Rotate Brushes

I asked about this process in the Photoshop forum, but was directed to post the request here.
I have CS4 and a Wacom Tablet.
Currently, we can change the brush size and softness with keyboard shortcuts. I can also change the brush size by using the ring on my tablet.
I need to be able to rotate my custom watercolor brushes in a similar manner. I know I can change the rotation by going into the brush menu and rotate the circle with the arrow, but that is slow and clumbsy if going back and forth to dozens of brushes and needing to rotate brushes on the image.
I would like to see an option to use the adjustment ring on my tablet to rotate the brush instead of just the size.
I would like to see an option to rotate the brush in 5 degree (or any amount set up as a pref) from the current angle by clicking a keyboard character. Actually, it might take two different keyboard characters. One would rotate clockwise and the other counterclockwise by the set amount.
I know I can rotate my canvas in CS4, but anytime I do that, the brushes rotate at the same time. An option to leave the brush angle at the original orientation and rotate the canvas might work, too.
It is possible to adjust the angle or rotation of a brush by telling Photoshop to use the tilt of the stylus on the tablet, but the brush preview over the work surface does not indicate the angle the brush will be applied when clicked.This makes the feature basically worthless for my needs.
Please include any and all of these suggestions ASAP.
Thanks,
M. Jackson

Added to the feature request:
Currently, the Wacom tablet has the option to resize the brush while spinning the ring one direction or the other. It would be a nice feature if they could let you press the Shift button on the tablet (the top one in the lower group) as you spin the ring to rotate the brush. Even better if the software/hardward let me pick the default of "either" size or rotate. If so, depending on the type of image I am working on at the time, I might opt to have Brush Rotate set as the default mode and use Brush Resize as the secondary option requiring the Shift button.
The other option that makes sense to me would be to use the comma and period keys while in the Brush tool. Clicking one would rotate the brush 5 degrees one direction and the other would rotate the brush 5 degrees the other direction from its current angle. Holding down the Shift button would rotate each by 25 or -25 degrees. Also, using the X and Y commands while in the Brush tool could flip its orientation without going to the menus.
This example isn't too pretty, but illustrates what I am needing to do. I am not clicking and dragging a brush, but using it instead like a rubber stamp. I need to be able to see where the brush stroke will be applied and also the orientation on the page before clicking.

Similar Messages

Photoshop CS5 Extended, Rotate Brush Tool

Where is the Rotate Brush Tool, I dont see it
Thanks
simon

Hello!
More often than not, to fix issues with one tool, one needs to reset it: right-click the tool icon in the option bar, and select "reset tool".
If it does not work, one should try to re-create the preferences files: do shut down Photoshop.
Be ready to re-start it, but immediately after clicking its icon, hold down the CTRL+ALT+Shift keys (CMD+OPT+Shift on a Mac)
You should get a prompt asking you if you want to re-create them. Click on yes.
Re-installing is the last step, and is way less often needed: usually it is when Photoshop tells you that one component is missing. Also, reinstalling Photoshop does not reset the tools, or the preferences, and these two are often the fix.
Hope this helps!

Is there a way to use a hotkey to rotate brush tip angle?

I would like to program my Intuos Touch to be able to rotate the brush tip angle with the touch wheel. But I am unaware if that is an available feature at this time.

There was a discussion in the Scripting Forum about changing some Brush parameters via Script a while back.
If I remember correctly the angle could be changed only for round brush tips, not for custom/sampled brush tips and as this preceded erodible and bristle tips those would likely also disqualify.
Edit: This means I don’t know a default method to rotate a Brush via Keyboard Shortcut.

Keyboard shortcuts to rotate a Brush?

Photoshop CC and/or CS 6
Hi, everyone. I love being able to use the bracket keys to enlarge and shrink brushes. I wondering if there are shortcuts for rotating brushes? Going to the Brush dialog box is tedious.
Thanks for any tips!
Val in chilly IL

HEllo!
Since CC, there is now a brush angle control on the right-click of the brush tool.
As seen of figure 4 on: http://www.photoshopforphotographers.com/CC_2013/Help_guide/tp/Brush_tool.html
Some create brushes at different angles, and use the Shift+, and Shift+. shortcuts to switch the active brush.
You can vote on this suggestion: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop_real_time_hotkey_control_f or_brush_rotation

Determine number of brushes with javascript

I have the feeling it may have come up before (specifically in connection with rotating brushes), but I can’t locate it here or on PS-Scripts.com, so:
How can one determine the number of Brushes in Photoshop?
What I intend to use that information for is to save the last brush as a Set via JavaScript.
Any help appreciated.

