Change Brush Size Fast in Photoshop (Shortcuts)
Speed up your painting workflow by mastering brush resizing and hardness shortcuts in Photoshop. You’ll learn bracket-key shortcuts and the Alt + right-click drag gesture to adjust size and softness on the fly. These tips also apply to many other painting tools.
Step-by-step instructions
1
Select the Brush Tool
Press B to select the Brush Tool.
Ensure your document is active and the target layer is editable.
2
Resize with bracket keys
Press [ to decrease brush size.
Press ] to increase brush size.
3
Adjust size and hardness with Alt + right-click drag
Hold Alt and right-click, then drag right to increase size or left to decrease.
While dragging, move up to make the brush softer (lower hardness) and down to make it harder.
4
Use these shortcuts with other painting tools
Switch to tools like the Eraser, Clone Stamp, or Healing Brush.
Use [ and ] and the Alt + right-click drag gesture to adjust their brush tips as well.
