CS5 Brushes and mode acting up

[maggie2]

Hi,
I don't know what happened to my Photoshop (CS5) but my brush has turned into a cross and has extremely sharp edges. I have tried going into preferences and resetting the cursor but to no avail. Additionally, in the mode area for the brushes I no longer have a normal setting. There are only two settings that are not greyed out and those are Threshold and Dissolve. Can someone please help me get this fixed?
Thanks,
Marg

 

[IamSam]

Hello Marg............er...Maggie. Is your caps lock on?

Also, try resetting the tool. Right click on the brush icon in the upper left corner of the Brush Tools-tools option bar, select reset tool.

If this does not work, reset Ps's prefs:

How to reset Photoshop preferences (In Windows):
First, hold down all three Ctrl + Alt + Shift buttons. Now "while keeping those button held," simply open Photoshop or a file that opens with Photoshop, and as Photoshop loads, you should get a prompt asking if you would like to "delete the Photoshop settings file", Click yes

On a Mac, hold Shift + Option + Command while starting Photoshop to delete the preferences.

You should now have a fresh slate with all of the settings returned to their default.