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How to get current brush name

Enthusiast ,
Sep 16, 2013 Sep 16, 2013

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Hi, I use tool presets to select my tools (I never use the brush panel)

After I select a particular brush, and then use it for a few minutes, sometimes I forget the name of the brush preset I'm using, so I got back into the tool presets window to see if it's still highlighted, but it isn't. 

I've looked everywhere else to see where I can get the name of the current brush (which was seleted via tool presets panel, not brush presets panel), but I can't find it anywhere. Surely there has to be a way to do this? If anyone knows that would be great (I'm hoping this is a simple solution that I've overlooked )

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Explorer ,
Nov 19, 2015 Nov 19, 2015

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Hello artists,

Here is the solution if you are using PS CC: go to the drop down menu at the top of the brush presets palate and select LARGE LIST.

The names and icons of all the brushes are displayed. One post to this problem suggested deleting all the brushes you don't use and making a custom list. However, whenever you make a new brush it is displayed at the bottom of the panel, so you can see your custom brushes there without deleting any of the default brushes in case you need to use those as well.

Best Regards

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New Here ,
Nov 26, 2015 Nov 26, 2015

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From what I can see in PS CC 2015 this displays the large list, but doesn't solve the "current preset name" problem.

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Enthusiast ,
Dec 04, 2015 Dec 04, 2015

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Sufferincats, I don't think any of that is related to this topic. The problem is trying to find out what brush name you're using after you've chosen a brush from the tool presets panel and then changed the brush size. Here is the problem again:

1. choose a brush from your "Tool Presets" panel. When you select it, it becomes highlighted in the panel

2. re-size the brush (up or down). The brush you just selected has now become de-highlighted

..as far as I can tell, there's no way to determine which one you just chose, except for you to have remembered it. But if you're jumping back and forth between several tool presets, it's easy to lose track. Sometimes you want to know which one you're using because you like it a lot, but if you re-sized it during your work, there's zero way of finding out which preset you're currently using (unless there's something I'm missing - hopefully somebody has a solution )  But if you're like me, you have hundreds if not thousands of tool presets so simply trying to remember which one you just selected isn't an option. There should be a fix where the tool preset remains highlighted, even if you re-size the brush or if you close and then re-open the Tool Presets panel. Photoshop is riddled with these little "oddities" all over the place; it's little bugs left over from many years past that they haven't updated.

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Explorer ,
Dec 05, 2015 Dec 05, 2015

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Boo, yes you're right absolutely. My suggestion was just a workaround because I only use a few custom brushes at a time. Have you noticed that with the new update of CC a couple of weeks ago there are serious bugs in several programs? Two updates ago After Effects would not render audio with quicktimes which was a nightmare right when I had to deliver to a client. With the more recent update AE has an even stranger bug that causes Media Encoder to freeze  and crash when you render directly from AE. And Flash which I still use for animation out of habit, has always had weird bugs which we just get used to and fight, but again with the recent update of CC it has become even worse. It makes me wonder what is going on at Adobe. I gave up reporting bugs because any software engineer who designs an animation pgm that constantly throws up warning panels which interrupt your work flow is spending way too much time in the break room. Like when you go to another part of your work and try to select something with the lasso tool and get a warning asking you if you want to unlock the current layer. It's maddening and not at all helpful because you obviously locked that layer when you last worked on it so you wouldn't select it. I know this is off the subject of Photoshop but germane to your comment about "oddities". While reading posts about brushes I came across one that suggested deleting the default ones so only the custom brushes remain and then renaming the bin. Only problem is, you can't select all of them at once. You would have to go through a hundred brushes one by one with those annoying alerts that ask what you want to do. Too much time in the break room and not enough time actually using the program. Back in the day when Macromedia owned Flash I got into a running dialog with their software engineers about a problem in which a fill would become locked on its own unless you jumped out of the frame and came back again which was very annoying. At first they talked down to me like I didn't know the program, and then I sent them some examples and told them in writing exactly how to reproduce the bug. It became obvious that they were the ones who didn't know the program. After Adobe bought Macromedia flash and dreamweaver improved and some of these quirks were fixed but with CC they seem to be overwhelmed. I would love to see some of your work. Can you send me a link? I have a new project based on a true story about a cat which I would love to get some feedback on. If you would like to see the concept animatic it's here: MeMe the Cat

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Enthusiast ,
Dec 05, 2015 Dec 05, 2015

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Nice site!! Looks like you've studied film extensively, your storyboards are cool    I like the cat story... checked out some of the links on your site. Somehow I ended up on IMDB- did you work on 1980s cartoons like Alvin and the Chipmunks? Or is that just another animator with the same name?

I agree about Photoshop.. there's a lot of strange nits and picks leftover from times gone by, one of them being the Tool Presets thing- how annoying. I look at other software like Corel Painter and they seem to be on their game when it comes to the interface. But Photoshop does things differently- I guess because it was primarily developed as a graphics editing program, not a painter's program. That's changing though. I can't use Painter, it seems a little clunky. I think Photoshop can pretty well do everything it does, just in a different roundabout way. I find that even the brushes can come pretty close to Painter's brushes with a little tweaking.