Dang, once again I omitted to properly search xbytor’s code before posting.
»PresetLister.js« appears to contain the necessary elements …
Edit:
In case anyone else ever needs it, I tried to extract the parts relevant to this specific task from xbytor’s Script:
alert (loadBrushNames().length);
////// adapted from xbytor’s PresetLister.js //////
function loadBrushNames () {
cTID = function(s) { return app.charIDToTypeID(s); };
sTID = function(s) { return app.stringIDToTypeID(s); };
key = cTID('Brsh');
var names = [];
var classApplication = cTID('capp');
var typeOrdinal = cTID('Ordn');
var enumTarget = cTID('Trgt');
var ref = new ActionReference();
ref.putEnumerated(classApplication, typeOrdinal, enumTarget);
var appDesc = app.executeActionGet(ref);
var mgr = appDesc.getList(sTID('presetManager'));
var max = mgr.count;
for (var i = 0; i < max; i++) {
var objType = mgr.getObjectType(i);
if (objType == key) {
break;
if (i != max) {
var preset = mgr.getObjectValue(i);
var list = preset.getList(cTID('Nm '));
var max = list.count;
for (var i = 0; i < max; i++) {
var str = list.getString(i);
names.push(str);
return names;

Shortcut for brush rotation & better 3D model rotation/movement

I'm pretty amazed that this still hasn't been added in. Just a nice simple shortcut to rotate the brush(and have the cursor reflect its current rotation) would really help instead of constantly having to go into the brush settings and play guess the angle. An option to determine the amount of degree's to rotate it by per shortcut push somewhere in the toolbars would be nice as well.
Also for the 3d model rotation/movement...why not use a a simple scheme like Maya or 3DMax. Its such a pain to move that I'd rather learn Zbrush or Mudbox or even do it the old fashion way and paint it on a 2d plane....
Thanks!

For the sun I would recommend drawing it as an image attached to the background initially and having a DirectionalLight coming from the same direction. That should create the solar effect you are looking for.
A while ago someone created quite an interesting space flight demo in J3D which used lens flare effects. I think it was posted through the Java3D mailing list so it may be worth looking at the archive for posts about it - I think it probably came out last autumn some time.

Regular (not art) brush "ghost" cursor rotation

This feature has actually been requested and discussed elsewhere in the Photoshop forums, but it's worth mentioning again, one, and two, I don't think it's utility has been fully explained.
Chris Cox, who works for Adobe, explained that OS mouse cursor limitations make this feature dififcult to impliment properly. I don't understand the issue well enough to comment, but I can't see why the OPTION shouldn't exist (even if it slows the cursor dramatically).
I frequently use custom brushes for texture and collage work (say, ink splatter brushes or leaves or whatever). You can get a lot more life out of a brush if it can be rotated, so that the textures don't look repetitive.
But here's the key thing -- it's VERY important that you can see the angle of the brush -- a leaf, say, may have a rounded bottom and pointy tips. If you're using it as an eraser to create a jagged edge, for example, you need to know that the pointy tip is facing the correct side. Doing this blind is obviously a chore. What's more, the cursor doesn't need to be especially responsive as I'm basically just stamping with the brush, rather than fluidly painting with it.
I have to imagine that the already existing OpenGL support could help greatly here. I mean, if realtime canvas rotation is possible, rotation a cursor ghost shouldn't be THAT hard, right?
P.S. Corel Painter doesn't exactly do this well either (with custom "capture dabs"), so the feature would be an way for Photoshop to jump further ahead.

Thanks for the response -- I agree that in general responsiveness does matter. What I was saying is that if cursor lag is an insurmountable problem, leaving it as an option would still be helpful as there are many times when even a sluggish (but accurate) cursor ghost would be of immense help.
You could also come up with a hybrid solution. Create a static brush cursor outline (as exists now), but create an option to superimpose an arrow over it that indicates rotation direction. While not perfect, I imagine my brain would grow used to it pretty quickly.
I realize that these features are harder to impliment than they sound, and that Photoshop's primary audience is Photographers, not painters, so I appreciate Adobe's willingness to at least consider the feature.

A thought on brush rotation

Apparently, it's not nearly as easy as it should be to rotate a brush.
I appreciate that jitters exist, as well as "manual" rotation, but what I feel would be possibly most helpful would be to link rotation to the mouse wheel...
Just saying.

Hi Charles, thanks for the reply.
This is really more for stamping/stenciling work, although I would like to be able to angle the brush when used like a "real" brush to control the angle of a flat tip.
In other words, to control the angle before the brush tip moves.
Also, I noticed that even when rotated, the preview (brush shape) does not rotate.

