The other shortcut that shows brush size in red just sucks.

What is this supposed to mean?

Edit: Or rather what is this referring to?

Which version of Photoshop do you use?

Brackets have always worked for me for changing brush size. Have you searched around a bit? I have found some posts associating this behavior with pirated versions of PS. Some other posts track a problem like this to a conflict with Constant Guard by Norton. I saw nothing that indicated this is a Photoshop bug persisting for the last three versions as you state in your opening post.

If you are a subscriber to Comcast and recently downloaded Constant Guard with Norton, the problem lies in a component called GuardedID that installs with the package. Going to ControlPanel>Programs and Uninstall the Constant Guard and shortcuts will return to working normally. You are still protected by Contant Guard and Norton after removing this "buggy" component. Comcast is aware of the problem and this is their solution. It worked for our computers.

If you close all other apps and restart Photoshop while trashing its preferences, do the brackets work?

What is your OS?

Do you have a drawing tablet attached?

Or any non-standard input device, like a Logitech NuLOOQ?

The left and right square brackets make my Photoshop CS4, CS5, and CS6 brushes smaller or larger on my Windows 7 x64 system.  I just tested.

You have something specific wrong with your computer that's blocking the keys from reaching Photoshop, or that's deconfigured the use of those keys inside Photoshop.

Whenever you'd like to embark on a specific path of debugging, we'll all probably still be here.

-Noel

Try restarting the computer with no tablet attached. And launch PS with reset preferences. See if this problem appears just using the mouse input. (I would go as far as uninstalling the Wacom driver for this test. I'm not familiar with Windows, so I don't know how to advise as to uninstalling  or disabling drivers.)

C

Hi Randy,

I was wondering how this was going. Glad to hear my suggestions were helpful. So now... if  the tablet is interfering, maybe updating its driver might fix it?

If a Wacom driver update seems to solve the problem, please post back in case others run into the same issue.

CB

I have had the same problem since, at least, CS 5.0.  ( did not upgrade to 5.5, but went directly to CS6).  The problem is not specific to Wacom tablets.  It can occur with both wireless and wired mice and, for me, has ocurred under both Win 7/64 and win 8/64.  Don't remember whether this was an issue with Vista, but I doubt that it is os-specific.  If it is an os issue, this would still be something for Adobe to resolve with the os vendor.  It is reasonable to expect CS5 and CS6 to work with Win 7 and it is reasonable to expect Photoshop CS6 to also work with Win 8.  The problem doesn't happen all the time.  In fact, it is unpredictible.  The workaround for me is to click at the top and change the brush size by dragging.  After that, the bracket keys work again, at least, until they don't.  I am not a Comcast subscriber and do not use Constant Guard or Norton.

I don't consider myself to be among the busiest users of Photoshop and believe that, if I have encountered the problem, then it is very likely that at least one other person has brought it to Adobe's attention.

Steve

It also has some bugs.

No denying that.

But as far as I understand Adobe will only be able address their own bugs.

That's great Randy. But can you clarify if you installed a new Wacom driver and the brushes now work? Or are you not using the tablet anymore?

While I share reservations regarding the Cloud License issue what about the Info Panel?

I have so far noticed no malfunction with that, could you describe a case where you get faulty read outs.

c.pfaffenbichler wrote:

 

While I share reservations regarding the Cloud License issue what about the Info Panel?

I have so far noticed no malfunction with that, could you describe a case where you get faulty read outs.

I've noticed what Randy has said above myself.

Also there's some positional error...

I posted this image in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:

Note that I have the eyedropper tool set to Single Pixel sampling.

-Noel