Photoshop Ninja
Expert Photoshop tips and tricks for designers and photographers since 2005
Photoshop Troubleshooting – Why has my brush shape outline changed to crosshair – help!
Have you ever come across this situation – you change to a brush based tool in Photoshop, but no matter how big or small you make the brush it just displays a small crosshair instead of the brush outline, even if you change the preference? This also might be mistaken for the brush disappearing as the crosshair is very small and tricky to see making you think that the brush size is not visible.
This is actually a useful feature for precise brushing…when you know how to switch it on and off, but it can be very annoying when you don’t! You simply have Caps Lock on – turning it off will return the brush tool view back to the outline of the brush shape.
This is really useful for precise cloning and touching up, especially when you have a repeating pattern to match up with. Just switch between brush shape and crosshair by pressing the Caps Lock key.
Users of Photoshop CS2 or above should note that there is a new preference for brush setting visibility – which shows both brush outline and crosshair at the same time, which saves switching between the two for more precise work, and is a nice additional option.
(20 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)
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Written by Jonny Allbut - freelance graphic designer
Last modified: 13 July, 2006 (18:16) | First published: 13 July, 2006
Filed under Photoshop Troubleshooting 20 Comments »
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Comment by Will Eifler
May 8, 2007 @ 8:30 pm
Hey, thanks so much for posting this. I knew it was right around the Tab key, but couldn’t figure it out. Another reason to make sure Caps Lock is off.
Comment by Zach
June 26, 2007 @ 1:10 am
Thanks…I use a lot of grunge brushes and some of them are hard to visualize without the outline!
Comment by Mel
July 25, 2007 @ 7:03 pm
Ah thanks, this has been bugging me for years!
Comment by Dave
July 26, 2007 @ 8:17 am
Same here, I have found this really annoying – I’ve never known why Photoshop does this – good one Photoshop Ninja!
Comment by happy person
January 9, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
thank you, you have so just f’ing saved my life!
what a life saver. this problem has bugged me for years.
thanks thank you, happy new year photoshop person!
love to ya
Comment by Problem Solved
February 5, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
A quick google search, a link to this site and I’m back to the races after a baffling problem.
Thanks, I’m sure this one would have nagged me all day.
Comment by mike
March 14, 2008 @ 6:24 pm
ditto on the above. i never would have figured it out on my own but help was easy to find thanks to google.
Comment by Thank You!
August 8, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
This has been driving me nuts for years. I restart photoshop trying to fix the problem and then restart my computer, which usually fixed it. Obviously because it reset the caps lock state. Thanks for posting this!
Comment by Sush
December 30, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
Thanks for this, I could never work out why it kept changing!
Comment by Sheryll
July 25, 2009 @ 5:06 pm
Thank you for this, I accidentally hit caps without knowing and was wondering what happened to the outline!
Comment by Yanni
September 10, 2009 @ 10:22 pm
Dude, I could HUG you! You don’t know how many times I have sworn that I’ve gone crazy when this has happened to me! So simple, but so helpful. Thank you so much!
Comment by BLSharma
September 18, 2009 @ 7:03 pm
Thanks, a lot. Whenever I falled in such situation I used to restart the computer and restart Photoshop to get back brush shape, I thought that there may be some error in PS or PC, but never thought about CAPS Lock… You are really a genious, love you. Thanks& regards.
Comment by Photoshop Ninja
September 28, 2009 @ 4:50 pm
My pleasure Yanni – I have seen people go near stir crazy about this!
Comment by Photoshop Ninja
October 5, 2009 @ 1:55 pm
It’s my pleasure to help – I have nearly otorn my hair out on that one too – you are not the only one!
Comment by heizel
November 13, 2009 @ 4:53 am
oh..a very small work on photoshop but very useful..
thank you for sharing this idea…
it will help me on what im doing in photoshop…
thank you! keep on posting…
Comment by Matt & Nicola
March 19, 2010 @ 1:45 pm
THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH. THIS HAS BEEN EXCEPTIONALLY HELPFUL! LOTS OF LOVE XXX
Comment by Azhar Kamar
March 30, 2010 @ 10:38 am
HAHA! Silly me! It’s just the Capslock key that’s turned on. -_-
Comment by Benjamiin
April 1, 2010 @ 1:54 pm
Ahhhh! I was getting so frustrated, but this fixed it!! Thank you Photoshop Ninja!
Comment by Will
April 8, 2010 @ 7:33 am
Wow that was so helpful. This has been really annoyingu me for a long time.
Comment by Harish
May 7, 2010 @ 8:07 am
Thanks a lot!!!!!
Its a real help for those who are not professionaly trained in photoshop…..
It has troubled me like hell….