Rotate canvis unintuitive, hot key limitations, new adjustment layer features? Brush size slider bad

I've been using photoshop for a while, as well as a number of 3D applications. Speed and efficiency have always been very important, and I usually customize my software a lot to make it work for me. These are some of the things photoshop could do better in comparison to the user interfaces in some 3D programs.
Rotate canvas unintuitive:
While having a center pivot seems more intuitive at first, it actually causes me nothing but trouble having to always figure out where the center is, and then deciding how close i am (which will change speed of rotation). I would like at least an option to simply drag left and drag right for clockwise and counterclockwise at a specific speed.
Hot Key Limitations:
alt R and control R and shift R cannot be assigned to different things. I would prefer it if i could customize all of these.
new adjustment layer features:
often when painting in photoshop, i create an adjustment layer over all the layers. If i like how it looks, and want to continue painting, i have to either turn it off while i work and switch it on at the end again, flatten the entire painting loosing the layer separations, or duplicate the adjustment layer and setting it next to each pre-existing layer and then merging each set of 2 layers(the original + the duplicated adjustment layer).
It would be really wonderful if the process of duplicating the adjustment layers and flattening each set of 2 could be automated. a sort of Flatten to all individually button.
Brush Size Slider:
Zbrush has a very wonderful brush size change. I never appreciated it until trying photoshops. (previously to this i used another piece of hardware with a scroll wheel to change brush size. and still do. why the heck is the first brush size jump 10 units!?! simply a linear brush size change would have been awesome. although including a brush size slider is already pretty awesome
These things have been bothering me for a long time, and i always assume these problems that are obvious to me are probably obvious to everybody else and therefore will be fixed without my small intervention, but i figure this cant hurt. Thanks for all the hard work and the wonderful product!

This is a poorly explained reason about why is so important having a loupe in Photoshop. I've not also, used the best example, but I will. This belongs to the ADDITIONAL FEATURES: Loupe/Magnificator View:. Also, I will try to make my english clrearer, but here it goes:

Photoshop crashes when I change the roundness and rotation of brushes

Photoshop SC4 64bit Vista.
It appears to be very predictable crash that always happens within about 1 to 10 minutes every time after using brushes with different roundness and rotation.
I usually paint with 100% round brushes with Shape and Other Dynamics checked and set to pen pressure and Photoshop never crashes. However recently I started to change the roundness and rotation of the brushes and Photoshop started to crash when I do that.
So far the crashing occurs during painting when the brush palette is open and I start to change the roundness and rotation of the brush either interactively or by the sliders. It always crashes - sometimes right away, sometimes later. But as far as I have noticed it can't last more than about 10 minutes of active brush usage. The crash is a white screen with the clock spinning and when I click the Vista message comes saying that Photoshop stop responding and need to close. I also tried a few times to wait for hours to see if it will come back after the white screen but it never did.
Have you experienced or heard of this and some fixes?

Update to Photoshop 11.0.1.
And make sure your video card driver is up to date (check NVidia or ATI web sites).

Rotating a Brush in Photoshop

I did a search and see people have been asking for some easy way to rotate a custom brush in Photoshop similar to using the brackets to resize the brush. I have a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet. I can change the brush angle by tilting the pen, but as far as I can tell, I don't get to see the brush orientation on the screen before clicking...making it basically useless for my purposes. The current method of going to the brush shape box and rotating the circle and arrow is very slow especially if I need to rotate it a little with each stroke or impression.
Does anyone know of an add-on command or script that might help me out? Or, if I am missing a feature, please advise. I did a lot of google searches on this topic and didn't see a solution on other sites either. It looks like a feature in demand, but still missing in the current software.
M. Jackson

About the time I asked this question on this forum, I sent an email to Wacom about any possible feature the Intuos 4 might have to rotate a brush. I received this response about a week later:
"What you are looking for is the 6D Art Pen. This pen has enhanced barrel rotation so as you rotate the pen it rotates the brush on the screen (worst with most non round brushes). "
I am now curious if anyone here has one of these pens and if you are able to see the rotation of the brush image on the screen as you rotate the stylus as described above?
Thanks again,
M. Jackson

Brush Cursor Rotation - Preview available?

The problem is well known:
If you are using a tablet that can detect rotation of the pen you can rotate the angle of your brush along with it. This is very useful in inking and painting. In CS5 you get a preview of the way the brush is rotated - but only with the bristle tip brushes. Normal brushes are completely static in preview. When starting the stroke the preview freezes completely however.
Is there any way to fix this? What reason is there it is not already happening?
This is annoying me no end, as I bought the a wacom art pan to that particular end and now I cannot properly use it. Please fix this, if possible.

