# Sound when Re-sizing Brush



## PatrickC (Mar 28, 2018)

Just a minor irritation; when re-sizing a minus brush, ie when holding down the Alt key, when using the [ and ] (square brackets) it plays the Windows asterisk sound. 

Does anybody know a) why? and b) can I stop it doing this?


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## Gnits (Mar 28, 2018)

I suspect a wrong key combination error beeb.  I get a similar situation when using brushes in Photoshop.  For some reason the focus seems to drift from the Brush Tool.... then using a bracket will cause an error beeb.  Maybe not the same.... I am curious to see if there any other comments on this.

In Ps if I re-click on the Brush tool the problem goes away.  Most times I want to use the Brush I use the letter B shortcut to activate the brush....  I am also on Windows...


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## PatrickC (Mar 29, 2018)

It's not that. This happens when I hold Alt and use the brackets to re-size the brush. The Alt makes the brush delete areas of mask, the brackets make the brush larger or smaller. The key combination is correct; without the Alt it adds to the mask, with the Alt it deletes. The sound issue only applies when deleting, and it is triggered every time I touch the square brackets, both [ and ] (increase and decrease the size of the brush). It's not a huge problem but just a tiny bit irritating.

I would be interested to know if the same happens for everyone, or if it is some setting on my set-up. It happens using the adjustment brush, and when using a brush to modify the mask of a graduated or radial adjustment - but only on the minus (Alt) brush.


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## Hal P Anderson (Mar 29, 2018)

I'm pretty sure that it's a windows thing. Alt+[ yields a beep in Lightroom and at least one other app, although it doesn't happen in Firefox. There's probably a clever programming trick to keep it from happening when you are actually using the keystroke for something, but Adobe hasn't applied it. It's nothing you're doing, so I suspect that barring an Adobe fix, you'll have to live with it.  There's a link at the top of this page to the Adobe bug report site. You could submit a complaint there.


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## Gnits (Mar 29, 2018)

I agree with Hal..    I often thought of checking the windows  keyboard shortcuts  to try an eliminate this, but I have learned to live with similar behaviour in Ps.


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## PatrickC (Mar 29, 2018)

Not much point reporting it. I'm on a perpetual license and I object to being railroaded into a subscription, especially since I am now semi-retired. Adobe have already said they don't plan to support people like me, so I guess that's it.

Doubly annoying since I was deeply involved from the first beta releases and I fed back a huge amount of comments to them for free.

Very grumpy still.


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## PatrickC (Mar 29, 2018)

Okay, I've done a bit of Googling. Gnits was right, in a way. Alt activates the menu - as soon as you press it the underlines show up in the menu to tell you which letter to press to activate the menu item. Obviously [ or ] are not assigned to any menu item, so it beeps an error warning. This is a Windows-wide behaviour, but I would imagine it could be eliminated with a bit of clever programming by Adobe if they wanted to.

There is an acceptable workaround though. You can use the Alt-Gr key instead; it does the same thing but doesn't activate the menu.

And if you can't get to grips with using the key on that side of the keyboard you can go a step further; there are programmes you can download (for free, I think) which allow you to re-map your keyboard, so you can just swap the Alt and Alt-Gr keys.

Smiley face. Still grumpy with Adobe though.


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## Gnits (Mar 29, 2018)

Thanks for extra info. 

I have a programmable keyboard and mouse, so I might try programming  the Alt Gr option. I will report back. 

Thanks for the update.


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## PatrickC (Mar 30, 2018)

Today I discovered an issue with the workaround. You can use Alt-Gr to re-size the brush, but if you then use the brush while still holding Alt-Gr it appears to temorarily apply the auto mask, though it doesn't check the automask box. Yiu have to Alt-Gr, change the brush size, then Alt to paint.

Incidentally, I find the auto mask practically unusable because there is no feathering of the edges, which means that it creates some very unpleasant artefacts.


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