Pen pressure and tapering problems

Anonymous
2015-11-08T20:03:41+00:00

I love the new SP4 pen, but I've noticed the pen pressure is not consistent. The biggest problem is that paint brush strokes in Photoshop don't taper smoothly when drawing. I tired using the SP4 pen on my Surface Pro 3 and it doesn't have any problem. Here is a screen capture of what I'm talking about.

Since the pen isn't the problem I'm assuming it's a calibration issue with the Surface Pro 4. I downloaded new Wintab drivers to see if that would solve the problem (got the idea from this thread about pen problems).

It's not just Photoshop. The actual Surface pen pressure app has the same problem. It's harder to see because the brush strokes are thinner, but there is a much faster tapering happening than there is on the Surface Pro 3. Here is a screen cap:

Surface | Surface Pro | Performance and maintenance

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Anonymous
2016-07-15T19:53:13+00:00

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for all the feedback!

As some of you have already noticed, on July 14th, 2016, we released an update to the Surface Touch Driver that should significantly improve the pen tapering and pressure experience that this thread talks about.

For more information on the 7/14 update, you can go here.

If you experience any difficulty downloading or installing updates, please check the Troubles installing Surface and Windows updates article for assistance.

Thanks!

Zachary

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-28T17:53:14+00:00

    Hi,

    I am experimenting with my new Surface Pro, which I bought exclusively for my artistic needs.

    Needless to say that the pen is very important to me, but it doesn't look to work as I expected, and I'm on the fence to return the product.

    Microsoft has recently proven to listen to their customer though, so I hope this message will reach them.

    Among some minor issues (lag while hovering and strange right-click behaviour), the real problem I have, is the necessary force to activate the pen to execute a stroke.

    It's difficult to describe, but it looks to me that I need to press way more than expected to actually start to draw a line with the pen.

    Please note that I tried the Surface app to set different pressure curves, together with 3 different applications (ZBrush, Mischief and Fresh Paint).

    All of these applications showed the same problem. It's kind of difficult to describe, but if you're putting a light pressure on the screen, you can clearly feel the tip of the pen rubbing the screen, but no stroke will be produced.

    Even worse, if I try to modulate the pressure of the stroke, from strong to light, and strong again, I will get intermittent/broken lines.

    ![](http://fud.community.services.support.microsoft.com/Fud/FileDownloadHandler.ashx?fid=b290cb55-e1bd-44af-8c02-841a35e287ff)

    My brain in some way is tricked to think that the pen is writing, but the result is wrong, causing a discomforting feeling.

    It's like drawing with a pen that has almost finished its ink.

    I can't say how much this is heartbreaking and painful... it's really difficult to get the type of strokes I would like with this kind of behavior. Please note that I never noticed this kind of discomfort with any Wacom technology I tried.

    Also, to be sure I haven't a broken pen, I went Today to the closest store with an available sp4, and I can confirm that I could feel the same kind of oddness with that device as well.

    Now my question is: is this a hardware problem? Does the pen really start to register the stroke only after so much pressure? Or could it be solved with a future firmware update?

    I am really looking forward to a reply, and hope it could be solvable with a software upgrade (even though I doubt it).

    If the issue is in the hardware, I will sadly have to return the product, even if I love.

    EDIT:

    I just found a discussion on reddit where people is complaining about the same problem:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3ttia5/sp4\_pen\_not\_picking\_up\_lighter\_strokes\_advice/

    EDIT2:

    I see that the user John1F merged this question of mine into this thread.

    I want to specify that the two questions are quite different: 

    • Brad is pointing out to tapering problems in the stroke, which is a big issue.
    • Me instead I'm asking why I need so much pressure on the pen to activate the stroke. It's a totally different issue (even though it's still related to the pen pressure), and as much as I know it could be an hardware limitation instead of a software bug.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-11-25T16:00:24+00:00

    Hi Brad,

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We are looking into this now.

    What version of Photoshop are you using?

    Stay tuned.

    Thanks,

    Greg

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-11-21T22:08:43+00:00

    I found this witch fix the problem

    http://lazynezumi.com/

    But it is just the time they make an update because it is a pretty anoying fix and it sin't normal

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-11-15T16:35:49+00:00

    I have the same problem on my sp4(france)

    strange thing in paint tool sai by setting minimum pressure to 30%

    the problem is gone but then I have to press harder

    so this is not a realy good fix

    on photoshop tough I didn't found any solution

    And microsoft after fixing it please make an update for touch gesture in systemax's paint tool sai

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