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Affinity and Wacom Intuos?


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How does Affinity software work with Wacom tablets?

 

Are there any known early release bugs or is it all okay, can you increase or decrease the brush size with the scrolling wheel or is it too early for those kinda features?

I like to buy a Wacom Intuos Pro medium but those tablets aren't very cheap so I like to know if I get the most out of them when using with Affinity software.

 

 

Hardware
 Mac mini (late-2014), 2.6GHz, 16GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 Graphics  iPad Air 16GB White

Software I love, and you should get :wink:
Affinity Desinger - Affinity Photo - Sketch - Coda - CodeKit - iA Writer - Dropbox - 1Password

 

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Yes, first of all, I have a button for changing the keyboard language configured as resizing only works with the English keyboard.

 
Then I covered the Wheel with the [and] keys. This works beautifully as long as I always previously umstelle the keyboard keyboard in English.
 
The change of keyboard language is not required for users who have an English keyboard and do not use, for example, a German keyboard.
 
On the roudmap a function is being considered in the future, that custom shortcuts can be used. Then the workaround for you to change the keyboard language is no longer necessary.
 
I hope this helps you.
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I've chosen a Huion 610 Pro and am still setting it up. It has brush size buttons at the left of the tablet area along with buttons for the brush tool, zoom +/-, undo, erase brush, and hand tool.

 

The two buttons on the side of the pen can be configured, as can 16 shortcut spots at the top of the tablet. Am sure it's similar to Wacom and other tablets. Doesn't have a stylus wheel but the thing was a very good price so I gave it a go.

 

Anyone want to share other setup tips? Maybe we can compile ideas into a tablet guide?

Twitter: @Writer_Dale
Affinity apps run on: Ryzen 5 3600, 32GB RAM, GTX1650 Super

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I've seen a YouTube video about a Huion tablet but are those tablets for real or just cheap China rip offs from the Wacoms?

Hardware
 Mac mini (late-2014), 2.6GHz, 16GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 Graphics  iPad Air 16GB White

Software I love, and you should get :wink:
Affinity Desinger - Affinity Photo - Sketch - Coda - CodeKit - iA Writer - Dropbox - 1Password

 

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I don't know about the Huion, but I know that many people love tablets using UC Logics digitizers. I'd be really tempted by the Monoprice tablet if the pen had an eraser. (The Huion page on Amazon doesn't mention UC Logics, but the pen looks similar. Could be the same thing.) A Cintiq alternative to look at is the Yiynova.

 

As for the topic at hand, note that neither Affinity app yet works with rotation. Panning and zooming are both much smoother than Photoshop, so I hope this is added soon.

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  • Staff

I'll just quickly add to this that I've been using Wacom tablets for at least 10 years here and am lucky enough to have had a Cintiq parked on my desk for the last year, so I'm very familiar with them... and Dale's Huion is actually pretty darned good - it feels every bit as well made as any Wacom I've owned and produced smooth, predictable, flowing strokes and pressure changes. If I'd done a blind test then I wouldn't have known which tablet was which, to be perfectly honest. Yes, you can buy the 'Wacom Art Pen' as an extra for your Wacom and that pen feels a little better than the standard one (and supports rotation sensitivity), but apart from that they're really very similar...

 

...I'm actually very interested in trying a Huion GT-190/220 as I'd like to see what the screen is like :)

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I'm quite new here having only recently got Affinity Photo but have used a tablet and pen for many years and if I may share my thoughts here about Wacom's tablets.

In actual use there probably is very little difference now between Wacom and some of the alternatives like Huion and as MattP said, in a blind test you probably couldn't tell one from the other. Levels of pressure sensitivity and report times are so high now across the field they have become more of a marketing point than anything you would actually notice in use.
But what keeps me wedded to my ever reliable Intuos4 is partly the touch wheel, I love it! The Tilt recognition for the pen is nice too but mostly it's the Drivers.
Every aspect of the tablet and pen can be uniquely customised on a per app basis and remembered. This makes switching between apps a pleasure as the custom settings instantly change to what's required by the new active app.
And then there is the On Screen Menu where an infinite number of custom keyboard short cuts and actions can be called up and accessed at the press of a button in addition to the physical tablet/pen shortcut keys.
Lastly there is the Backup Utility so that all your time and effort spent in creating custom settings can be saved and should the need arise be restored at any time.

And the cost? Yes, it is true that Wacom's IntuosPros and Cintiqus do come at a premium price but then again so do Mac's and we have all bought one of those.
 

macOS 10.15.7  15" Macbook Pro, 2017  |  4 Core i7 3.1GHz CPU  |  Radeon Pro 555 2GB GPU + Integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 1.536GB  |  16GB RAM  |  Wacom Intuos4 M

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Does swiping work in Safari to navigate back and forward on a Wacom tablet?

 

I've seen about all Youtube unboxing and install review movies about the Wacom Intuos series but none of the reviews mentions anything about the Wacom touch fields acting like an Apple's Magic Trackpad.

At this moment I use a Magic Trackpad and I really love it for navigating in OS X. Drawing and editing photos on a trackpad isn't as nice as it should be, you can't be fast and precise at the same time so that's why I want a Wacom tablet but if the default OS X gestures like swiping don't work at the Wacom touch interface it's useless to buy one.

 

I really would like to buy the Intuos Pro medium tablet because of it's 'classic iPod' kinda wheel - from what I can see at Youtube this is really key but I can't spend 300.- on a Wacom Pro tablet to have over 2000+ pressure points if it can't do simple two fingers swiping to go forward and backwards on pages.

