I don’t know if this is a windows-only Photoshop problem, but every so often the “hand tool” will get stuck.  What I mean by stuck is that even if you select another tool, the cursor you are stuck with is the hand-tool cursor.  When this happens you can’t do anything as the hand tool basically moves around the image if you’ve zoomed into the image and does nothing else.  This is incredibly annoying if you’re right in the middle of something (and how often do you have photoshop open and aren’t in the middle of something?).

So why am I posting about it?  Becuase, the really really strange solution to the problem is this…

open up an internet browser search page and search for “hand tool stuck photoshop.”  Then go back to photoshop.  It works every time. 

No, it doesn’t work if you just open some other kind of software.  It has to be a web browser.  Perhaps you don’t have to search for the term… perhaps it can be a search for anything or maybe just refreshing the browser (haven’t tested that yet).  Either way this is the strangest quirk in any adobe program I’ve ever seen… and it is apparently cross (windows) platform as this buggaboo happens on our XP machines at work too – and also here the only way to fix it (without a reboot, restarting PS doesn’t fix it) is to google the solution (but not actually do whatever they say).

This is the kind of stuff that only happens in movies, right?  Like the computer is just playing a game with you…wants you to know that one some level, it is in control of you and not the other way around.