Brush delay using Wacom

[Rafal]

First thank you for providing us with your software for windows platform. I am very happy you decided to do that.

 

The first issue with Photo for me is that, it does not handle Wacom quite well. Most of the time i have a 1 second delay when start stroke. When i continue it goes well, This delay happens every time i start new stroke.

 

Second smaller bug is that even if i have 'Always show brush cosshair' selected, it disappears using Wacom, When i am painting i see normal windows arrow pointer. It works well with mouse, Just the Wacom has problems.

 

Lastly i have a question. I cannot find more transform options like Warp, Skew, Disort, Perspective. Are you gonna add them later ?

[Chris_K]

 Hi Rafal

 

I'm not getting any delay using the Wacom bamboo we have here. Which operating system are you using?

 

For your second point this is something that we are already aware of so hopefully should get sorted soon

 

For you last question we have a transform panel usually in the bottom right which contains skew. Options such as warp and perspective are tools that can be found on the tools toolbar

 

Thanks

[Rafal]

Hey Chris

 

Thank you for respone, i dont know how i could miss Warp and Perspective tools.

 

I am using Wacom Intuos, my OS is Windows 8, 64bit

CPU: Intel Core i5

Memory: 8GB

Graphic Card: GeForce GTX 765M

[Chris_K]

Hi Rafal

 

I think we may have figured out what is going on here. When you start a new document, if you draw on it immediately it auto create a pixel layer for you. This is causing the slight delay on the initial stroke. if you manually add the pixel layer first you should see the initial stroke is much smoother

[Rafal]

I am sorry to dissapoint you Chris, but that is not the case. The delay happens EVERY TIME i start new stroke on the same layer

[SrPx]

Happens here, too. Makes difficult hand writing or drawing small details.

[Rafal]

Happens here, too. Makes difficult hand writing or drawing small details.

Exactly, its impossible to use it for me with such a flaw

[Steff_N]

 

Wacom Intuos CTL-480S in Affinity photo 1.5.0.35 at Win 10 pro shows the delay too.

 

[IvanK]

First, Great Job on Affinity Photo for Windows!!
Wacom Intuos 3 Affinity photo 1.5.0.35 at Win 7 pro, smooth, no delay can write words at full speed like on paper.
CPU: Intel Core i7
Memory: 32GB
Graphic Card: GeForce GTX 970
 

when zooming there is a one pixel line in white usually on the left but sometimes on top or bottom and at some zoom positions its clean and also the line is not there when exporting, just wondering if its just my computer....

[SrPx]

 no delay can write words at full speed like on paper.

 

Interesting. All of us are having it (I only have it better when very zoomed in, with my old i7, 8gbram)... But you have a good card (quite good) , and more ram than most of the people. So, perhaps there's an issue but is minimized if there's very good hardware in those two matters. (unless your i7 is also a very good/modern one, then could be a third factor)

Point is, in other softwares we don't see such delay...

Are you drawing zoomed in, in a low resolution/size file ?

Can you test that in an A4 at 300 dpi ?  If you have the time, that is .  :)

[IvanK]

that is drawing on a 36megapixel file and it works zoomed in or not and any brush ...

the computer is 4 years old (self made) also have to mention that I'm using SSDs.

[IvanK]

P.S. Photoshop loads in 1.5 seconds and Affinity Photo takes 20 seconds to load, makes me wonder why ?

[IvanK]

just updated to affinity-photo-public-beta1.5.0.37 and it works even better ...

program loads in 10 seconds and the brush speed is the same (very responsive) in all zoom settings...

just in case anyone wants to know ...

[funshark]

For those that are having the issue : Have you disabled all the crappy things related to pen tablet that are coming with windows ?

[SrPx]

i think that might got re-enabled, like many other things when re activating Aero. Will check to manually disable those, to see if it works, thanks !

