P: Brush cursor disappears when pressing alt key

[K-ozDragon]

With the latest update, the brush cursor now disappears when pressing the alt key. For example, if I am applying a brush, but need to make a quick erasure, I would normally press the alt key for the eraser. When I do this, the brush cursor disappears, so I can't see what I'm doing. The same issue occurs if I am erasing, and switch to the brush using the alt key.

This is an issue for me, as I use the brush to do extremely precise masking jobs. Having to physically swap the brush each time by selecting it from the menu, rather than use the keyboard shortcut, is extremely tedious and time consuming. I have two computers with Lightroom, and both have had this issue since the last update. Please fix it!

Running the latest version of Lightroom as of 1-09-23 on Windows 11 (fully up to date)

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Given the instructions presented here I am unable to reproduce this issue on Mac (12.x, 13,x) or Windows (10 & 11).  Since this happens on two different computers, I suspect you have a common software incompatibility with either an outdated GPU driver on both or a similar pointer (Mouse, Trackball/Pad, Tablet) driver issue. 

[K-ozDragon]

So one computer that I have is a work computer, which is fully updated. The other is a brand new Alienware that's less than 6 months old. It is also fully updated. This error occurs on both computers. I just tried rolling back Lightroom to the previous version before the update, and now the issue is resolved. So it is a bug in the software causing it to do this. The odds of two computers, one older and one brand new, having a driver related issue causing the exact same issue on both computers would be quite astronomical.

When I use the brush normally, it works fine. However, when I press the alt button to swap brushes from either erase or paint, the round cursor disappears and I get a cursor with two arrows pointing left and right. This is in Lightroom only. I've tried checking my caps lock key, which does nothing. I've also turned off acceleration on my graphics card, which also did not fix the problem. Only rolling back the version to the previous update causes it to work - ver. 6.0

Just a note, but the most recent update, version 6.2, did not fix the issue. I had hoped it would, but both computers still fail to show the proper icon when switching masks using the alt key.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Thanks for sticking with this. I was able to replicate after the 6.2 update but oddly not on 6.1.  A bug has been filed and should be fixed in a future update. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings all,

Updates for Adobe Photography products have been released.  The April 2023 updates contain a fix for this issue. 

If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

Thank you for your patience.

[lapisteve7912]

I believe I'm experiencing the same/similar problem. I'm running LR 12.4 on a Windows 10 desktop. I'm trying to Heal/Clone, and when I press the Alt key to select the source I get the scissors.

[K-ozDragon]

Remember that in Lightroom, alt+click deletes a selection. You have to press control & click to draw a sample box, or you can press ctrl+alt & left click for a circular sample. Adobe instructions also show ctrl+alt+shift & left click for circular sample selection in their tutorials.

Alt & left click to sample only works in Photoshop, Lightroom uses a different command.