Tablet recommendations for Affinity Photo, please

[nickbatz]

Okay, I solved the first problem (not being able to locate the click spot easily) by turning off tilt sensing.

That removes 45% of my ire.

And it does have a mouse mode with relative movement rather than absolute. I'm less annoyed.

But you'd think they'd set the defaults up better and provide a manual so people like me don't want to throw the thing when they first start using it!

[R C-R]

36 minutes ago, nickbatz said:

... and provide a manual ...

Is there an online or downloadable manual somewhere?

[nickbatz]

It's all online, but not really in manual format and not all that easy to search.

They make it very easy to get the thing working, but not to get it working so you don't utterly despise it at first.

The tilt control is completely farkakte, as I said, and I can't imagine wanting to use absolute mode rather than relative (aka Mouse Mode). If you were looking at the picture on a drawing tablet then an absolute screen representation would be mandatory, but on a graphics tablet you're looking at the screen and want it to behave like a mouse.

My only complaint about Mouse mode is that the maximum speed setting still isn't fast enough for my taste. Well, that plus there doesn't seem to be a way to make it the default (although I could be wrong).

[nickbatz]

To expound on the tilt control - and this is something I'll tell them on their forum - you don't want it to work until it's touching the surface. Otherwise when you put the pen down it jumps to a different place and people like me are ready to pack the damn thing up and return it.

[thomaso]

12 hours ago, nickbatz said:

My only complaint about Mouse mode is that the maximum speed setting still isn't fast enough for my taste.

If you use the mouse modus then increasing the speed setting increases the difference between the distance of a pen move versus its equivalent on screen. Means a short move with the pen causes a large move on screen. Thus the precision would become more difficult than with a slower speed. I am wondering because you mentioned previously a difficulty for exact positioning of the pen (though you report to have solved it by deactivating the tilt sensing for the pen).

[nickbatz]

10 hours ago, thomaso said:

If you use the mouse modus then increasing the speed setting increases the difference between the distance of a pen move versus its equivalent on screen. Means a short move with the pen causes a large move on screen. Thus the precision would become more difficult than with a slower speed. I am wondering because you mentioned previously a difficulty for exact positioning of the pen (though you report to have solved it by deactivating the tilt sensing for the pen).

thomaso, what I wrote is that it's not fast enough *for my taste.* And it isn't.

Mouse movements aren't linear, they sense acceleration so that you don't have the problem you're talking about. If you move it fast you can jump from one corner of a 4K monitor to the other without moving your wrist more than an inch - or if you move it slowly you can control fine movements.

My reason for wanting to use a pen as an input device is only because the mouse is thick, designed more for pointing and clicking than for drawing.

The tilt sensor issue is something very different. Think of it this way: lifting the pen maybe 1/2" above the tablet surface is like moving a mouse (or other pointing device). Dropping the pen to the surface is clicking.

The issue with the tilt sensing is that when you drop the pen to the surface to "click," the cursor jumps to a different position from where it was. That could be some kind of calibration issue, but I suspect it's a programming murder. You don't want the tilt sensing to kick in until the pen is touching the surface unless you want people like me to hate the product!

[nickbatz]

Okay.

So after hours of trying as hard as I could to like this thing, I've decided it's just not for me. I don't just dislike it, I absolutely loathe using it with a passion.

The truth is that if you don't like an input device after a few minutes, it seems unlikely to become second nature. Yeah you have to get used to anything, but this was just annoying.

 

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, nickbatz said:

The truth is that if you don't like an input device after a few minutes, it seems unlikely to become second nature.

I think it typically takes a lot longer than a few minutes to get use to a new input device. It took me days just to explore all the options available for my Kensington trackball & settle on the ones that I liked best. If I had never done that, I probably would have hated it because the defaults did not suit me...

But of course, to each his or her own.

[nickbatz]

29 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I think it typically takes a lot longer than a few minutes to get use to a new input device. It took me days just to explore all the options available for my Kensington trackball & settle on the ones that I liked best. If I had never done that, I probably would have hated it because the defaults did not suit me...

But of course, to each his or her own.

 

Do you use a tablet?

I didn't think so. Please try one for several hours, explore *all* the adjustments like I did (going way beyond the defaults), and then come back and explain to me how I'm wrong, that I actually do like this stupid thing.

In all fairness, lots of people swear by trackballs. I won't go as far as saying I swear *at* them, but I don't like them much.

