Photoshop Stuck on Hand Tool
A few minutes ago I opened Photoshop for working a little, but instead of having the tool I needed I’ve got stucked on hand tool. I am using CS3 and this is actually the second time (if I remember exactly) when I have been getting stucked on hand tool. No matter which of Photoshop tools I had been choosing, I’d got only the hand tool.
No Horizontal Type Tool, no Rectangular Marque Tool not even Move Tool. Whatever tool I tried to use it has only let me use the hand tool. It shows that the wanted tool is highlighted, but when over the window the icon shows as the hand tool and behaves as the hand tool, too.
The solution to get rid of this problem is very simple: close and open up again Photoshop, go to Edit, Preferences and click on Reset all Warnings Dialog (CTRL+K in Windows to get straight to the Preferences window).
It should work now :)
I have been googling it to see what the people are saying, but the people are starting to going crazy in all that kind of bull crap suppositions… may be the RAM, the hard drive have a hard time (bad sectors, etc) , the spacebar is sticking on keyboard and some of them even recommended to reinstall Photoshop or even crazy to run the antivirus.
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Although I haven’t had this problem, I evernoted this in case i do. As my CS2 gets hung up constantly on whatever “previous tool” I’m using when switching to my custom brushes. I guess nothing amazing can come without having a few glitches once in awhile. Thx for the fix.
Thank you so much.. I just had the exact same problem and it fixed it perfectly..
Thanks bunches..
Staci
dude, that same thing happened to me once with photoshop CS4 when I bought it… but it just fixed itself after a while,
I didn’t even have to restart PS, so yeah I think its maybe a memory thing…
A simple but WEIRD solution. DON’T DO ANYTHING WITH PHOTOSHOP AT ALL AND DON’T RESTART THE PROGRAM OR YOUR COMPUTER!! HUGE waste of time. All you have to do, and I SWEAR this works as it’s been tested MULTIPLE times by myself and 3 others who ran into the same exact problem, is follow these instructions and it will work immediately.
Step 1: Go to http://www.yahoo.com
Step 2: In Search type “photoshop hand tool”
Step 3: Hit the ‘enter’ button
Step 4: Forget about any results that come up when you search and go back to Photoshop to find your hand tool problem/glitch/headache cured as if by magic.
It’s almost as if the program itself is screwing with us and realizes the game is up once we start searching for a solution. VERY WEIRD, but I PROMISE it works.
this is a kind of voodo-tech solution but if is working why not? :))
Still what I think is happened is that changing from PS to another program, in this case the internet browser, “unlock” the memory allocated to PS, because after all thoughts, I came to a conclusion – it is a memory issue.
I am convinced, after reading your comment, that you can open any other program, stay on it for a few and then come back to Photoshop – will have the same effect and the problem will be gone :) Didn’t try it, is just a guess.
Next time it comes up, and it happens frequently, i’ll give opening other programs a shot. I simply did what I wrote and it worked, so I figured why mess around trying to find other solutions when I already have a brilliant, if, as you said, voodoo-tech, solution that has succeeded over and over again? I just repeat the steps as before. Just sitting her thinking about it is reminding me of a moment from a fantasy novel I once read where an incredibly stupid creature accidentally trips a hidden door by stepping on the proper floor plate, but since she was carrying a dead lizard at the time she assumed the dead lizard was magic and makes the door appear. Kinda the same really. lol
This problem is serious for me as I have deadlines to meet and having Photoshop suddenly stop working in the middle of a project is more than just annoying. Please, those of you who have found ONE fix that works “every time”, do not lecture us about how silly we are for trying other things. Believe me, your fix does not work “every time” for everybody.
I believe I have tried them all, and some work sometimes, others work other time, and sometimes, NOTHING works and I cannot finish a project. Photoshop has become functionally useless to me so I am simply going to have to go with another product, which saddens me because I have relied on PS for years.
