Publisher - Photo Persona - Changing Associated Tool Settings of Brushes

[Robert Hansford]

Hey guys! Hope everybody is well.

So, I've been working in Publisher a lot lately experimenting with the capabilities of Studio Link. I ran into a behavior, that I don't exactly think is a bug; I'm just a little confused about it.

I'm in Photo persona painting a sketch that I drew out, and as I use my brushes, they will randomly become associated with a particular tool. The frustration sets in when I want to break the association. For example, I have a custom watercolor brush that I want to use with both the paintbrush tool and smudge tool. As soon as I began using the brush with the paintbrush tool, its associated tool was set to the paintbrush tool. When I switch over to the smudge tool and try to select it, because the associated tool has been set, it jumps back to the brush tool. Through some experimentation I've discovered that I can break the associated tool behavior by pressing the alt key while selecting the brush. However, when I open the brush settings in order to go in and change the brush's associated tool setting, the drop menu in the brush's editor does not appear. Was this a conscious decision on the part of the team, or am I missing something?

I tried too look up the solution in the help manual, but couldn't find information that was helpful. Any suggestions or knowledge on this would be great! Not a huge issue - more like a minor mystery.

 

Cheers!

Edited October 29, 2021 by Robert Hansford
Clarification Modification

[walt.farrell]

9 hours ago, Robert Hansford said:

I'm in Pixel persona

Photo Persona, I presume, as in the topic title? Otherwise you're in the wrong application  

Interesting question, but I'll need to get to a different computer to see if it works that way for me.

[thomaso]

9 hours ago, Robert Hansford said:

As soon as I began using the brush with the paintbrush tool, its associated tool was set to the paintbrush tool. When I switch over to the smudge tool and try to select it, because the associated tool has been set, it jumps back to the brush tool.

I am not sure what you mean by "because the associated tool has been set".  If I understand you right your two different brush tools seem to stick to each others brush settings? In macOS I get the behavior below, it seems there is no such influence of one tool setting over the other:

[carl123]

10 hours ago, Robert Hansford said:

However, when I open the brush settings in order to go in and change the brush's associated tool setting, the drop menu in the brush's editor does not appear.

The associated tool option does indeed appear to be missing in the Photo Persona of Publisher

Not sure if this was done for a reason or a bug

 

10 hours ago, Robert Hansford said:

For example, I have a custom watercolor brush

All I can suggest to try is...

Use Affinity Photo to remove the associated tool from that brush

Export the brush 

Go back into the Photo Persona of Publisher and import the brush (delete the old one)

 

[Robert Hansford]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

I am not sure what you mean by "because the associated tool has been set".  If I understand you right your two different brush tools seem to stick to each others brush settings? In macOS I get the behavior below, it seems there is no such influence of one tool setting over the other:

 

Yes, this may have something to do with it. I will test pre-installed brushes tonight to see if the results are consistent with your video. Thank you for the reply and  attention! 

[Robert Hansford]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Photo Persona, I presume, as in the topic title? Otherwise you're in the wrong application  

Interesting question, but I'll need to get to a different computer to see if it works that way for me.

Hahah I fixed it! Yes Photo Persona. Can you tell that I spend most of my time in Designer?!

[Robert Hansford]

1 hour ago, carl123 said:

The associated tool option does indeed appear to be missing in the Photo Persona of Publisher

Not sure if this was done for a reason or a bug

 

All I can suggest to try is...

Use Affinity Photo to remove the associated tool from that brush

Export the brush 

Go back into the Photo Persona of Publisher and import the brush (delete the old one)

 

I did try this, the behavior persisted until I went into Photo and set the associated tool for each brush, exported the new brush file,  and installed it in Publisher. Still however, the mystery of the missing “ set associated tool” menu remains. Thank you for the reply!!! 

[Robert Hansford]

I'd also like to add this question to the conversation; why isn't the assign associated tool option implemented across both Designer and Photo? - It would be just as useful in Designer's pixel persona!

[carl123]

Designer's Pixel persona is a severely cut down version of the tools found in APhoto's Photo persona (20 versus 115)

So, I don't think we could expect it to have all the functionality of APhoto's tools

But the Photo Persona in Publisher has exactly the same number of tools as APhoto so I would expect it to have the "Associated Tool" option there

If the "Associated Tool" option is important to you, you may want to raise it as a feature request for Designer and as a separate bug report for Publisher (Bug reports get more attention/feedback)

[Robert Hansford]

1 hour ago, carl123 said:

Designer's Pixel persona is a severely cut down version of the tools found in APhoto's Photo persona (20 versus 115)

So, I don't think we could expect it to have all the functionality of APhoto's tools

I figured they trimmed the fat there as well. I was just posting the question to see if any mods or devs catching sight of this post had any hands on knowledge of why it was left out. It seems like a small thing, but perhaps it amounts to quite a bit more than I imagined. I was shocked not to find it in Publisher. It seemed to me to be a prominent and distinguishing feature of AP. Still, like I said above - not a complaint or real problem, more like a minor mystery. Very curious about it. - I solved the issue this afternoon. I just remade the brush set in AP assigning the tools to the brushes as desired. Exported to Publisher and carried on. Good times!