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Sound when Re-sizing Brush

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PatrickC

Active Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2008
Messages
178
Location
UK
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom version: 6.14 [ 1149743 ]
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
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?
 
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...
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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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