This problem was first reported almost TWO YEARS ago (yes, I shouted) and Adobe hasn’t come up with anything. Also, the fact that for over a year now it has been known that auto-updating on 64-bit computers (ALL new Windows systems being sold today are 64-bit) does not work and messes up your system has not been addressed yet either.
I will be seeking out Adobe reps at NAB in Las Vegas in 2 weeks and will be asking them specifically about these issues. I really HOPE they have good answers, but I fear they will not and I will just have to move on.
this problem is bothering me too. So if you guys got anything to fix this problem, drop a line. Till then I stick with my idea that it’s a memory issue.
Jim, is happened to me regularly and I’m not on 64 bit. It seams that is not a matter of windows but a PS bug. I am curious if this is happened to Mac OS users though – for me it doesn’t as I am using a mac at my job place. Keep me posted with the NAB, please. Curious as hell but I have the same feeling as you.
Hii….thanx for sharing this solution….It saved much of my time….Keep up the good work going man….
if you have Hand Tool fixed in the stage area:
1. Right click to windows panel
2. Chose “Start Task Manager”
3. Go to “Processes” tab
4.Search “Photoshop.exe”
5. Right click to “Photoshop.exe” & click to “End Process”
6. Now restart Photoshop. :)
Ctrl+k !!, It happens at least once to all people that work with photoshop.
Nice!.
Reply to TheGuyWithASimpleSolution:
your solution is simpler than you think, just hit the space bar if your hand tool gets stuck, it’s because your space bar is sticking
Weird!!!!!!!! But amazinglt it works!!!
Thanx Buddy
lol i pressed SPACE and it was okay
Thanks a lot. Just works..
TheGuyWithASimpleSolution says:
April 3, 2010 at 2:02 am
A simple but WEIRD solution. DON’T DO ANYTHING WITH PHOTOSHOP AT ALL AND DON’T RESTART THE PROGRAM OR YOUR COMPUTER!! HUGE waste of time. All you have to do, and I SWEAR this works as it’s been tested MULTIPLE times by myself and 3 others who ran into the same exact problem, is follow these instructions and it will work immediately.
Step 1: Go to http://www.yahoo.com
Step 2: In Search type “photoshop hand tool”
Step 3: Hit the ‘enter’ button
Step 4: Forget about any results that come up when you search and go back to Photoshop to find your hand tool problem/glitch/headache cured as if by magic.
It’s almost as if the program itself is screwing with us and realizes the game is up once we start searching for a solution. VERY WEIRD, but I PROMISE it works.
CANT BELIEVE IT… IT ACTUALY WORKS
I’ve had this problem a few times. The way I ‘fixed’ it was to go to my Firefox window that was already open, type “photoshop stuck on hand tool” in the Google toolbar, click on this site in the search results, and then go back to Photoshop, where the problem was mysteriously gone.
Perfect. Thanks so much for the help!
Yahoo thing worked!!!!
Wow the yahoo trick worked for me, im using cs4.
I searched using the ” ”
Dont know how this worked but it did!
THANK YOU MAN. I’ve been having this issue for a while now.. maybe once every couple months, and I always just rebooted and it was fixed. Finally decided to google it and this worked. You saved me several future reboots! Thanks Again!
Excellent, worked perfectly.
The solution in the article didn’t work for me, but the solution of going to yahoo.com and entering “photoshop hand tool” without quotes worked magically. This is pretty weird.
The thing is that I believe this is an antipiracy measure when it detects a “crack” or a file protection hack in place but for *some reason* (really good hack) is still running.
I think I have a pretty good reason to believe this. Reset all warning dialogs might fix a misfire of the procedure but I don’t know why it would be programmed to stop bothering us when we search Yahoo.
Perhaps there is a sniffer in place on the data the searches create, but I am just being paranoid.
Adam, heck if I understand what u wanna say here! :))
Most of the time hitting the space bar will fix this issue…