disks. After about 30 minutes of painting in PS, my cursor would disappear no matter which tool I had selected. I thought my memory/scratch was jacked. My computer is brand new and it has top-of-the-line everything, 64GB of RAM. So I thought it was scratch disks. I updated Windows, Adobe, Wacom, you name it. Nothing worked.

Your suggestion did. I have no idea what any of that means, but it worked. Thank you so much! I was painting in Sketchbook Pro as a result for a long time because of it. Now I'm back in the saddle. Sad that this is an issue and likely others will not see this post. =(