When using brush then Option to select colour

[Jason253673881ubc]

Hi All,

I hope this is going to be a quick fix... dont know why Adobe have to change thing that work really well.

But when I'm using the brush tool and need select a diffrent colour, I hold down "option " eyedropper shows up the then select the colour I looking for... But it assigns it to the background pannel which it never did before this update,  It always put the new colour on the forground pannel which made perfect sence.

So you have to keep switching the pannels, I hope Im missing a quick fix here 🙂

[Jeff Arola]

In photoshop go to Window>Color and click on the Foreground Color chip to make that active.

The outer most square around the color chips is supposed to be darker on the active one, but it's not easy to see.

[Jason253673881ubc]

HI Jeff,

Ya, I get all that, But when I have my paintbrush selected and hold down the option to open my eyedropper and select a color it adds it to the background chip. and if you have the info window open It says it will add it should add to the Foreground Color.

[Michael Bullo]

Have you tried any of the general fixes such as…
- Restarting Photoshop
- Restarting the computer
- Resetting the tool
- Resetting Photoshop Preferences

[Michael Bullo]

The Adobe Creative Cloud app allows for the simultaneous installation of multiple versions of Photoshop. Can you compare the current behaviour against another version?

[Jeff Arola]

What i was saying is that whatever Color Chip in the Color panel is "active" is the Color in the Tools panel that Option/Alt clicking will pick the color for.

So did you click on the Foreground Color chip in the Color panel to make that one active so when you Option/Alt the Foreground Color in the Tools panel is the one choosen?

[Jason253673881ubc]

Yep got that... But, If you are retouching an image using the brush tool, you can hold down the option to select another color in that image, Yes? with the latest Photoshop update, it adds that color to the background chip even thou the info tool palette says that it will change the foreground color.

[Jeff Arola]

Did you click on the Color Chip in the Color panel to make it active so when Option/alt clicking with the Paint Brush Tool the sampled color is set to the Foreground color chip as in the clip below?

[Jeff Arola]

If you've already clicked on the Foreground color chip in the Color panel to make it active and Option clicking with the Brush Tool still doesn't work, then you could try resetting your preferences the manual way as described in this Adobe kb so if it doesn't work you can put the old preferences back.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html

[Jason253673881ubc]

Jeff, My apologies I had forgotten about the color palette, it has been set on the foreground for years, and I've never had to change that even through cuntless updates until this one! Thanks again. 

[Trevor.Dennis]

Jason, I think you might have misunderstood Jeff's post.  Open the Color panel and look for the fientest of outlines around the background colour.  That indicates that the background colour is active, and will result in the behaviour you are experiencing. 

Clicking on the forground color will fix it, but it really is a subtle change, and easy to miss.

What I do is just hit the D key to switch to the default Black foreground colour and white background, and just happens to also reset the color picker.

[csscms · Accepted solution]

@Jason253673881ubc Not sure if you found a solution to this but this was bugging me as well - here's the fix that worked for me: https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/brush-tool-opt-click-used-to-set-fore...