Wacom & Photoshop - tilt opacity variation

[jfsavage]

I have an intuos 3 Wacom tablet and I can set the brushes in Photoshop to vary opacity based on tilt. However, with the pen upright and using black ink on white background, I get a 47/47/47 RGB (about 82%). With the pen tilted over as far as it will go and still tough, I get 77/77/77 RGB (about 70%).

This seems wowfully inadequate. I have tried setting tilt sensitivity to maximum, but that does not seem to make any difference. I was hoping that upright (90 degrees) would give me 100% opacity and full tilt would be near 0% opacity.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the Wacom/Photoshop combination lame?

Thanks,

Jonathan

[rdonson]

Hi Jonathan,

In Photoshop have you set up - Brushes, Brush Presets, Brush Tip Shape? - make sure Shape Dynamics is enabled

[jfsavage]

Hi Jonathan,

In Photoshop have you set up - Brushes, Brush Presets, Brush Tip Shape? - make sure Shape Dynamics is enabled

Yes, I tried with shape dynamics disabled and other dynamics enabled and opacity set to 'pen tilt'

I've also tried shape dynamics enabled and size set to pen pressure, other dynamics enabled and opacity set to 'pen tilt'

If I set shape dynamics enabled and size set to pen tilt, the tilt is ignored and size is based on pressure.

[MarkM]

Jonathan,

It should work the way you expect. I can get from black to almost invisible by tilting the pen. It seems that I have it set up the same way as you, however, so I'm not sure what's going on.

I have other dynamics->Opacity Control->Pen Tilt. Nothing else in the brushes panel is clicked except smoothing and it works. I assume you are painting with a dark color to start with.

I'll try attaching a sample to make sure we are talking about the same thing.

[button]

Have you openned the Wacom tablet settings (in the control panel, I believe, on a PC)?  Maybe your tilt sensitivity isn't set properly there.

John

[jfsavage]

Jonathan,

It should work the way you expect. I can get from black to almost invisible by tilting the pen. It seem that I have it set up the same way as you, however, so I'm not sure what's going on.

I have other dynamics->Opacity Control->Pen Tilt. Nothing else in the brushes panel is clicked except smoothing and it works. I assume you are painting with a dark color to start with.

I'll try attaching a sample to make sure we are talking about the same thing.

It's good to know it is supposed to work. I had a Graphire tablet installed before, and I've uninstalled the driver, but I wonder if there is still some issue there.

[jfsavage]

Having played around uninstalling and installing the wacom drivers, I now have the tilt functionality working in PS CS3, but not CS4 (32 or 64 bit versions) - Googling further, it seems like this is a common problem ;{