Changing the brush without changing the tool

There's some misinformation in these answers.  If you have the Brush Tip option turned on you can see what tool each preset will switch to when selected.  Click on the little cog icon in the top right corner of the brush right click menu.  I can't think of any downside, so I like to work with all of the options turned on.

Kyle's Megapack has a bunch of different tools associated with some of its presets, and selecting them switch to that tool if not already seelected.  To avoid that, you only need to hold down Ctrl (Cmd) and not Ctrl Alt (Cmd Opt).

I like how photoshop will leave a particular brush shape for each tool, however switching to a new tool when you choose a new brush is [removed] stupid, a simple checkbox "link tool to brush shape" if you don't want that would be nice. or "Use Legacy" as in many other Photoshop "features". 

Barb, what specifically is causing you problems?  You can use the brushes just like we always used to by Ctrl clicking on a preset to prevent it changing tools.

stuartr57951752  wrote Anyone know how to turn this ridiculous feature off? This has to be the single most annoying thing Adobe have ever done!

Stuart, I very much doubt Adobe will go backwards with the new Brush Management system, but I would hope that they fine tune and improve its workflow — there is most definitely plenty of room to do this.  So we are  left with the situation of having to make it work for us.  This has happened lots of times in the past.  The big change to the Crop tool for instance, with (I think) CS6.  I had a little hissy fit on this forum myself about that, but I would hate to have to go back to the old way now.

The new Brush Management arrangement is not a good parallel, as I think there is too much wrong with it, but if you look at what you don't like about it one thing at a time, you can fix quite a lot of it.

The first thing is that the presets we have got used to over the last 25 years are suddenly hard to find, so I suggest deleting every single group, and opening the Legacy folder. 

The default sub-folder is where are old favourites live.  You can see that I have all the options

You can see that I have all the options turned on above.  This is pretty much unavoidable if you want to avoid the gotchas the new system introduces, like embedded tool presets

The next thing is being changed to another tool if you don't realise the preset you just picked is not for the tool you are currently using.  That's easy to get past.  Just hold  down the Ctrl (Cmd) key when clicking, and you'll keep with the current tool.  The thing to  remember here though, is that the presets are designed to be tool specific, and work best with that tool.  There are so many fantastic presets now, just find one that works with the current tool.

The number one worst thing about the new system, is that you can't find the wood for the trees.  It is so damn cluttered, and hard to  find stuff.  So it is totally worth investing the time it takes to make a favourites folder.  It is so easy to drag and drop, or make new presets.  Of course I have not done this properly myself, but I have consolidated a number of brush categories at least.   I only have one folder of Smoke presets for instance, instead of six, some of which had maybe one or two useful presets.

If  you take the trouble to do this, then you can turn off most of the clutter, so you can get back to finding things again. What I have done is to take this last approach even though I don't know all the presets, and take a chance on getting it wrong sometimes.  It is simple enough to switch back to the tool you were using, and either Ctrl select the preset, or look for another. 

It's a bit ironic that I have a lot of brush folders, but use only a couple of dozen presets for 95% of what I do, so I have consolidated at least a wee bit by adding some of my own presets to my favourite folder, which is Skin & Hair textures by Castrochew. 

And while I am sure it is mentioned back up the thread, do go and get Kyle's Mega-Pack if you don't already have it.  I am really quite impressed at how useful some of presets it contains are.  The problem does come back to too much choice — waaaaay too much choice — but cherry pick the best of them to your favorites folder and keep the main folder closed.

Lastly, do remember that you can have the same folder open multiple times.  This drove me crazy when I first started using V19 as I didn't realise why things were in such a mess.  I can only think they have done it this way so you can open a second instance, rename, and make it the basis for a new favourites folder or similar.

One more last thing ;-) 

I hate that Adobe have changed the way folders are now listed in the right click menu.  We used to be able to see all the folders in multiple columns, but it now lists in a single column.  This was done deliberately for people with stupid numbers of folders, which scrolled off the screen to the right and were difficult to get to, so we are now forced to scroll up and down.  The only tip I can give you here is to use the cursor keys, which scroll a faster than clicking on the arrows top and bottom.  This also lets you roll over to the other end of the list.  Not great, but makes the best of a bad thing.

And a final last thing:

If you do have a ton of folders, you can rename them in File Explorer, and I imagine, Finder, to group them by category (i.e. smoke, flares, cracks etc.)  this makes them a lot easier to find, but it is easier still to consolidate the best from each folder of a specific type, into a single folder and delete the rest.

I can't think of any more last things for now.

What people are complaining about here is the unwanted switchig of tool. It would be wasy to fix if there was a "show only brushes for this tool" option. 

The Ctrl+Alt (Cmd+Opt on Mac) to load a brush without its tool preset was added in version 19.1.0 so make sure you have the current update to use it.

Dave