You might have taken days to explore all the options on your trackball - like programming the buttons, etc. - but I think you either like the basic way it tracks after a few minutes or you don't. I worked with this turkey long enough to know that it's not going to add anything to my artwork, and in fact that it's just going to sit there unused when push comes to shove.

Now, the remote that comes with it is pretty good, but why bother when you can use a keyboard and mouse without looking at them. And if your response is just that it's what I'm used to, well, being used to things is totally valid. But you haven't said that, so I won't get into a straw man argument with myself.

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, nickbatz said:

You might have taken days to explore all the options on your trackball - like programming the buttons, etc. - but I think you either like the basic way it tracks after a few minutes or you don't

Nope. It took quite a while just to get used to the idea of using a trackball instead of a mouse to interact with my Mac, & several days just to understand how to best learn how to use it & its basic options, much less the advanced customizable stuff involving buttons.

But now, I dread even having to consider using a mouse instead.

But of course, like I said, to each his or her own.

[Old Bruce]

16 hours ago, nickbatz said:

The truth is that if you don't like an input device after a few minutes, ...

Took me a month of practising to get used to using the pen instead of a mouse. Now there is no way I would go back. 

[nickbatz]

It took me a few hours to confirm that I hated it even more than I did before those few hours. 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, nickbatz said:

It took me a few hours to confirm that I hated it even more than I did before those few hours. 

If an iPad with pencil and such a desk tablet aren't for you, then there are not much options left. - I suggest you best visist some market, which has such and screen tablets on exhebition in order to tryout first.

[nickbatz]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

If an iPad with pencil and such a desk tablet aren't for you, then there are not much options left. - I suggest you best visist some market, which has such and screen tablets on exhebition in order to tryout first.

Actually an iPad with an Apple pencil would be great if it worked. And it does work if you're drawing on the iPad, but there's way too much lag if you use it over [I think it connects to the Mac over Bluetooth rather than Wi-Fi].

If they ever solve that issue - even over a wired connection - it would be great. What I don't want to do is export a Merged Visible file from Affinity Photo to the iPad, draw a couple of lines, and then send it back.

It's possible that a graphics tablet (one with the picture) rather than a drawing tablet would make me happier, but I don't want to pfaff with HDMI adapters on my Mac.

[v_kyr]

16 minutes ago, nickbatz said:

Actually an iPad with an Apple pencil would be great if it worked. And it does work if you're drawing on the iPad, but there's way too much lag if you use it over [I think it connects to the Mac over Bluetooth rather than Wi-Fi].

Then you have to look for other iPad to Mac software & connections and tryouts, for connections ideally something which offers also a cable based no lag connection instead of WiFi/Bluetooth, - See for other software options this article ...

• How to use an iPad as a drawing tablet with a PC
• EasyCanvas
• Connect iPad and your computer with a cable
• ... etc.

Other than that (though partly expensive) try some screen tablets which offer direct connections!

[nickbatz]

Thanks.

Yes, connecting an iPad to a computer is a matter of... connecting the iPad to the computer. And there are lots of tablets with a screen (graphics tablets rather than drawing tablets).

Maybe I'll try one during this lifetime, although right now I'm inclined to wait for the one after next.

[nickbatz]

UPDATE: After deciding that the iPad solution was too much of a kludge, I bought a Wacom Cintiq 16.

It's freaking great!

You pick up the pen and draw with it. That's all, no weeks of learning to adjust. I have no idea what anyone is talking about.

What's more, it's integrated into Affinity Photo. If like me you have a main monitor set to a much higher resolution than the Wacom's 1920x1080 (and therefore can't mirror the monitors without forcing your main monitor to a much lower res), you just create a new view and drag the second picture window over to the Wacom. Both are active.

So yeah, I'm totally vindicated for hating that other one and returning it before wasting even more time on it!

And so far I couldn't be happier with the Wacom. 

[nickbatz]

By association not worth going into, I searched and found this thread from 15 months ago.

Update: the Cintiq 16 - not the Pro model, the regular one that was about $500 for a refurb one - still works perfectly. You don't have to adjust to it, there's no learning curve, you just draw on it (or more often, in my case, use it for drawing selection shapes). It's really great.

If anyone is considering one without a screen or that doesn't track properly, or that just doesn't feel good right away... don't let anyone tell you that you just need to get used to it. It's not you, it's that the product sucks!

I see from my posts that I started off feeling victimized by that first POS I bought and getting increasingly angry.  It felt astoundingly good to return that [insert a tirade of swear words].

Anyway, I recommend the Wacom Cintiq 16 highly.