P: Custom brushes organization/sub-menus

[vyle_art]

Could we have a custom brushes quad menu to access customizable sub folders.
Please see discussion regarding custom brushes here:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/6084985

[Trevor.Dennis]

Note: several comments and a great deal of support for the idea, on this thread:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/139783...

One thing mentioned more than once, was the ability to see the contents of a brush set without committing to it with Append. Photographers had a huge give with the Photography Bundle deal last year, so time to be nice to painters and illustrators. 🙂

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Here's another potential ui mockup that covers most of these features...

[PECourtejoie]

It would be very useful if you could describe your pain points.
What is the issue #1? not seeing the contents of presets? fast switching between presets?Seeing the last X brushes?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The main pain point for me is the amount of time it takes to select a new brush.

I have about 200 brushes I use. There's currently two ways to organize them.

First is flat earth. I have a single brush file that contains all 200 brushes. If I do this, when I right click I get a huge wall of brushes (possibly larger than the entire screen), and now I have to move my mouse quite a distance and do a lot of visual hunting to find the brush I'm after. Try operating a computer file system with no folders for awhile and you'll get the idea. There's a reason we have folders in an OS. And that's why I want to see brush groups.

The second technique is to take similar brushes (clouds, rocks, trees, etc) and put them into separate brush files. This is similar to groups. But the issue is the amount of time it takes to switch to a new brush file to access a different category of brush. You need to either go to replace brushes, which is quite a number of clicks, or you need to move to the location of the brushes palette where you can switch between brush files, both of these break your workflow because you now have to go find a palette somewhere else in the interface rather than having it your tools where you want to paint your brush stroke.

The system I show above allows for quick access to brushes, either through hotkeys or by setting up a simple visual hierarchy that allows you to categorize and then move your mouse less to get the brush you want. That would make selecting your brush much quicker which means you can paint faster.

[vyle_art]

Neil, I am SO happy to see you here. Your UI genius is most welcome!
Your proposal answers fully my need. Perfect.

PECourtejoie, Neil totally nailed the issue in his post.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Glad you like it David. I've been meaning to do a writeup on a better brush picker for awhile now, when I saw your post you had some great ideas on the subject so I combined your ideas with the thoughts I had.

I've added a page on the subject to my personal wishlist on my website for future reference...

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/c...

Now lets see if we can convince people to vote for this. 🙂

[gavriilklimov]

I fully support a revamped brush preset menu and a new brush system.

I made my own mock-up version; you can see the full set of images here: http://www.hexeract.net/blog/2014/2/6...

[vyle_art]

Gavriil>> pretty much perfect.

[jonasd17518611]

I also fully support a brushes update.

Please look at Gavriil's suggestions as they offer a lot of great new features.

I've also done a mockup of a possible overhaul, it's meant to be as simple and as close as possible to the current way Photoshop works.

See it here: http://bit.ly/1c8fc1t

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I love all the different interfaces being presented. The one note I'd give is lets push to make the ui as small as possible and as close to your current mouse position as possible, so you don't have to make your mouse a ton to get to the tools you want, even without shortcut keys. Lets see this happen!

[genshoku]

Yup, it has to be very responsive and practical

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I only feel uncomfortable the square folders in the thumbnail view. It feels awkward. The rest is so welcome

[jonasd17518611]

I agree, it's the best I could think of, but it's definitely inferior to a list system. I'm open for any suggestions.

[connorm70565251]

I fully support this, it looks like a massive improvement on the system.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I would love to see this kind of improvement made to the current brush system. Trying to find a particular brush when you have 200+ loaded into the system is a complete nightmare at the moment. The above solutions would be perfect.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Big thumbs up!!!
I would love to see this happen! I especially love Gavriil simple and clean UI.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I can't even begin to emphasise how amazing this would be. HUGELY SUPPORT.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

At the very least can you eliminate the necessity for the preset manager? Why cant I ctrl/alt/shift drag my brushes order right in the brush preset tab? When you find a brush you like or a way you want to organize your brushes having to load a separate clunky window to do it is obnoxious. If your brushes arn't already semi-organized its impossible to intuitively get them where you want.
Brush folders would go a long way too.

[vyle_art]

totally agree

[vyle_art]

I think Gavriil's version is still the best so far imo. This could get very cluttery very fast

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Because all the shortcuts are already in use, and selecting a brush means something in the brush palette (so multi-select, or drag and drop don't really work).

[gavriilklimov]

Here is some of the images from my blog post; please to see the description of each read the 'longer' explanation there : http://www.hexeract.net/blog/2014/2/6...

They key point is to avoid useless menus and cluster-looking entities, I feel some of the other options provided present too much visual noise.

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[FeedbackCommunityMember]

http://forums.adobe.com/message/6084985

[PECourtejoie]

Chris, could right-click be used as a modifier?

[PECourtejoie]

More and mode, I think that a Pie-type contextual menu, where you have 8 choices around, that you could select with the mouse, or using a number in the keypad, giving you another sub-menu or a different brush/preset. Going to the menus is further and further away with the screen resolutions soon switching to 4K, and the keyboard shortcuts are almost all taken. Close to the mouse, so we stay focused on the work!