Hardware
 Mac mini (late-2014), 2.6GHz, 16GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 Graphics  iPad Air 16GB White

Software I love, and you should get :wink:
Affinity Desinger - Affinity Photo - Sketch - Coda - CodeKit - iA Writer - Dropbox - 1Password

 

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Hello Shmoo
Like I say it's all about the Drivers with Wacom. Everything is configurable to how you want it.
Bellow are some links, the first two are Wacom's own PDFs and the third is from YouTube. Towards the end of the video he shows how you can change what the gestures will do if you want to change them.

Wacom's Guid To Default Gestures: http://us.wacom.com/~/media/WTC/Files/Manuals/Current/Wacom%20Gesture%20Guide.pdf/
Intuos Pro Manual: http://us.wacom.com/~/media/Files/Manuals/IntuosProUsersManual.pdf/
A brief demo: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKQFqEVK8lM

With luck someone here on the forum who has a Pro will chip in with some personal experience of the Pro's gestures for you.

My Intous4 doesn't support gestures so I can't comment from personal experience here.
But it's good to see you are doing your research! You are gong to spend a long time with your tablet whatever you eventually buy so you need to be sure about what you get will be right for you.

macOS 10.15.7  15" Macbook Pro, 2017  |  4 Core i7 3.1GHz CPU  |  Radeon Pro 555 2GB GPU + Integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 1.536GB  |  16GB RAM  |  Wacom Intuos4 M

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I posted the following on 25 July but got no response...it still does not work for me in the latest beta...

 

I am also not getting any pressure sensitivity when using the vector brush tool. Pressure works fine when using the brushes in the Pixel Persona but not in Draw Persona. Wacom Intuos 5 Touch.

Also I can't scroll thru the brushes the using my pen.  When you first open the brush panel the scroll bar is there and I can use the pen to scroll. Once the scroll bar disappears, using the pen will not bring it back. I have to put the pen aside and scroll with the mouse to get to a brush down the list.

 

For what it is worth using either of the "velocity" settings to simulate pressure when using a mouse does not produce any variation in line width in Draw Persona while in Pixel Persona "velocity" does produce variations in line width when using a mouse.

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Thanks guys, I today bought a brand new Wacom Intuos Pro Medium for only 175,- ( 289,- new in stores )

 

Looks like Canon had some sort of deal last month when you bought a professional D5 or D6 camera you got a Wacom tablet like this as a gift.

Now those customers start to receive their Wacom gifts and selling them online because they don't want to use the Wacom. Nice deal. :)

Hardware
 Mac mini (late-2014), 2.6GHz, 16GB RAM, Intel Iris 5100 Graphics  iPad Air 16GB White

Software I love, and you should get :wink:
Affinity Desinger - Affinity Photo - Sketch - Coda - CodeKit - iA Writer - Dropbox - 1Password

 

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This is my third attempt to get some kind of response to the two issues I've outlined when using Affinity Designer with a Wacom Intuos 5 Touch. First, I get no pressure sensitivity for brush size using the vector brushes. And second I can't use the scroll bar to select the brushes using the pen. When the program first opens the scroll bar is present. Once I select a brush it goes away and only switching to a mouse will bring it back. If this is not the behavior others are seeing could someone suggest what I am doing wrong. The brushes are set to "pressure" but they do not change size. Pressure sensitivity works when using brushes in the pixel persona.

 

Could one of the developers please address this.

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  • Staff

Hi jmac,

 

Does your pressure not work on vector brushes when you have set the 'Controller' (on the context toolbar of the Vector Brush Tool) to 'Pressure'? If pressure is working with the pixel tools then this really should work? The scrollbars disappearing is a system thing - just go to System Preferences and choose General->Show Scrollbars->Always and it should work as expected :)

 

Hope that helps,

Matt

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Matt, Thanks for the explanation on the scroll bar. I finally noticed the "Controller" menu and got the pressure sensitivity working. I thought the pressure was set in the brush settings panel for each individual brush. It seems confusing to have pressure settings in two different places that apparently control two different things related to the same tool.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've chosen a Huion 610 Pro and am still setting it up. It has brush size buttons at the left of the tablet area along with buttons for the brush tool, zoom +/-, undo, erase brush, and hand tool.

 

The two buttons on the side of the pen can be configured, as can 16 shortcut spots at the top of the tablet. Am sure it's similar to Wacom and other tablets. Doesn't have a stylus wheel but the thing was a very good price so I gave it a go.

 

Anyone want to share other setup tips? Maybe we can compile ideas into a tablet guide?

Hi Dale,

 

I've seen these on sale lately, any advice?

MacBook pro, 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB, OS X 10.11.6

 

http://www.pinterest.com/peter2111

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  • 2 years later...

Can anyone point me out what would be the best way to make my digital pen switch from brush to colour picker? Im used to photosop where B is just to select brush and so I tell my pen to select it by clicking one of its buttons and the other I use for colour picker. But I am new to Aphoto and I'm trying to set my pen for digital painting like this an I'm going a bit crazy as B selects so many different tools i can\t seem to get it right... Im on a cintq. Thanks 

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  • 3 years later...

Hi There

 

I have a Wacom Bamboo tablet on my MAC Pro running 10.12.6 OS. I tried to rotate the canvas without success despite having checked the "enable canvas rotation with trackpad. Can anyone tell me how I can get this to work?

 

I can zoom, pan and scroll vertically but not rotate. I don't mind upgrading to a new wacom tablet if I know which one will solve this problem.

 

Thanks,

spiderpod

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