Brush isn't highlighted in Photo

[Cartoonjosh]

I am coloring an illustration with a watercolor brush. Then I do something else, say, erase, or add a layer or whatnot. When I go back to my brush I'm not sure which one I've been using because AP very easily forgets to highlight it. At which point all I can do is guess which brush I was using. This, repeated for many times during a work session, is really frustrating. 

Is this a bug just in my version (which is up-to-date) or is it a known issue?  

[walt.farrell]

It's just the design of the application, unfortunately. Lots of requests to have it improved, but it's not a bug.

[Cartoonjosh]

@walt.farrell thanks for the explanation. Not being able to rely on the tool palette is really bad, one of the worst obstacles I've found since I switched to Affinity from Adobe. . I hope they fix this soon...

[iconoclast]

7 minutes ago, Cartoonjosh said:

@walt.farrell thanks for the explanation. Not being able to rely on the tool palette is really bad, one of the worst obstacles I've found since I switched to Affinity from Adobe. . I hope they fix this soon...

I agree with you, it's annoying, but on the other hand it is logical behavior, because those entries in the Brush Panel are in fact not Brushes, but Brush Presets. And if you change the settings of the chosen preset in the Context Bar, you have no longer selected this certain preset. If you change the preset in the Brush Editor instead, I think it will stay highlighted, but you will of course have a permanently changed preset in that case. 

I would wish a more convenient solution for this, but at the moment...

[Cartoonjosh]

I'm not sure how logical that is. If, say, I'm using a certain brush and I temporarily diminish the diameter of the brush with the keyboard shortcut because I need to colour a smaller area and then I widen it again to colour larger areas, I still need to see which of the very many brushes I'm using.  If I were to follow the logic that any variation of the brush needs a new preset, I'd have to create as many presets as diameters (or hardnesses) of the brush I need, which is impossible because that typically needs to be adapted on the fly to the colouring process. I don't know... or maybe my logic is not very logic

[Old Bruce]

What has frequently been requested is the highlighting of the brush used even if the preset is altered. This could be done by the use of a different colour for the highlighting. Or having the highlighting being just an outline if the preset is altered. I am slightly baffled why this hasn't been done already.

The brushes in the Basics section are most likely just one Brush that has many presets made from it. Compare those to the brushes in the Engraving section. Several different brushes with very few, if any, presets.

[iconoclast]

As I said, I totally agree with you that it is not convenient this way, but it is logical, because, if you change the settings of the Brush Preset you have selected, you will no longer have selected this certain preset. In the logic of this program a Brush Preset is not only the image that defines the form of the brush, but also all the settings that define its behavior. And if you change one of the settings, you no longer have selected that certain preset. I think it should be possible to find a way to keep the preset highlighted anyway, maybe even a kind of Tool History would help, but in fact this behavior, Photo has, makes sense.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Fully agreed. The selected brush should always be highlighted regardless of if you change various settings. The only times I could see this being a problem is when using the Brush Editor, but that could be solved by just having a "Apply to Brush Preset" button that updates your selected brush after being done with the edit. Regular settings like changing brush size/hardness, etc. with normal shortcuts should just work with the highlight on and reset back to standard settings once selecting the brush preset again. Just like any other art program I've used. 

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

Fully agreed. The selected brush should always be highlighted regardless of if you change various settings.

Except that it is not a brush, just a brush preset; IOW, a particular set of brush attributes that the brush tools use. And since a great many of those attributes can be changed while the tool is used, some of them on the fly at the same time the tool is being used, the moment any of them are changed, that preset is no longer being used, so the highlight is removed to indicate that.

So what we need is a way to indicate what preset we started with, but it can't be the same highlight that is used to indicate we are using the preset in its original state.

[Frozen Death Knight]

10 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Except that it is not a brush, just a brush preset; IOW, a particular set of brush attributes that the brush tools use. And since a great many of those attributes can be changed while the tool is used, some of them on the fly at the same time the tool is being used, the moment any of them are changed, that preset is no longer being used, so the highlight is removed to indicate that.

So what we need is a way to indicate what preset we started with, but it can't be the same highlight that is used to indicate we are using the preset in its original state.

It frankly doesn't matter. Only thing that needs to be done is to fix the highlighting so it stays on the selected brush on the list, just like any other art program with brush lists. Heck, even Blender with its antiquated brush system works like this. It is just expected behaviour at this point.

[R C-R]

55 minutes ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

It frankly doesn't matter. Only thing that needs to be done is to fix the highlighting so it stays on the selected brush on the list, just like any other art program with brush lists. 

It does not matter how other apps handle this because again, in Affinity it is not a list of brushes, even if it is in other apps. Instead it is a list of brush presets.

What does matter in Affinity is there needs to be some way to return to the last brush preset used, without having to do something weird or impractical like creating a new preset every time we change a brush attribute.

I think a 'last preset used' button would work for this, be fairly easy to implement, & user friendly & intuitive enough to learn to use.

[Cartoonjosh]

Not all brush settings need to be modified while using the tool, but diameter and hardness are no doubt very frequently used. That's why you have a shortcut for those two but you don't have one for dithering or blending or spacing or flow or all the tens of other settings. To my mind, size and feathering of a brush - or brush preset - should be the one where you last left it. Which is very likely the size you'll use when you pick your work up again. Other solutions, like different color highlights, would seem to me to complicate the UI situation even more.

BTW, another really annoying related thing (unless I haven't found the right setting) is that you can see a brush's name only by hovering over it. No quick glimpsing at the brush list to pick the right one.

[Frozen Death Knight]

@CartoonjoshActually, you can change stuff like spacing on the canvas. On Windows you can toggle brush size/hardness to other settings by pressing ctrl+alt+L click on the canvas while using a brush. I agree with you on principle, however.

[Cartoonjosh]

1 minute ago, Frozen Death Knight said:

@CartoonjoshActually, you can change stuff like spacing on the canvas. On Windows you can toggle brush size/hardness to other settings by pressing ctrl+alt+L click on the canvas while using a brush. I agree with you on principle, however.

Ah, didn't know that!   Yes, all settings could just stay the way they were last edited. After all, we always have the "reset to default" option on all brushes. 

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, Cartoonjosh said:

Yes, all settings could just stay the way they were last edited.

But they would not be the same as the original preset before any of its attributes were changed. Besides, if you are using a pressure sensitive input device or a even a mouse with one or more brush attributes set to vary while the pressure or velocity of the brush stroke changes, then the attributes last used when you stopped using the brush tool may not be the ones you want to use the next time you use the tool.

So 'last edited' & 'last used' are not even necessarily the same thing, nor is there any way for the app to know which brush attributes a user might want to use the next time a brush tool is used.