"This is expected behavior. Unfortunately it would be too big of a performance hit to update the cursor during painting."
So I can only assume by that statement that this feature has actually been created but not implemented into CS6 do to performance issues? I honestly believe that the minds of Adobe can write this feature without having performance issues if Corel Painter can do it. Also looking at the new features and gpu enhancements, why would performance be an issue? This is a beta, at least have the option be available to use or not use for users .
" Is there an option that allows your Brush Cursor to stay active while you paint? If not, will this option be available?"
The first question was answered but not the second question.
Thanks for your quick responce M Shaw

Brush Cursor rotation while painting?

I am using a Wacom Cintiq with Wacom's Art Pen (Art Pen allows PS bushes to read full rotation). When I hover over and rotate my pen I can see the Brush Cursor rotate and move but when I place a stroke down the cursor does not move or rotate with the stroke. Is there an option that allows your Brush Cursor to stay active while you paint? If not, will this option be available?
Mac OS X 10.7.3
2.5 GHz Intel Core i7
16gb 1333 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB

"This is expected behavior. Unfortunately it would be too big of a performance hit to update the cursor during painting."
So I can only assume by that statement that this feature has actually been created but not implemented into CS6 do to performance issues? I honestly believe that the minds of Adobe can write this feature without having performance issues if Corel Painter can do it. Also looking at the new features and gpu enhancements, why would performance be an issue? This is a beta, at least have the option be available to use or not use for users .
" Is there an option that allows your Brush Cursor to stay active while you paint? If not, will this option be available?"
The first question was answered but not the second question.
Thanks for your quick responce M Shaw

Brush Cursor - Art Pen Rotation

Hi !
Today I downloaded the trial of PS CS5.
I think its a really great step for digital painting and I love
the new bristle and mixer brushes-
But one thing really disappointed me. I´m using a Wacom Art Pen to control
the angle of the brushes by the rotation of the pen.
When I first tried a Bristle Brush, I was really happy that i was able to rotate
the brush cursor with my pen.. but when i started painting, the brush stopped rotating
and stayed in the initial direction.
Even worse: The normal brushes are still as static as in the previous Photoshop versions.
By not showing the rotation of the brush, it is really hard to set an precise brush stroke
with the right angle.
Am i missing something, it is a bug or is Adobe still planing not to change this disadvantage ?
Best regards,
Florian

I think the question about the CPU was directed at another poster, but mine is a new Dell with a fast processor and fast card. It works great with the bristle brushes.
I'll give you an example of what I need to do. If I were to make a new brush out of the words "AIR MAIL" and want to rubber stamp those words around on my image at specific places and at specific angles, I need the ghost outline of the AIR MAIL brush to rotate on the fly as I rotate the barrel of the pen. When I click once on the screen, I want the lettering to rubber stamp the image in the color of choice and relative to the amout of pressure I apply, but I want to be in control of the angle the rubber stamp is applied.
So, I can't use the brushes "randomizer" feature because I want to know and control exactly where and how the imprint will be applied.
The AIR MAIL stamp is only a visual example of what I am needing to do. In reality, I have some spatter brushes that are essentially different on all sides. I am using that kind of brush to paint in a layer mask around the edges on an image layer to reveal the white background layer underneath. I need to be able to see exactly what part of the brush is being painted in with black and rotate it regularly to keep from getting too many repetitive strokes. I don't need these brushes to tilt, only rotate as I rotate the pen in my fingers, but I definitely need the ghost preview of the brush on the screen before I apply it.
Currently, I am only seeing the rotation behavior I need when using one of the eight or nine special bristle brushes.
I am using Windows 7 Ultimate with Adobe Photoshop CS5
Memory - 12GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
Processor - Studio XPS 9000, Intel Core i7-920 processor (8MB L3 Cache 2.66GHz)
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX260
Tablet: Intuos4 Medium with Art Pen
Thanks again,
M. Jackson

BRUSH: Angle Jitter- Direction problem when using Rotate View

(Photoshop CS5 Extended, MAC OSX) When using the brush tool(with angle jitter set to Direction), an error pops up when also rotating view. As long as the canvas is at its default orientation(ie, rotate view tool has not been used), the brush paints along its path appropriately. If I've rotated the view, however, each instance of the brush's preset/tip does not adjust for the new orientation of the canvas. (note: this was not an issue in CS4)
eg: if the brush's preset looks like this (a small horizontal dash):
- when painting as I've described, it should follow a straight line like this (and does, as long as I have not used the Rotate View tool): ------------------------ however, if Rotate View is used to rotate the canvas by 90 degrees, it instead paints like this: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Actual Screenshots: Brush Presets:
Brush Options:
Painting @ 0 degree rotation
Rotate 90 degrees
draw
Rotate to 139 degrees
draw

Oh, and just to be clear - this is a request for help/solutions

Rotate Brushes

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