[Patrick Connor]

We have made some changes to tablet input in 1.5.0.38 now downloadable form the first post in this forum, and would appreciate your input on its use now. The delay is not addressed, but may be different now

[Steff_N]

The problem still exists on my machine. Core 2 quad  2,33 GHZ   8GB ram Wacom  CTL-480

[SrPx]

Ok, reporting:

 

Summary & conclusions :  

 

- Paint in very zoomed out : much improved if not 100%, workable.

- Delay, I'm sorry to say that continues the same (or even has increased a bit)

- New issue when picking color from canvas with ctrl+alt+LMB.

- Sth not mentioned above: PNG (don't remember timings in other versions) save is ULTRA FAST, compared to other high end commercial and free software apps that I use often. Loading: have not tested.

 

--------------------

 

Canvas used, as for being somewhat average dimensions (not ratio) in illustration: 300mm x300mm , 300dpi. Specifically, cmyk mode, color profile US web coated SWOP v2.

Machine: core i7 860 @ 2.8GHz, 8gb RAM, nVidia GTX 275, Windows 7 64 bits home premium Service Pack 1, Hd Seagate at 7200rpm.

 

- The zoomed out painting : Much improved. Still happens some wobbling, But workable as the wobbling happens when putting that  whole canvas in a 2.5x smaller height of the screen full size (my desktop: 23" at 1920x1080.)

 

 * Screen attached 1) Painting that canvas mentioned in the test specs, zoomed out at about 9%.  (including fast and slow lines)

 

 * Screen attached 2) Painting that canvas mentioned in the test specs, zoomed out at about 27%. (including fast and slow lines) 

 

 

- The brush delay... Still there, very noticeable, and making it difficult to paint. But I am going to try a system related idea in my side, will report later.

 

- General sketching , inking and painting. (very rough ugly tests, am only checking how it goes, not trying to do anything pretty)

 

 

- Sketching: because of the delay, lines end up non accurate, and also is hard to make fluid sketching.  This problem is very easy to reproduce by anyone if you try fast hand writting in practically any zoom level. The issue is the delay, here. The image trembling as you know is something I dislike, but can however manage, I mean, wouldn't be a hard limitation to make a good art piece, just a matter of eyesight comfort.

 

- Inking, similar problem, loss of accuracy due to the delay, resulting in some lines not accurate since the start when they land, and often happening the "dry pen" (if you know what I mean) effect, as many lines don't register. Is somewhat workable, but in the examples I tried, one draws at a reduced level of accuracy and line quality.

 

- Painting. Less issues here. That's my suspect since long, and reason why most photo retouchers don't notice. For the way oil-like painting is done, that is, insisting with many brush strokes, and building/adding, not so much in precise lines, the issues of the delay, are less. Yet tho I notice less fluidity. I wanted to make a full try to reach final level of coloring, even over that crappy sketch (sorry), but couldn't, as the way I tend to paint is picking the color in the canvas, and found an issue I already noticed the other day but though was my computer getting a bit in the limit: At some point the picker wont pick the color. You click on the color in the canvas (with ctrl + alt +click, but tried with both mouse and pen, and once starts to happen, happens with both, I also disabled my x-Mouse Button Control to be sure was not interfering) and it actually picks it for a tenth of a second or so but gets back to the color it had, doesn't allow changing. Is curious as it worked great for a while, but is as it'd get "over heat" or something of too many color pickings ;).  And picking from the swatch at that point is of no use: The color swatch is great, specially imo in HSL mode for painting, I like it more than other commercial tools ones, but when you try to paint realistically, is all about picking canvas' colors so to blend well, etc. So I left it not even as a sketch color, I did not continue the test as still want to do that test which i mentioned (and some other stuff of  mine, today ;)  )

 

 

Cheers,

[SrPx]

In a way, is strange, but feels a bit more like inking with a vector tool than inking with a raster based application, not sure why. (that's not necessarily bad)

[SrPx]

<--- (Very complete test/report in previous page)

 

Ok, had no luck. My pending test was to uninstall my wacom drivers, install newer ones that had the "wacom ink" check box,  disabling it, and then seeing if it'd loose the lag/delay, but it doesn't. I correctly uninstalled the drivers, downloaded a more recent version and installed it, but the delay is still there in the same big quantity. I will try to make a video recording the problem. I thought could be that i notice it more than others because the XL (similar resolution than several cintiqs) might have quite more resolution, but then I have read some users with medium and small sizes are having the same problem. Is like the brush cursor is left behind, can't catch up. Specially at the beginning of tracing each line.

