Unknown icon in brush settings panel

[Guest]

This is going to seem obvious and stupid to most of you, but I just noticed this new icon-looks like Pac-man swallowing a brush icon- showing up in the PS CC 2019 brushes panel. What, pray tell, does it mean, and why are there 6 of them?

[Sahil.Chawla]

Hi Birck,

Could you try resetting the preferences and see if it helps?

Preferences in Photoshop

Regards,
Sahil

[davescm]

Hi

Brushes can now have a tool preset stored with them so that, when the brush is selected, the tool switches to the associated tool.

Your screen shot shows 6 round brushes with a brush preset and one with an eraser preset.

Dave

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Oh - and there are six of them because those are the last six brushes you used

Dave

[Trevor.Dennis]

You can turn it off by right clicking inside the document window with the Brush tool selected, and clicking on the little cog icon.

Unchecking Show Additional Preset Info will get rid.  It's a good idea to keep it turned on unless you are totally familiar with the presets you are using, as the new brush management system will change tool depending on the preset.  You can see that if you were using the brush, and clicked on one of the presets in the screenshot below, in three cases you'd be switched to the Smudge tool.  You can prevent this happening by holding down Ctrl (Cmd) key when selecting the preset.

Good luck.

[Guest]

Thank you for the answers. There is something helpful in all of them. Mr. Dennis, where can I read up on the new brush management system? That terminology confirms my suspicions that things aren't designed to work the way I am used to. Used to was I could pick a size, then an edge hardness, then a degree of opacity, and the same settings (as I recall) would work for brush or for eraser. I could be wrong, because I've been struggling to re-establish that array of choices for months, but without success. And most of the Adobe instructions aren't a lot of help. What is the scoop?

[davescm]

Hi you still can.

Any brush with a preset, can be loaded without its preset (i.e without switching tools) by Ctrl+Alt clicking on the brush.

My recommendation would be to turn on these options in teh brushes panel so you can see which brushes have tool presets.

You can save any brush as a new Brush Preset, (top item in the menu above)  at which point you can choose whether to include the associated tool or even the associated colour:

Dave

[davescm]

Hi

This may also help: New features summary | January 2018 and October 2017 releases of Photoshop CC

Dave

[DANA22855609pqb6]

Dave, 

Thank you SO VERY MUCH for this post. 4 years later, it's still out here helping people. I've been sitting at my laptop for hours tonight trying to figure out how to get rid of the tool association with this exact brush, lol. So grateful I found this.

[chanaart]

all about the new Photoshop Brushes

Painting with Adobe Photoshop Brushes

[Trevor.Dennis]

Birck  wrote

Thank you for the answers. There is something helpful in all of them. Mr. Dennis, where can I read up on the new brush management system?

I've always thought this Julianne Kost video has among the best descriptions.  It is her job, so no surprise I guess.

[EDIT] If I had to give a short summary of getting to grips with the system, it would be to

1) have all the view options turned on

2) Delete ALL of the existing brush groups.  You can load them again from the little cog icon

3) Load the Legacy brushes.  This takes you back to the default brushes before CC 2017

4) Make a new brush group, and drag your favourite presets to it.  Note they are moved if you drag, but are still in the original group/folder if you reload it.

One of the problems with CC 2017 is the clutter.  You can't see the wood for the trees.  This becomes especially apparent if you download the excellent Kyle Webster Megapack, which has a zillion presets, which are a PITA to find.  So organising things to suit your own workflow will potentially save you a ton of time. 

5) remember that if you make your own group and/or presets, they are not saved as a .abr file until you save them from the Preset Manager (accessed from the brush right click and little cog icon).  Remember that if you add additional presets to your new group, you will need to save it again from the Preset manager.  This doesn't matter unless you want to share the .abr file, or are reinstalling Photoshop.  Or just like to play safe.