When you’re working with the brush tool in Photoshop there are a lot of shortcuts to make it a bit easier on you. The following shortcuts assume you already have the brush tool active. You can jump from one brush to another in the brush list simply by using the Arrow keys on your keyboard. Once you have a brush you like active, you can make the selected brush larger or smaller by using the Left [ and Right ] Bracket keys. If you have the Brushes drop down menu from the Control palette open, you can have it automatically close when you select your brush simply by double clicking the sized brush you want. This ONLY works in the Control Bar drop down menu, not the palette. Once you have your brush selected, you can use it to paint a straight line by holding down the Shift key. And if you really want to get some cool effects with your brush, go to your brushes palette and select your brush, then turn on or off some of the Dynamic Brush settings (the check boxes to the left of the brush.