P: Spring-loaded tool feature is misbehaving

[leosn56185363]

Hey some of us had sound out this issue almost 2 years ago with the "feature" on the original feedback forum that had now been closed. Almost a year had past since one of your colleague claimed to have put in a "feature request ticket", and there are still no fix nor update on the progress. 

Again I want to emphasis that this is no longer a feature request (that your colleague had suggested) but a bug as it's not performing in the way it's supposed be.

For a quick reminder to the problem. It's way too sensitive, I estimate a rough 20-30% of the time I switch to another a tool, the feature will activate, and without me hitting the shortcut key, the tool will switch back to the previously used tool. 

In the time since I noticed this issue, I had change and tested with 3 different keyboards, changed my PC, upgraded the hardwares, and move from Windows 7 to 10. Gone through all the photoshop updates, and yet nothing had change, the issue stayed. 

And meanwhile photoshop had introduced plenty of features in between but there was not a single update concerning this issue. So for god sake, can you guys do something about it? 

[DirtyAcesKing]

Having the same issue and its driving me nuts. If I wanted the smudge tool I would pick it haha

[ryan_edwards]

same for me I don't want to upgrade to cc2019 b/c of the lag etc.

cc2018 I can make it switch tools if I manually click them (what a waste of time)

using shortcuts gives the behavior of switching to the tool I want then reverting back to the previous tool (such a hinderance)

then I kind of fixed it *I think* by using the 'adobe cleaner' tool which just uninstalls your photoshop (gee thanks) but then when I started using ESTK/script listener it went back to being broken.  Just sucks because if its caused by enabling script listener I am SOL as I like to record actions/listen in.

[jae.t]

Hi, has this been resolved, or have you heard anything else about this?  Thanks

[wakenthedead]

Lately this started happening, I don't know why, maybe because I updated PS?

I would be drawing and then I press 'E' to switch to Eraser and erase a line, then back to press 'B' for the drawing brush, and draw again, I will lift the pen from my wacom tablet after that line is drawn and it switches back to Eraser on it's own.
This makes it so when I'm working fast, I erase when I mean to draw and vice versa.
It doesn't happen all the time and it seems to happen more when I'm switching fast between eraser and brush and also when I change the eraser or brush size (with my custom shortcuts 'W' and 'Q', although I reckon it isn't because of the custom shortcuts as I had been using them before, forever, without any trouble.)
Any ideas? As this happened to anyone before?

Things I've tried for a fix and didn't work:
- Reset photoshop preferences
- Reset all brushes
- Uninstall/Reinstall Photoshop
- Reinstall wacom drivers
- Updating Windows and all other PC drivers
- Re-saving the brushes I'm using without the 'Include tool Settings'

Update:

Upon research, I found this is the problem: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/turn-off-toggling-between-tools

Spring-Loaded Hotkeys.

Any advice on how to turn this bug feature off?

Update 2:

The main prob is that it recognizes my W and Q custom hotkeys for increasing and decreasing brush size to alternate between brush and eraser. So if I really want to make the brush go big or very small, I keep the key pressed and it happens, normally it wouldn't, I suppose it's picking up after the PS update. But yeah, the feature/bug exists

Update 3:

Found a solution, reverting back to an older version of Photoshop got rid of the issue, good job on yet another amazing update Adobe! /s

[wakenthedead]

Upon research, I found this is the problem: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/turn-off-toggling-between-tools

Spring-Loaded Hotkeys.

Any advice on how to turn this bug feature off?

Update 2:

The main prob is that it recognizes my W and Q custom hotkeys for increasing and decreasing brush size to alternate between brush and eraser. So if I really want to make the brush go big or very small, I keep the key pressed and it happens, normally it wouldn't, I suppose it's picking up after the PS update. But yeah, the feature/bug exists

Update 3:

Found a solution, reverting back to an older version of Photoshop got rid of the issue, good job on yet another amazing update Adobe! /s

[wakenthedead]

Upon research, I found this is the problem: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/turn-off-toggling-between-tools

Spring-Loaded Hotkeys.

Any advice on how to turn this bug feature off?

[wakenthedead]

Found a solution, reverting back to an older version of Photoshop got rid of the issue, good job on yet another amazing update Adobe! /s

[Jeff Arola]

If your not already aware, photoshop 2020 has a new keyboard shortcut so one can use the Brush Tool as both a brush and eraser.

Paint and erase with the same brush

Use the ~ tilde key (below the escape or Esc key) to toggle between painting and erasing with the same brush tip.

Under New Shortcuts

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new/2020.html

[wakenthedead]

Thanks for the info, however that's irrelevant to the topic.

[Jeff Arola]

Well that means you don't need to use the Tool shortcuts that are causing the problem.

What version of photoshop did you go back to that doesn't have the issue?

[wakenthedead]

I'm using the very same shortcuts I had been using for years, 'W' and 'Q' to decrease and increase brush sizes, it has been working flawlessly, until the latest version of Photoshop was installed, and would then recognize both these custom keyboard shortcuts as a brush and would then do the tilde alternation between eraser and brush.