[SrPx]

Actually, it was not really disabled, but disabled now, and improves a little, but not much.

 

Zoom is key here, like happened with the jiter when zoomed out. (still happens a little bit, but much less)

So, if drawing at 100% zoom (double click in magnifying glass) , is way smoother. And the more you zoom in from there, the better, but of course, that's only good for making pixel art or the like. But to note that  the more  zoomed in, the best pen drawing feel, less lag, etc.

 

Writing zoomed out is really hard, attaching a pic to show (due to the lack of accuracy produced by the lag)

 

In some moments, seems like it is trying, at the start of each brush stroke, to connect with the last stroke ending. This can be already accomplished by keeping shift pressed. If is even if slightly there when no pressing shift, I'd try to disable it totally to se if it's producing some lag trying to determine how to connect with last line ending. Not needed in our workflows, we are used to other techniques for that. Just to try all which can be producing the lag...

 

to people saying it's working for them, if trying at zoom 100% or amplified, and being a small file -not a 300mmx300mm at 300 dpi- they might want to try so and see if is still  a no lag situation -drawing in such a file, at a zoom out of 50% or less.

 

[MattP]

Hi SrPx - just wanted to say thank you for doing so much detailed testing on this aspect - it's very much appreciated! :) We'll keep on working to make it better - I have a plan to rewrite the whole brush tool input code for the next release if we can't sort this out soon, so please don't give up on us!

 

Thanks again,

Matt

[PaulAffinity]

I have a Bamboo Touch. It works perfectly, as does the pen and press keys.

 

I suggest you compare the (very simple) Bamboo Preferences utility from Wacom against the other models and perhaps remove options to match the functions then test.

 

NOTE - I switch OFF the TOUCH function on this Waco.

 

Cheers, Paul

[Ian R]

...my (brand) new Wacom Intuos pro (small) responds to pen use with staggered lines and a delay (touch turned off) for me on my machine (built one year ago):
 
Win 7 64bit,
core i7 4970 3.6 GHz
16 Gb RAM
 
Errm Love the fact you've got comic sans as a font choice on this post editor.  :P

 

Using same zoom and paper size in PS produces much smoother lines and not delay at the start of a curve.

 

Please see attachments - The stagger i mention is something I've not seen in others' examples with the sensitivity (or maybe I've overlooked it)  I see that others have picked up on the wiggly/anti aliasing issue, but here in my attachment you can see the (fast drawn) curves have angled 'segments' as if the software is sampling only certain points and 'making up' the positions in between.  That's probably not the right way to describe it, but if you compare with the PS5 results, you can see the difference...  The behaviour reminds me of how drawing packages back in the day used to perform a fast stroke ... like back in the 90s... Don't mean to be rude, just trying to describe what I see...

 

Both drawn on an A4 size paper and with the view zoomed to fit my 22" monitor (28% with AP and 25% with PS5). Hope that helps in some way...

 

 

Edited November 22, 2016 by Ian R

[SrPx]

Hi SrPx - just wanted to say thank you for doing so much detailed testing on this aspect - it's very much appreciated! :) We'll keep on working to make it better - I have a plan to rewrite the whole brush tool input code for the next release if we can't sort this out soon, so please don't give up on us!

