What do you do when you are editing something in Photoshop, and your brush tool (or any tool for that matter), just stops working? This is a problem that many people face when they are working in Photoshop. You were busy working on a project, painting away, and your brush tool just isn’t marking on the canvas. So, you switch to something else, and still have the same problem.

Now, there are a few ways to fix this. You can try saving the project and opening it again (the good old “have you tried turning it off and on again” technique. You should also check to make sure that you do not have CAPS LOCK on. CAPS LOCK will only cause the brush cursor not to work though, so if you are having trouble with a different tool, this isn’t the problem. Another thing that you can try is simply resetting the tool.

However, I think that one of the best ways to solve this problem quickly and efficiently is to go to Select and then Deselect to make sure you have nothing selected by accident that you cannot see. After that, go to the channels panel and make sure that you are working in the combined RGB or CMYK channel.

If that does not solve your problem, then you are most likely working in Quickmask mode and simply need to use the shortcut (Q key) to fix it.