I had already explained this above though, hence why I said the explaining the feature was irrelevant, it isn't a feature problem, it's the new update that's recognizing the Increase/Decrease brush size tools as a brush, hence if you press these W or Q keys for too long, it'll alternate between eraser and brush, which is uncalled for, as all I want is to increase/decrease brush size for the brush that is selected, not change to eraser. Either way, it's working fine now that I reverted back to an older update. I reverted to the 20.0.9, which makes me think I shouldn't have bothered to update at all, besides not having this bug, it's also much faster on startup. Makes me wonder what kind of 'update' the following had been, since they were most definitely not performance ones.
Thanks though.

[Jeff Arola]

You can report the issue over here where adobe wants users to write up bugs.

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family

[leosn56185363]

Hi, is there a way of disabling the spring-loaded tools function.

Since I updated my Photoshop a couple of days back, the Spring-loaded tool function had gotten way more sensitive, and had being highly disruptive to my work process. I tried doing clean installation and rolling back to previous version, and even changing my keyboard, but the problem persist, my brush and eraser will keep switching between themselves randomly. Do get back to me soon

[Crazysloth]

This is happening to me to on my wacom 16 pro, I'll press B for brush and draw then move to E for eraser and periodically it will switch back to the previous tool drawing when im trying to erase or vise versa, I don't have any custom hotkeys and It happens whether windows ink is on or off and i've done the whole rodeo of Unistalling the program and drivers to no avail. I've found that pressing the hotkey for whatever tool im going to use twice will stop it from reverting as then the last tool was the same, It's extremely annoying to want to just erease small peice of something and have it malfunction back and forth, as mentioned by OP I didn't have this problem in CC2019, and It feels like bug that needs to get ironed out.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The springloaded tools feature really messes with my workflow when painting digitally, as I switch between brushes and erasors very often as I paint. This leads to a lot of accidental switches back to my previous tool without wanting to.

[espaki1]

I would also like to disable this feature.  It does seem more sensitive than it used to be and completely disrupts my painting/hotkey workflow.

[matth82139050]

i am in same boat as Gustav. This is costing me alot of time and frustration. is there any way to kill "spring loaded tools" in 2020 ps? 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Haven't found anything yet, been trying my best to retrain myself to let go the button before continuing to paint or erase, still frustrating to say the least. Might just revert to an older PS version, as sad as that is

[leosn56185363]

Hi so.... have anyone found a solution to this bug? It's 2020 now, and I just updated my photoshop to the latest version when this exact bug started happening to me. I had my photoshop reinstalled multiple times, including the entire creative suite and rolling back the version, I even switch a keyboard just in case it's something wrong with it. And I am on the edge of getting a new PC just to fix it (if it even...) 

[wildOGpizza]

I'm being forced to click on the toolbar anytime I want to change tools. When I try to use a hotkey, it will select the tool I want for about 1 second and then, on its own, switch to the tool that was previously selected. This started yesterday for no apparent reason. I've updated Photoshop and it's still doing the same thing. It doesn't do it consistently, maybe 90% of the time.  I'm using macOS Catalina 10.15.3 on a MacBook Pro 15 inch 2018.

[jane-e]

When you press and hold a shortcut key, Photoshop will switch to that tool, then return to the one you were using when you release the key. It sounds like your computer is trying to do this. Here are some things to try:

• Confirm that you are tapping the hot key and not doing a press and hold, then release
• Try another keyboard
• Reset the tools from the options bar
• Go to Preferences > General > Reset Preferences on Quit (after backing up Actions and other customizations.

~ Jane

[DeadlyNinja]

i have this same problem with the new versions and spring tools. Its so distruptive and annoying to my workflow that i am at my wits end. This bug happened with this version of PS and the previous two versions i believe because before this i never had this issue since the spring tools were introduced.

[DeadlyNinja]

Ive managed to make a work around for disabling spring loaded shortcuts by using macro's on my razer ornata.. I just made macros that basically played the same key and turned it off whenever i would press that key, so there was no chance that photoshop would think i actually wanted to use the spring function. Tested it, the keys i bound macro's to had no ability to spring back, while the others that didnt have macro's asigned had that ability. 

[christian amielm58591564]

I'm having the same problem with my CC 2020. it's really annoying. I'm trying to press B for brush then E for erase, after pressing B again. it randomly goes back to the Erase tool. I don't know how to fix this.

[leosn56185363]

Unfortunately, I do not have a keyboard with that function to work around it... I just have to struggle through it as much as possible

[jae.t]

Hello everyone,

I am also a digital painter and have upgraded to PS 2020 recently.  I upgraded from Photoshop 2017.  The spring loaded tools feature does make sense but i feel it should be an option, or at least have a setting that should be disabled.  My workflow for speed painting ususally includes using the hotkeys to sample colors, pan the screen and erase/brush.  For speed-sake it's faster to be in control and push the hotkeys to manually toggle tools rather than rely on the AI at this point.  AI in photoshop isn't robust enough to deciefer which tools a user is going to use and limiting the feature to just two tools (having to hold down the next tool in the sequence) isn't fast enough because often the spring loaded tool becomes a neusance because at the quick speed of painting pushing a button multiple times is more efficient than holding a button down and releasing when the pace is offset.

I'm new here, does Adobe listen to these forums?  What is the best way to get them to add a preference control to disable this feature?  I have been in the game industry for over a decade, i think some of these improvements to the tools can be counter productive.

Thanks for the patience and learning experience!