Brush settings don't revert when new brush selected

[OsakaWebbie]

Sometimes (perhaps most of the time, but it's hard to tell) after modifying brush settings, when I click on a different brush, some or all of the brush settings won't change to what should be preset in the brush I just selected; the settings will stay how I had just tweaked them (which I thought would be temporary). Which settings "stick" seems random, but I assume it's not. It has happened with brushes from multiple sources: my own that I tried to carefully craft with settings I want and saved as new brushes, the PS default ones like Hard Round, Adobe's "Kyle" sets, and Aaron Blaise sets I bought. Imagine, for example (what just happened to me to cause me to finally reach out to you guys), after working on fur with a texture brush and some adjusted settings for the current need, you notice a solid color spot you missed earlier, so you switch to the basic Hard Round, pick the color, touch pen to tablet, and see a comical sight: Hard Round drawing with size, scattering, and color jitter! Switching back and forth between other brushes to try to shake it loose doesn't help; I have to manually change the settings, hoping I can remember what they should be. Presumably restarting Photoshop would work, but I haven't tested that specifically, and surely I don't have to do that every time I change brushes! Chatter on the web seems to always be people having the opposite problem: not realizing that they need to save a new brush if they want to keep customed settings.

I'm really new to this whole drawing/painting scene, so bear with me. I'm using PS 2024 (25.12.3) on Windows 11; I also have 2025 installed, but it's insanely sluggish for some reason, so I retreated to 2024 for now. Thanks in advance for any clues.

[creative explorer]

@OsakaWebbie One of the quickest and most effective fix is to clear the brush setting. When a brush is acting unexpectedly, with unwanted settings from a previous brush, go to the Brush Settings Panel (Window > Brush Settings or hit F5). At the very bottom of this panel, you'll see a small button that looks like a circle with a diagonal line through it (it's essentially a "no" symbol). This is the "Clear Brush Controls" button. Clicking this will reset all of the dynamic brush settings (Shape Dynamics, Scattering, Texture, Color Dynamics, Transfer, etc.) to their default values for the currently selected brush. This often gets your Hard Round brush back to being a simple Hard Round.  

When saving your brushes, create or modify a brush and want those specific settings (including size, scattering, texture, color dynamics, etc.) to stick to that brush whenever you select it, you must explicitly save it as a new brush preset. Go to the Brushes Panel (Window > Brushes). Click the "New Brush Preset" icon (a square with a plus sign) at the bottom of the panel, or go to the panel's fly-out menu (four horizontal lines at the top right) and choose "New Brush Preset." In the dialog box, crucially, make sure "Include Tool Settings" is checked. This ensures that things like foreground and background color, blending mode, opacity, and flow are saved with the preset, if desired. For the other dynamic settings, they are inherently saved when you create a new brush from the Brush Settings Panel. Give it a clear name.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/brush-presets.html

[OsakaWebbie]

Thanks! I have no icon for "Clear Brush Controls" at the bottom of the panel (the only icon there is "Create New Brush"), but your message made me aware that there should be such a command somewhere, so I hunted around and found it on the flyout menu for the panel. That was partially successful, but some settings were still stubborn - I had to select that menu item over and over when changing brushes. Then I noticed another menu item on the flyout menu: "Reset All Locked Settings". I had clicked the little lock button on a few of the settings along the way, even though I don't really know what that lock is supposed to do (I thought it might prevent local changes, but it doesn't). Anyway, unlocking everything seems to result in even better behavior, so perhaps that was the key.

Aside: You mentioned "Include Tool Settings", but most of the time I don't want todo that with my custom brushes - sometimes I want to be able to use the same brush to paint and erase, and that's impossible if I include the tool settings. I also wouldn't want the colors saved, although that doesn't appear to be happening with any brushes anyway - all the after-market brushes I have installed have the tool icon and won't let me use them with any other tool, so I think they were all saves with "Include Tool Settings", but none of them force particular colors. And blending mode is a function of the layer, not the brush, right? I don't see how a brush preset could dictate that.

[Trevor.Dennis · Accepted solution]

You probably already know some of this, so apologies for telling you again.

When you save a a new Brush Preset from the Edit menu it has no settings.

If you give it setting is the Brush Settings panel and use New Brush Preset from the Hamberger menu to right corner, then you have the following options.  I can see a situation where moving between preset might possibly do what you are describing if the new preset was NOT saved with those options checked.  That would be why some retain old settings and some don't.

If you select a preset and change any of the settings, the blue box around it in the brush right click menu will turn orange.

What you could also check, is if any of the settings have been locked as per the Screenshot below.  My guess is that is not what is going on because it would apply to all subsequent presets you select until the lock icons were clicked to turn off.

Most tools can be reset from the top left corner of the workspace.  However, it's a bit like resetting Preferences. You fix it by going back to defaults, but you missed the chance to work out what was going on and learning something.  The first place to check with most tools is the Options Bar.  It might be the brush blend mode, for instance.  If you have a good look round and can't see a problem, _then_ go ahead and Reset. 

Good luck

@creative explorer  I am not aware of the clear settings icon you described.  Is it a Mac thing?  Or another app perhaps?  

[OsakaWebbie · Accepted solution]

If you give it setting is the Brush Settings panel and use New Brush Preset from the Hamberger menu to right corner, then you have the following options.  I can see a situation where moving between preset might possibly do what you are describing if the new preset was NOT saved with those options checked.  That would be why some retain old settings and some don't.

For brushes other people made and I installed, it is evident that the first two checkmarks were checked (size and tool) but not color. For brushes I made, I either checked on the tool one or none of them. But the settings I was having problems with were not size, tool, or color, but other stuff that is saved with all brush presets that are created in the Brush Settings panel.

If you select a preset and change any of the settings, the blue box around it in the brush right click menu will turn orange.

Oh, I never noticed that, because I rarely chose a brush from that spot - I have been choosing them from the Brushes panel, where I can see a thumbnail of the actual brush tip shape, not just what the stroke looks like. (A lot of brushes look alike when just seeing the stroke.)

What you could also check, is if any of the settings have been locked as per the Screenshot below.  My guess is that is not what is going on because it would apply to all subsequent presets you select until the lock icons were clicked to turn off.

This was exactly what was happening, as I stated in my previous post. Yes, it apparently applied to all subsequent presets, but since not ALL of them were locked and I was manually "fixing" the settings, the consistency was less obvious. About 3 or 4 of them were locked, and once I unlocked them with the flyout menu option "Reset All Locked Settings", the problem went away.