 

Thanks again,

Matt

 

That sounds *absolutely* fantastic !! Because while I am realizing the modifying efforts are huge, I suspected probably the problem is in the base of how it works. I do believe this application has a bright feature, even if it were with painting problems, but with the painting engine fixed it would absolutely rock as a one point only tool for illustrators, comic artists, graphic designers (in the raster side, there's AD for all vector needs :) ) , photo editors and a large etc. As an illustrator, I do detect VERY nice details to become a great painting solution. The problem is that there are probs in the core painting, but giving up... That would be a first!   :D (am more like the guy in the left here) . If you see bunch of hours that I don't reply is just am heavily absorbed doing my freelance work, only that. I indeed had the somewhat idea that the brush engine was going to be left like that (and I had assumed it and still was going to purchase anyway), but I would agree that this would be loosing a big quantity of users out of many fields, that need the core of painting system changed. IMHO, mostly being the delay the main issue as reduces accuracy and speed, as a second, the drawing zoomed out (not sure if the significant improve would be kept in a rewrite, that's why I mention it), the trembling of the image (some user above describes it as marching ants ;), because is not pleasant to draw so), many have complained about the aliasing (this in my case not so much of an issue as I just increase line softness, but yep, people is going to not like it), the issue with the color picker, but somehow I believe this is surely not hard to fix. And maybe check if the lack of accuracy while drawing small features is only due to the delay, or is there something else. (I believe is majorly due to the delay). I suspect the trembling of the image is probably the harder to change, as is said to be the way the engine functions and redraws to optimize, that sounds to me as core functioning, and so, only a rewrite would make it possible. But totally, to be able to draw well right now, the delay is the #1 issue. To keep them using it for painting, imo, while is only my 2c, it also is going to need the trembling completely out (and perhaps use other sort of optimization, if it is really needed, actually, maybe is not needed that much optimization...) , good accuracy and a better aliasing, because is needed not only that is technically possible to draw well, but also that it'd be a comfortable experience, as being artistic expression something for what one needs not to have things in the way, and feel good while doing it. I know some us are a bit nitpicking individuals (I am, myself)   ;). But in this case, really, all what I am saying is to help AP to become in the painting area as great as already is in many others. Would be a bit of a pity of not. :) . IMO doesn't need it to be a golden purchase, but still.   :)

 

So, absolutely, am here for any thorough test, trying every possible thing on earth to make it happen.   :)

When time allows I'll try to record videos, as I have a tool that seems to not waste resources while doing that, and will show almost as the performance I'm seeing here.

 

 

I have a Bamboo Touch. It works perfectly, as does the pen and press keys.

 

I suggest you compare the (very simple) Bamboo Preferences utility from Wacom against the other models and perhaps remove options to match the functions then test.

 

NOTE - I switch OFF the TOUCH function on this Waco.

 

Cheers, Paul

 

Mine is an intuos 4 Pro XL, so, no touch features. (indeed, they don't sell that huge size anymore..) Does it work perfectly in a canvas of 30cm x 30cm and 300 dpi resolution ? And I mean, drawing zoomed out (obviously), like in a 48% zoom or so. It works a tad better in 100%, but this is not very useful when one is illustrating even a small illustration for printing (a large portion of the output of an illustrator/painter/comic artist, etc, needs that size/resolution as a minimum).

 

IMO, for that very last reason, working in zoomed out must work quite well, if expect illustrators (or comic authors) working with it, because while you have some monitors at 3k wide pixels, and there you could so work at print size in 100%, the height would only be 1440 or the like... And even also supposing you are fine working with a 34 or 27 inches monitor, and the fact that other than 23/24, an accurate in color, good for calibration monitor, gets way too expensive in the huge size/resolution range. So is needed high quality render and performance in drawing zoomed out (however is the correct English way to say it, lol). 

 

Of course, for screen graphics, or pixel art (though if I know the type of artist(I am, but not "typical" 'old skool'), they'd dislike the trembling quite, (and the delay, but less), too ;) ) where you can zoom in a lot and do your work, there you can even get an almost fine feel/performance (the more you zoom, the more it improves).

 

Yep, totally count with my help. A rewrite would be absolutely fantastic, and I will certainly be around to answer fast.   :)