How Photoshop Tool Presets Save Brush Settings

Tool Presets in Adobe Photoshop allow digital artists and designers to capture and instantly recall a complete configuration of the Brush Tool. While standard brush presets primarily store the physical tip geometry and dynamic behaviors, Tool Presets save the holistic state of the tool, including brush tip shape, foreground color, opacity, flow, and blend modes. This article explains how Tool Presets capture these combined parameters and how to configure them for a consistent workflow.

Brush Presets vs. Tool Presets

Understanding how Photoshop preserves settings requires distinguishing between standard Brush Presets and Tool Presets:

  • Brush Presets: Stored in the Brushes panel, these focus on tip shape, spacing, angle, and dynamics (such as pen pressure, tilt, and scatter). By default, they do not retain tool-level settings such as opacity or blending modes, and they only retain color if explicitly converted into modern preset formats with color enabled.
  • Tool Presets: Stored in the Tool Presets panel, these capture the entire state of the Options Bar alongside the chosen brush. When you select a Tool Preset, Photoshop overrides your current tool settings to match the exact values recorded when the preset was created.

Key Settings Captured by Tool Presets

When you create a Tool Preset for the Brush Tool, Photoshop records several parameters simultaneously:

  1. Brush Tip and Dynamics: The preset records the active tip shape, diameter, hardness, and all configurations from the Brush Settings panel (Shape Dynamics, Transfer, Scattering, and Texture).
  2. Foreground Color: Photoshop includes a dedicated checkbox during preset creation titled "Include Color." Enabling this attaches the currently active foreground color to the preset, ensuring that every time you activate it, your foreground swatch switches automatically.
  3. Opacity and Flow: The exact percentage values set on the Options Bar are captured. This is critical for techniques like glazing or soft blending, where a brush requires a fixed low opacity or flow rate.
  4. Blend Modes: If your painting technique requires a specific blend mode—such as "Multiply" for shadows or "Color Dodge" for highlights—the Tool Preset locks this choice. Switching to the preset switches the blend mode automatically without altering your active layer's blend mode.
  5. Additional Options Bar States: Parameters such as Smoothing percentages, symmetry options, and pen pressure override toggles are also retained.

How to Save a Combined Brush Tool Preset

To lock in your brush tip, color, opacity, and blend mode into a single reusable preset:

  1. Select the Brush Tool (B).
  2. Choose your desired brush tip from the Brushes panel or Brush Settings panel (F5).
  3. Set your desired Opacity, Flow, and Blend Mode in the Options Bar at the top of the workspace.
  4. Select your desired Foreground Color from the Color Picker.
  5. Open the Tool Presets panel (Window > Tool Presets).
  6. Click the Create New Tool Preset icon (the plus or page icon at the bottom of the panel).
  7. Check the Include Color box in the pop-up dialog.
  8. Enter a descriptive name that reflects the tool's purpose (e.g., "Sketching Pencil - 70% Multiply") and click OK.

Using and Managing Tool Presets

Once saved, the preset appears in the Tool Presets panel. Clicking it instantly updates the brush tip, changes the blend mode and opacity in the Options Bar, and sets the active foreground color.

To keep your workspace organized, check the Current Tool Only box at the bottom of the Tool Presets panel. This filters the list so that only Brush Tool presets are displayed when the Brush Tool is active, preventing clutter from other tools like the Eraser or Clone Stamp.