Pressure sensitivity on a Surface Pro 4

[jshoer]

I got a Surface Pro 4, and thought I'd use it to wade into digital cartography. However, I haven't been able to get pressure sensitivity to work in Gimp or Krita. The basic paint program that Microsoft ships with the Surface works fine with pressure sensitivity.

I tried updating to the latest Wintab drivers on the MS web site and rebooted, to no avail. Under "Input Devices" in the Gimp preferences, I just see "Core Pointer," which has only two input axes. I've seen suggestions on the internet that after the driver update I should have seen a Microsoft input device with a third axis I could map to pressure.

Anybody know a solution, or a different program to try?

[Voolf]

I don't know about Gimp, i guess it does not support Surface Pro, but Krita should work fine. Have you read this ?

[kacey]

Hi jshoer, I've been using my surface pro 4 for almost a year now, and I absolutely love it... for PhotoShop. It does work with gimp, but honestly it's pretty clunky, so much so that I removed gimp from my computer. The interface is tiny, and it was, in general a real pain in the a**. I found it pretty difficult to work with.

On the plus side, PhotoShop works really well, I've found it's really the only painting programme, that I've used that really works well on it, and I've tried Corel painter, PhotoShop, and gimp. Corel painter works too, but changing brush size, and rotating the canvas was difficult.

Adobe is one of the few companies that has done a half way decent job at making there programme touch friendly. I can rotate, and zoom the canvas with pinch gestures, and undo by swiping three fingers, I can't do that in gimp. PhotoShop has also added some hot key buttons for tablet pc users, if you want you can have the alt, shift, and control keys on the screen. With gimp you would have to download an outside programme to use any shortcut keys.

You can also collapse the interface leaving room to work with but still having easy access to things when you need them. They also have a setting in the preferences to use a more touch friendly experimental interface, but I find I don't need it.

I'm sure other people have managed to make the surface work for them in other programmes, but for me PhotoShop is the only real working solution.

Also, if you're into 3D sculpting at all zbrush works really well, but you do have to use a hot key app to make it comfortable. Blender was too much of a hassle for me to deal with, but the wintab drivers did get the pressure sensitivity working in both programmes.

It takes some getting used to, but from my experience so far I will probably never go back to a desktop, or lap top again....I love my surface.

And it's not the computer, it's the software companies that need to make they're programmes more touch friendly.

Oh, I almost forgot, I downloaded the art rage app from the windows store, and it works pretty well too, there apps work well on the iPad as well. I wish they would make Procreate for windows it's my favorite touch friendly app, but it's only on iPad.

[jshoer]

That's all great stuff, kacey! I thought I'd start with the free programs before I shell out for Photoshop. That said, when I walked into a Microsoft store to play with a display unit, Photoshop is what I used. (It seemed quite nice.) It's good to read a solid vote of confidence before I think about making a purchase.

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