Toggle shortcut to turn brush into eraser

[Andreas Resch]

I've seen in other threads that this has been an issue for several users. I use that toggle in Clip Studio Paint quite a bit and as sometimes I still paint some quick things in Photoshop, I would love to assign a shortkey to the same button on my Cintiq remote. That muscle memory is always kicking in. 

Has that issue been solved by now? I know that there's some sort of toggle for US citizens with the tilde key. But for one, I don't have a tilde key and secondly, from what I've read, that's a hold-and-release toggle, which isn't the best when you use the eraser for a bit longer.

[S_Gans]

There's no real toggle for the actual paintbrush tool, except for that hold and release tilde toggle yo mention. BUT, you can try using the B shortcut and the E shortcut to jump between tools. Since I don't have a Cintiq, I'm unsure how you'd set that in it's tools. For my Intuos Pro, I can assign a button, or set up the setting in the tablet driver.

 

[davescm]

Hi

On my UK keyboard, the toggle key is not the ~ key but the ¬`¦ key (to the left of 1 and above Tab). As you say that is a press and hold to temporarily change a brush to eraser. Outside of that I just use E and B shortcuts as described by S_Gans

Dave

[thejanebradbury · Accepted solution]

There is a shortcut! I learned this from Tony Harmer (hosts with Adobe Live UK on Behance). For Windows it Shift+Alt+R (for Mac Shift+Opt+R I think). This changes the Brush Mode to Clear for using as an Eraser.

As S_Gans says below, you could use this shortcut in a Wacom tablet setup. I have mine set a button to tap easily with the pen.

[S_Gans]

I got SO excited when I saw this - so I tried it on my Mac. Turns out, while that may work well on Windows, it doesn't exist on the Mac. In fact, I tried with many key combinations, and haven't been able to find it (and don't see the option in the customize keyboard shortcuts command. I'd LOVE to find this, so if anyone does know about it on Mac, please chime in!

[thejanebradbury]

I had some trusty friends with Macs experiment for me and this is what worked for them:

Option+Shift+R works for them 👍🏼 To return to Normal Mode: Option+Shift+N

I hope it works for you and you can be excited and happy 🙂

[Jeff Arola]

S_Gans,

A mistake i've made so many times is trying to change the Brush Mode to Behind or Clear only to realize those Brush Modes and their respective keyboard shortcuts only work if the layer is not the Background layer or a Layer Mask.

[jane-e]

@thejanebradbury wrote:

I learned this from Tony Harmer... For Windows it Shift+Alt+R (for Mac Shift+Opt+R I think). This changes the Brush Mode to Clear for using as an Eraser.

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@S_Gans wrote:

Turns out, while that may work well on Windows, it doesn't exist on the Mac. ...I'd LOVE to find this, so if anyone does know about it on Mac, please chime in!

---

Design Ninja @tonyharmer uses a Mac, Stephanie, so the shortcut absolutely does exist on macOS! 😊

[Andreas Resch]

Thanks for suggesting that. I have already known about that one. Unfortunately it's not a toggle, just a shortcut to jump to the "Clear" mode. And when I hit SHIFT-ALT-R again, nothing happens and it stays in the "Clear" mode. The difference is, that a toggle can be assigned to ONE button on my remote, which is very easy to use. 

[thejanebradbury · Accepted solution]

It's Alt+Shift+N to return to Normal. I find it useful but then toggle keys are not easy for me to use; with my Wacom tablet I have on-screen shortcuts I can tap easily with my pen.

[Andreas Resch · Accepted solution]

I ended up buying the Togglerator plugin from Gumroad which does exactly what I need. It has a little lag when you switch, but that's OK. Eventually this should be implemented in Photoshop. It really is a very convenient toggle and there's a reason why it is in Clip Studio Paint as well.

[aurelienw33349850]

The issue hasn't been corrected yet, but i found an easy fix. With Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator you can remap any key to the desired one, even if not the same language. So using it, i've remap my ² key (french keyboard) into ` key (unicode U+0060) which behave like the tilde shorcut, it is still a toggle hold and release but works like it should.

more explanation here : https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/workarounds-for-the-non-working-tilde...

[Andreas Resch]

Thanks for the tip. I'll stick with Togglerator though as I sometimes use the eraser for longer and holding a key throughout all that is too annoying.

[TheOldBen]

I wrote a JavaScript with the action recorder some years back and i have been using it to toggle between various sets of tools, mostly when I work on the Cintiq, since you really only have 8 buttons immediately available. 

It works like this: you record an action calling the script through File > Scripts > Browse...

You select the tool_toggle.jsx file and then stop the recording.

You can replace the tools you want to toggle by selecting from the commented parameters at the end of the file. I left them in there so I would not constantly have to look up their names. As this file is a few years old, there may be newer tools now that I have not yet included.

#target photoshop

// Toggle between Photoshop's Brush- and Eraser-Tool
if (getTool() == 'paintbrushTool') {
    setTool('eraserTool');
} else {
    setTool('paintbrushTool');
}

// https://forums.adobe.com/thread/579195
function getTool(){
    var ref = new ActionReference();
    ref.putEnumerated( charIDToTypeID("capp"), charIDToTypeID("Ordn"), charIDToTypeID("Trgt") );
    var cTool = typeIDToStringID(executeActionGet(ref).getEnumerationType(stringIDToTypeID('tool')));
    return cTool;
}

// http://www.ps-scripts.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2179
function setTool(tool) {
    var desc9 = new ActionDescriptor();
    var ref7 = new ActionReference();
    ref7.putClass( app.stringIDToTypeID(tool) );
    desc9.putReference( app.charIDToTypeID('null'), ref7 );
    executeAction( app.charIDToTypeID('slct'), desc9, DialogModes.NO );
}

// moveTool
// marqueeRectTool
// marqueeEllipTool
// marqueeSingleRowTool
// marqueeSingleColumnTool
// lassoTool
// polySelTool
// magneticLassoTool
// quickSelectTool
// magicWandTool
// cropTool
// sliceTool
// sliceSelectTool
// spotHealingBrushTool
// magicStampTool
// patchSelection
// redEyeTool
// paintbrushTool
// pencilTool
// colorReplacementBrushTool
// cloneStampTool
// patternStampTool
// historyBrushTool
// artBrushTool
// eraserTool
// backgroundEraserTool
// magicEraserTool
// gradientTool
// bucketTool
// blurTool
// sharpenTool
// smudgeTool
// dodgeTool
// burnInTool
// saturationTool
// penTool
// freeformPenTool
// addKnotTool
// deleteKnotTool
// convertKnotTool
// typeCreateOrEditTool
// typeVerticalCreateOrEditTool
// typeCreateMaskTool
// typeVerticalCreateMaskTool
// pathComponentSelectTool
// directSelectTool
// rectangleTool
// roundedRectangleTool
// ellipseTool
// polygonTool
// lineTool
// customShapeTool
// textAnnotTool
// soundAnnotTool
// eyedropperTool
// colorSamplerTool
// rulerTool
// handTool
// zoomTool 

[TheOldBen]

Of course this works best by assigning a key to run the action from the action panel. With the Cintiq I usually map this to some F-Key plus modifier, so it does not collide with any other command, when I use it from the keyboard, i usually use a bare F-Key, so I just have to do a single keypress. It seems like a tiny thing, but those toggles add up over the day.