What's new

The Surface Pro is NOT A DRAWING TABLET BY WACOM -- WARNING

PervySage

New Member
******************************************************************************************

// NOTE - THIS THREAD TITLE AND POST HAS BEEN RETRACTED SINCE THE THREAD WAS FIRST MADE BY PERVY SAGE!!!

// THE MICROSOFT SURFACE PRO IS A GREAT GREAT TOOL BUT SUCKS AS A DRAWING TABLET.... WITH PHOTOSHOP...

// LATER RESEARCH SHOWS THAT IT MIGHT BE A GREAT GREAT GREAT DRAWING TABLET WITH OTHER SOFTWARE.

// READ OTHER PEOPLE'S POSTS TOO, PERVYSAGE WILL POST A NEW OPINION EVENTUALLY MAYBE AFTER TRYING DIFFERENT SOFTWARE


// a great ninja is one that can admit it might he the software and not hardware


*******************************************************************************************

// Original post below
Photoshop installs fine

- tiny menus but.. could live with it...
- hmm, not pressure sensitive, but can work around it...

- try drawing?
NO NO NO NO NO

calibration (where the touch registers) is horrible
lag


and now you know
 
Last edited:
I haven't experienced any lag but I don't run photoshop.

Try this for calibration problems:

Reset any existing calibration in Tablet PC settings.

Press Win key, type "Run"

Copy and paste the following into the Run window:

tabcal lincal novalidate XGridPts=10,60,110,360,660,960,1260,1560,1860,1910 YGridPts=10,60,170,330,490,650,810,970,1020,1070

Run the command, allow permissions, go through the calibration. This makes for near perfect pen accuracy, but it's never going to be perfect. Corners will still be messed up, but that's how it works, apparently. More X and Y points can be added to the lists for even more precision. Each number just corresponds to the X or Y coordinate of a pixel on the screen.
 
It automatically brings up the calibration tool when you run it.
You can undo it by going to the calibration tool through normal means and hit reset.
 
OLD NEWS - it's because it need the wintab drivers that don't recognize the SP as a tablet right now. Hopefully that will get worked out.

Photoshop installs fine

- tiny menus but.. could live with it...
- hmm, not pressure sensitive, but can work around it...

- try drawing?
NO NO NO NO NO

calibration (where the touch registers) is horrible
lag


and now you know
 
Sorry but the subject is kinda misleading, and one has to read between the lines.

Having said that, and sorry for the owners, but this is something I have doubted. We used to conduct training in Animation using Photoshop, Maya, etc. The Wacom devices are fantastic, even my cheap Bamboo does wonders and I've used it with my Acer S3 running Windows 8.

The Surface Pro won't be a Cintiq now, too small to do serious work, and if you do use an external monitor, you'd still need Wacom tablet input and pen anyway. :)
 
What I found using my Galaxy Note 10.1, which uses the same Wacom Feel IT technology I believe, is that while using a browser the pen allows for far more accuracy with links as well as the hover function working as a preview of sorts. Not sure how this translates to Microsoft's implementation but the stylus is a useful tool, obviously especially for apps designed for pen input such as Note taking and drawing. I imagine it doesn't translate as well with traditional apps that haven't been developed, or at least adapted, for pen input. I kind of think of the pen as a tool that can improve accuracy of touch input rather than giving a graphics tablet like experience.
 
I'm not getting any lag with the pen in photoshop, but it would be great if there were drivers of some sort we could install to get button settings and pressure sensitivity in photoshop.
 
There is a little bit of a lag, but for me, it's low enough that it doesn't hinder performance.
Regarding calibration, this does seem to be a sore spot. I find that my pen is perfectly calibrated when it's used exactly perpendicular to the screen. If I use it at an angle, then it's pretty good near the center of the screen, but gets very bad near the corners, especially top left and top right
 
Definitly NOT a Wacom.

The MS Surface Pro is GREAT. I repeat, it's GREAT... but I'm not much of a traveller so y'know.


Pen Use
- pen is horrible for the Pervy Sage's needs
- miiight be okay for simple line drawings, or sketches, but for drawing-drawing, definitely a no do


Photoshop on Surface Pro
- the menu's are tiny, it's a pain to click the right icon, but you can live with it
------ would be impossible to use finger to click icons in the menu
- Photoshop runs silky smooth, fast, installs fine, that's a great great thing
- with the keyboard sideways for hotkeys and the screen in portrait mode... is odd, but again, work-around-able
- just the pen is horrible
- with touch, the image moves as if holding the space-bar and dragging with mouse
----- image slides around, but no pen marks if your hand is resting on the screen while using the pen
- Adobe has some sort of touch version of Photoshop, never tried it but at least future-proof wise, seems like it's an alright direction to head as far as digital drawing/painting on a tablet goes


and now you know, hope that helps for anybody considering this info useful for purchasing decisions
 
Last edited:
Back
Top