Shortcuts not always working

[garyc78841338]

Hey I'm sure it happens to everyone as I see it even on youtube tutorials, but sometimes I click my shortcut buttons and nothing happens. Anybody know why and what situations cause this?

For example I make a mask and want to paint on to it with black so I press the B key for the brush, only nothing happens. I click on the mask and prett B again and still nothing happens. Usually the way I fix this is I have to click on the image somewhere first and then the shortcuts work again, only by that point it usually does something to the image I didn't want and have to undo it.

This does not happen all the time but I can't seem to understand the specific set of actions I am doing that make this happen and I also can't find an easy way to remedy it without doing the obviously incorrect method I am currently using.

Any ideas?

[Norman Sanders]

Is your Foreground color set to black?

When you click B does the tool symbol in the Tools panel get darker?

Is your Bush Options bar set to Normal, Opacity 100%?

Is there a frame around the Mask in the Layers panel that shows the Mask will carry the brush effect?

If the answers to the above questions are all "YES"

Reset the Bush tool by right-clicking on the Brush symbol to the far left of the Options bar.

[garyc78841338]

Yeah, all of that is done. I even click a different layer and back to my one I'm working on and it's just like the shortcuts don;t register.

I've not tried resetting the brush though, i'll give that a go next time it happens

[Abambo]

garyc78841338  wrote

Hey I'm sure it happens to everyone as I see it even on youtube tutorials (...)

Does not happen to me, except when I am trying to use the brush on a layer where I can’t use it. Could you point out a tutorial on youtube, whre your situation happens? May be it’s eaier to understand when you see the problem...