Lumber and Siding - OSI Quad caulk tooling

I bought a bunch of OSI Quad caulking at Home Depot to caulk the joints on my hardi-reside project. I noticed that it says that "tooling is not necessary or recommended." I know many people who post here recommend this brand. Do you typically tool it when putting it on? By tooling, I guess I'm not referring to anything fancy, just the finger method. That's how I've usually applied caulking.

Thanks!

I'm not sure if I'm familiar with that brand but I've used truck loads of caulking. Generally smoothing it with your finger [a sponge/rag will help keep your fingers clean] works best but I have used a brush dipped in a solvent for some of the specialty caulks.

There are times that it's best not to tool/smooth out the caulking. Caulking against brick and even sometimes rough sawn wood work best without tooling. the trick is to apply a nice looking bead out of the gun - this comes with practice. If you can learn to apply the caulking neatly, it will reduce the amount of effort needed when tooling other types of caulking.