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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:
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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
Opened and tested my new Surface Pro yesterday. 5 minutes in noticed this problem, 6 minutes in realized that this means I might have to return in. It's essential that contact produces a line. I'm sure some pressure is ok but the current threshold stops this device from being a plausible sketchpad for me. I noticed adding some grain to the screen helped to relieve this somewhat (test it with a piece of paper on your surface.)
I'm hoping this can be solved with a software update (artist mode?) or a pen that has a minimal pressure threshold.
I had big hopes for the new SP4 after all good reviews and comments about the 1024 level of pressure but either this problem isn't affecting everyone or all those reviewers didn't really try to use the pen.
My Samsung Note 4 has a far superior pen feeling since it doesn't matter how many levels of pressure you can detect unless these two basic requirements are meet:
As shown with the taping off from the strokes and the fact that light strokes aren't registered at all we can only hope that Microsoft will confirm these to be software issues and not hardware limitations or the pen performance would be limited to mouse tasks instead of allowing the SP4 to becoming a note taking device as proposed by Microsoft.
Here's a recent penreview from an artist, and he noticed the same issue
This + jitter (after testing in store) is the number one reason I decided not to buy one. Maybe next year.
