Wacom Question, Cannot a draw straight line or circles grrr =)


#1

Just got my wacom graphire 4 a week ago and played around with it some bit in alias sketchbook, it just seems to be impossible to draw straight lines and circles and you cannot
rotate the paper, should you only use the the wrist when drawing on the tablet or the arm? i like to use the arm mostly when drawing on a paper.

Any tips technique how do you guys holding the pen when drawing and where you have the tablet on the desk for best result would be greatfull thanks…


#2

it all comes with practice. I was also having a difficult time when I first started with a Wacom then one day it was like second nature.

Good luck :thumbsup:


#3

To draw a straight line, hold down shift while you’re drawing it. (for horiz/vert lines.)

To draw a straight line in any direction, push shift after you put the pen down and release…the line will ‘follow’ the pen.

My goodness. Such a bad explanation. Hope you get the gist of it though!


#4

tablets are a;ways a bit “higher” than your desk. if you put something under your elbow (like a book maybe) that is just as high, it’s a lot easier to your arm and wrist when you need to. Maybe It’ll help?


#5

Better to draw from the shoulder - for circles anyways


#6

Lol I did not know about the straigh line thing… I always did it with another tool or by hand. God this will save time for quick drawings! You do infact learn something every day :smiley:


#7

the slick surface was always a problem for me, try placing some of your favorite sketch paper over it and sketch on the surface of the paper instead of the plasticy surface.

it feels like your drawing on your sketch pad. that will give you better control


#8

Glad I could help! Remember, your friendly neighbourhood pirate is always ready to do you a turn. :smiley:


#9

Just wondering - in PS - is there a way to smooth your drawn strokes as you draw them?

Like in flash, how it can smooth out any little hiccups in the line you draw after you lift the pen.


#10

DivideByZero, I don’t think you can. Flash and Illustrator can do it because they are vector based apps and can operate on curves, OTOH when you draw (or more accurately ‘paint’) a curve in PS, you just commit a bunch of pixels to the layer. PS does not know this is a line, or curve or whatever at this point, it just treats them as a 2D array of pixels.


#11

I wonder if you could write a little program to interpolate the pixels. Probably not.

Oh well. :sad:


#12

This is indeed possible in a raster based program like photoshop - I don’t know wether Photoshop can do this (I know that recent versions of painter can). Basically the stroke made by the hand is calculated as a spline before the stroke is layed which allows for some intelligent brush handling. It is possible to smooth the stroke when this intimediate step is taken.


#13

Excellent, now just have to wait for photoshop to incorporate this tech. :shrug:


#14

Actually, this is implemented somewhat inside PS already. If you go to the Brush options pallete, there is a “Smoothing” tickbox. It’s on by default. I don’t know how effective it is though, but it does definately get rid of jaggies in your strokes. One limitation is that you cant configure the extent to which it smooths the stroke.


#15

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