Sandro

I have sorted the issue by reinstalling the program after having signed out of creative cloud. Somehow Adobe kept track of my Photoshop elements settings. Possible? Even if I reset the settings from preference settings it did not give me the default setting but kept producing the workspace I had followed from your notes and the missing stroke thumbnail of the soft brush selects, until I signed out of creative cloud as last resort.  

I have a Mac laptop running Mac OS Catalina and Elements 22. It is over 6 years old, and has 16GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 247GB free out of 500GB. The last time I shut down was more than 2 days ago. I run a cleanup program about once a week.

3 minutes ago, Damien Symonds said:

That sure is weird.

Is it like this on every photo you try opening?

I just tried opening another 3 jpeg photos on the same program and it's the same. When I click on the drop down I see the brush thumbnails but the chosen one doesn't show.   I opened and closed Elements and again no thumbnail stroke. I reset the tool brush and no luck

I don't know why my brush thumbnail is not showing on the Options bar. There is a greyed checkered space as if transparent.  Any type of brush I choose is not shown, even though the stroke thumbnail is ticked in the drop-down of the brushes. 

Hi Brian, your answers were very clear thanks for that.   I discovered that Apple's Time machine does not backup cache files by default. Damien recommends to back up Bridge cache files before purging. Is there anyway i can do this without having to do a copy and paste thing?   Thanks again! 

Hi Brian

I have a Mac Pro retina  15"  16GB ram bought in 2015. I use Time Machine to backup the OS system.  I am still using Mohave and have Photoshop, Bridge, Raw, CC 2019 and lightroom Classic 2019. I have been away from my photography for some time and now want to get back to my hobby. I also have an ASus laptop where I use an old purchased version of Lightroom.  I have all my files and photos saved on several HD Seagate 2 ter backup plus. I use a NFTS program to allow interchangeability between MAC & Microsoft.  I use CleanmyMac regularly. I have some questions for you.

Is it ok now to upgrade to the latest OS is it Catilina? or will I have to upgrade a bunch of programs ei Spider X Elite, NFTS and others like MS Office   

Adobe is telling me to upgrade the programs above, is it ok to do so? or will it cascade to a series of problems? 

i have a huge quantity of files on Cache of Bridge and the computer seems to be slowing down as well as heating up. ( I do shut down after each sessions) Can i clear the cache by dumping the folders  or do i need to save them?  I'm not sure how to manage this section. 

I appreciate you help! thanks 

Sandro 

Hi Damien, I have reached the end of the Bridge classe and I am stoked! I guess it's because I didn't spend enough time on it before. Time for a hobby, for myself, is quite a problem, in the sense that I love photography so much that it would be the only thing I'd be doing, but like most of us, there is a living or a life to cope with. Your classe was an eye opener and you made it a breeze!  In the back of my mind I have this concern that i'm building a skill and setting up profiles using adobe programs that have a cost, a rent that can increase and perhaps in the future I won't be able to maintain. Isn't there a way we can purchase these programs from Adobe?