Software & Apps > Design Toggle Between Precise and Standard Photoshop Cursors You may want to change a tool's cursor for detailed work By Sue Chastain Sue Chastain Writer St. Petersburg College Sue Chastain is a former Lifewire writer and a graphics software authority with web design and print publishing credentials. She's also skilled in WordPress administration. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on April 23, 2020 Design Graphic Design Photoshop Animation & Video 3D Design Trending Videos Close this video player Sometimes, when you use a tool in Adobe Photoshop CC, your cursor takes on the appearance of the tool—the Eyedropper tool looks like an eyedropper and the Pen tool looks like a pen tip, for example. The cursors of other tools display a circle on the image, which indicates the area the tool effects. If you prefer a more exact method of working, press Caps Lock on your keyboard after you choose a tool to change the standard cursor to a precise cursor. This gives you a crosshair tool that is much easier to use when you want to do detailed, up-close work on an image. Tap the caps lock key once more to return the precise cursor to the standard cursor. If you find your cursor inexplicably changes from Brush shape to crosshairs or vice versa, you probably accidentally pressed the Caps Lock key. Press it again. to change Instructions in this article apply to Adobe Photoshop CC 2019. Tools With Precise Settings A precise cursor is available for many of Photoshop CC’s brush tools, brush-based tools or other tools. Using a precise cursor is helpful when it’s important to start a brush stroke at a specific point on an image or to sample a single pixel's color values. Tools that have precise cursor capabilities include: EyedropperHealing brushesPatch ToolRed EyeBrushesRubber StampDodge, Burn and Sponge If you switch the Eyedropper tool to a precise cursor, be sure to check the Sample Size in the Tool Options. Unless you are looking for a single pixel, you don't want a Point Sample. The reason is that sample will be the exact color of the single pixel that is being sampled—you may not be choosing the color you want. Instead, choose either the 3 by 3 Average or 5 by 5 Average sample sizes. This tells Photoshop to look at the three or five pixels surrounding the sample point and calculate the average of all the color values for the pixels in the sample. Changing Precise Cursor Settings If your workflow is such that you need total precision all the time, you can set the Photoshop Preferences to use only precise cursors. Here's how: Open Preferences by selecting it under the Edit menu (or the Photoshop menu on a Mac). Select Cursors. Under the Other Cursors section, select Precise. Select OK. If you want to go back to the original cursors, simply follow the instructions above and select Standard. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit