Decrease brush size shortcut won't work on a speficic keyboard key

[FlorianSalomez]

Hello y'all! 

I'm struggling with a very annoying bug when I try to create a shortcut for decreasing my brush size.

I have always  used the key "<" for decreasing my brush size and the key "W" for increasing the brush size.

When I installed the latest version, this shortcut stopped working properly.

It still works for the stamp tool and the eraser tool but when it comes to the brush tool, I can only increase the size of my brush and Photoshop somehow refuses to consider the key < ( to decrease the size of the brush)

I tried to use different keys and it works just fine. I tried to reset the parameters to defaults, uninstall and re install Photoshop, nothing worked. I asked a coworker using the same version to use my key as shortcuts and it worked perfectly fine for him. This is madness.

Could you please help me out ? I have strong habits with these shortcuts and it truly breaks my workflow

Cheers

[Myra Ferguson]

Here are some solutions you can try (it sounds like it could be a third-party utility--so for sure try solution 3):

• Keyboard shortcuts stop working in Photoshop

[FlorianSalomez]

Thank you Myra! It almost resolved my problem completely. My keyboard is now detected and working but in a very weird way as I have now to hold the key so it can work properly which is weird because I have no problem to type "<" when using the text tool. 

[kevin stohlmeyer]

Go to Preferences/Tools and disable spring loaded tool shortcuts.

[FlorianSalomez]

Thanks for your input Kevin! Unfortunately, it didn't change anything 😞 It's very weird because the shortcut works just fine with the eraser tool. I don't have to hold the key to decrease the brush size. 

[Myra Ferguson]

Are you using a keyboard that uses a particular driver (like a Razer LED keyboard)? If so, you could see if there's a new driver that needs to downloaded & installed.

[FlorianSalomez]

Just a regular Microsoft Keyboard, nothing too fancy I'm afraid.
I did try to troubleshoot the keyboard too but no improvments. All of this is so weird.

I had no problem with this keyboard before updating my photoshop version 🙁

[Myra Ferguson]

I wonder if the issue could be related to the French version of Photoshop. In the American/English version, the keyboard shortcuts for decrease/increase brush size are "[" and "]" respectively. Do those work?

There is another type of shortcut for decreasing/increasing brush size using modifier keys that you could try:

• On macOS:

Control + Option - drag left/right to decrease/increase brush size & up/down to decrease/ increase brush hardness.

• On Windows:

Control + Alt + Right-click - drag left/right to decrease/ increase brush size & up/down to decrease/ increase brush hardness.

[kevin stohlmeyer]

With most foreign language keyboards, if you do not have the same language OS running, there will potentially be key mapping issues in Photoshop regardless of the PS language. It usually has more to do with the language of the OS and the peripheral.

[FlorianSalomez]

Thanks for your reply!

Yes the Shortcut [ and ] works (any other key than "<" works for that matter) but it's not really convenient on my french keyboard and my muscle memory unfortunately

Now regarding the shortcut you mentionned "Hold ALT" + the pen drag, it also works but it's not as precise as decreasing/increasing the brush with the keyboard in my opinion. The main problem with the drag being that you loose the shape of the brush while adjusting the brush size and you don't really how it's gonna look when releasing the Alt button.

I really hope my shortcuts with my custom keyboards will work normally on the next update because nothing seems to work so far 🙁