Some brush suggestions

[ladlon]

I really hope these are considered for a future update:

-Currently, there seems to be no way to tell what brush you are currently using.  After you select it and do other things, it is no longer highlighted, nor does it display the name of the brush somewhere (aside from a tooltip if you hover over it... but that would require you to know the brush you were using in the first place!)

-Selecting (hilighting) brushes with a tablet pen still seems very hit and miss... sometimes trying two or more clicks to get the switchover

-I'd really love to see some sort of user-friendly/convenient window/system for moving/copying brushes to/from categories, as well as to create/rename categories.  The current 'one at a time' system of navigating the various categories/brushes via pulldown menus is a pain (and seemingly prone to accidental 'dropping' of a brush to an unintended category as you slide the pen down the long list of categories).  Ideally, you'd have some large, overview windwo, showing the categories and contents at once (or at least a 'source' and 'destination' window), and then be able to drag and drop things back and forth (ideally, allowing mutliple selections).

-Why doesn't it ask you for the category name as soon as you create a new category?  Why force the user to select a separate menu item to name the newly created category?  When a category is created, you should show the name edit box (with the default 'Brushes' name in the field, if you want), and allow the user to immediately name the new category then and there.

-I'd love to also see an option to have larger/magnified brush 'thumbnails' in the brush list, as many of them are so small, they in no way resemble the resulting stroke on the canvas (ex. some brushes that have 'cracklike' textures just appear as 'airbrush-type' strokes in the list, giving you no indication of their appearance.  An option to toggle the list display between the thumbnail and the brush name would be helpful.

-Have an option to disallow copying brushes into a category it already exists in, to avoid duplicates.  Also good, would be a feature which (when activated) searches for and removes duplicates within the same category.

[stojames]

Totally agree on these changes. I am having a terrible time selecting brushes with pen. I was using a new Huion Kamvas 22 Plus which is a very nice display, but choosing brushes with the pen did not work 80+ % of the time. I am on a MacBook Pro by the way. Serif says non-Wacom devices are not officially supported and Huion support was no help, so I sent the Huion back and got a Wacom Cintiq 22. I still have trouble choosing brushes with the Wacom Pro 2 pen, but not nearly as bad as with the Huion. Very frustrating. I do not have this problem in Photoshop 2021, Painter 2021 or Clip Studio Paint Pro apps. I have the same issue in Affinity Photo and Designer 1.9.1. It sometimes is a problem selecting tools with the pen, but not as bad as selecting a new brush. This is with the desktop apps. 

[ThomasHelm]

Hi all,

I am currently facing a similar problem, is there currently really no way to tell what brush is used?

If I select an object the contour brush is displayed on the top (see red rectangle below) but

1. The brush is not selected automatically
2. I don't have information on the brush type that is used

Is there a trick to finding out what kind of brush I used?

Thanks and best regards,

Thomas

[Ron P.]

@ThomasHelm,

I think you posted in the wrong forum. This is for Affinity Photo. This needs to be in the Affinity Designer for Windows.

[ThomasHelm]

Hi

I thought that this is a general problem and didn't want to create a new thread, but no problem I will do that.

Thanks,

Thomas

[ladlon]

I agree, actually.  The issues I list are common to both Photo and Designer.