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Explorer ,
Dec 06, 2015 Dec 06, 2015

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Thanks. Yes, worked on a lot of old Saturday morning cartoons and some features back in the day. Alvin and the Chipmunks was one for the first five seasons when it was produced in Korea. Just finished some music videos for American Epic so have more time for MeMe's Story which is kind of a labor of love.  Had a lot of criticism on the first part which is very appreciated. The part in the shelter is probably too heavy. Most people wouldn't be able to get through it without clicking off as it is. So if you have any ideas let me know. The idea is to create sort of an allegorical tale to help people get over their own problems, if that's possible. The cat certainly has.

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Dec 05, 2015 Dec 05, 2015

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deleting multiple brushes: use the preset manager.

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Explorer ,
Dec 06, 2015 Dec 06, 2015

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Thanks for the advice.

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New Here ,
Mar 11, 2016 Mar 11, 2016

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If you go to the Brush Panel in CS5, you can see the current brush thumbnail having a thicker outline.

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Enthusiast ,
Jun 09, 2016 Jun 09, 2016

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Chris Cox's explanation is technically correct: as soon as you change any tool option, you are working with a custom tool, not a preset. But what is important to the user, and what the user needs to remember, is the PURPOSE of the tool, which is encapsulated in its name.

Dave Hallows suggested clicking the Create New Tool Preset button.  This pops up a dialog with the name of the current tool preset. This suggests writing an action that copies and pastes from this dialog to ... somewhere.  Perhaps into an extension panel that contains a scrolling text box that allows pasting.  Then whenever you select a brush tool preset, you simply hit a function key that runs the action.

I am a brand new user of brush tool presets and I ran into this problem on day 1.  I'm only using the brush tool presets that come with Photoshop CC, specifically the Mixer Brush Tool Presets.  When I use a Cloner brush (e.g., Cloner Flat Fan), the Sample All Layers option on the toolbar is unchecked.  I may be missing something, but I don't understand how a Cloner brush can clone onto a new transparent layer unless it is sampling from another layer (or layers).  So I check the Sample All Layers button.  As soon as I do so, the tool preset is de-highlighted.

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New Here ,
Jan 24, 2017 Jan 24, 2017

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I use tool presets - rather than brush presets - and have hundreds.  Like in the OP, I can't remember the names when switching between several while painting or drawing in Photoshop CC 2017. 

My idea was that PS should have something like a swatches palette... when switching colors, I can go to the swatches palette and easily click on a recently used color.  If there was a similar thing for the tool (or brush) presets, then the most recent ones used would be logged on a list separate from the preset palette itself.  Then I could just click on the one I used a few minutes earlier but no longer remember the name of.

This seems like an easy fix and I'm really surprised no one has implement this already.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 25, 2017 Jan 25, 2017

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Hello, you asked, and they made it!

Go to the Brush Preset panel, you will see the 7 most recent brushes you used...

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New Here ,
Jan 26, 2017 Jan 26, 2017

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Not really... The question is regarding tool presets, not brush presets.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 25, 2017 Jan 25, 2017

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Or you can just click on the brush preset drop down list in the Option bar, the most recent ones are listed there...

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New Here ,
Jan 26, 2017 Jan 26, 2017

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Thanks - It's helpful to know that there is that sort of brush palette (I didn't realize it), but KatrineSchultz is right - one for tool presets would be much more useful to me.

Mary.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 28, 2017 Jan 28, 2017

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Hello, I would then post a feature request on http://feedback.photoshop.com

but the topic of brushes has been raised several times, it might be worth joining the chorus.

There are also excellent third party (I know...) panels about brushes, that offer useful functionality :

https://creativemarket.com/sergey.kritskiy/1098203-Brusherator-for-Photoshop-CC%21

https://anastasiy.com/magicsquire

http://grutbrushes.com/shop/photoshop-brushes/grutbrushes-photoshop-plugin-for-digital-artists/

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New Here ,
Mar 13, 2017 Mar 13, 2017

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This is just a work around, but I've found it's helpful to create a new layer, and give that layer the same name as your tool preset name, so you can look back later for reference. This definitely adds more work though if you switch brushes a lot in the same doc.

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New Here ,
Mar 01, 2019 Mar 01, 2019

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The tool preset last selected will be highlighted in the tool preset picker/palette until you change the tool settings and they no longer match the preset.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 19, 2018 Feb 19, 2018

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I have 2 solutions for it using scriptng (they are examples that can be modified) in replies 1 and 14 of this topic, but you may try also r-bin solution: Getting the name of the current brush preset / If you have idea that worked other way, let me know...

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Community Beginner ,
Jun 11, 2018 Jun 11, 2018

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I've been puzzled by this for ages but have just double clicked on the highlighted brush in the Brush Settings panel and Photoshop gave me the name.

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New Here ,
Dec 24, 2018 Dec 24, 2018

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I'm using Photoshop CC 2019: If you hover long enough over the brush in the list of brushes you recently used: the name will pop up.

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LEGEND ,
Dec 25, 2018 Dec 25, 2018

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So like in CS6 Extended.

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New Here ,
Nov 20, 2021 Nov 20, 2021

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I don't know if you ever figured this out. I have the same issue but am now in 2022 version. I have figured out how to do it in 2022. Brush settings window. bottom right the small square with + in it to add brush. It pops up a window with the name of the current brush. LOL, sorry I'm about 9 years too late. Hope it can help you still. 

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