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Using a Graphic Tablet ... (whats your setup?)


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New to Affinity. NOT an expert with Graphics and/or tech in general.

I bought a 'XP Pen Deco 03' to use with Affinity. I REALLY want to learn the software AND this hardware. Please excuse my 'noobiness'.

I'm wondering what are your guys' preferences with your drawing tablet setups.

and more specifically... I am having an issue with the 'pen pressure' of my own. I have to press so hard to get the pen to respond and it seems no matter what I set inside the 'XP Pen' software does not change that. I am a bit confused as to how/if I can change it INSIDE Affinity's options.

 

 

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The pressure setting starts within the software for the tablet, not within affinity, you can tweak brush pressure in affinity but you need to get the feel right in PenTabletSettings first.

This is how I have my pen pressure set up in the PenTabletsetting. Set up like this I can use a gentle pressure. See fig 2. for an even lighter pressure config.

 

Screen Shot 2018-05-28 at 10.23.03.png

Fig 2. Forgot add if you want a very light touch move the top right node over to the left until you're happy with the feel of the pen pressure and have a small output curve.

1798194755_ScreenShot2018-05-28at10_40_22.png.738810be276cc045a11ccf5a647698dd.png

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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I have a Huion WH1490. A very large surface, but not as pressure sensitive as Wacoms. I was having problems getting intermediate line weights, and did improve it somewhat by tweaking the driver software. Part of the problem may be my old fingers are rather clumsy now.

I also have an iPad and Apple pencil. Its an order of magnitude better. I topped it with a product called "paperlike" which both protects the screen and adds a small amount of drag, so the pencil tip isn't skating all over.

iMac 27" Retina, c. 2015: OS X 10.11.5: 3.3 GHz I c-5: 32 Gb,  AMD Radeon R9 M290 2048 Mb

iPad 12.9" Retina, iOS 10, 512 Gb, Apple pencil

Huion WH1409 tablet

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5 hours ago, gdenby said:

I have a Huion WH1490. A very large surface, but not as pressure sensitive as Wacoms. I was having problems getting intermediate line weights, and did improve it somewhat by tweaking the driver software. Part of the problem may be my old fingers are rather clumsy now.

I also have an iPad and Apple pencil. Its an order of magnitude better. I topped it with a product called "paperlike" which both protects the screen and adds a small amount of drag, so the pencil tip isn't skating all over.

I'd looked at the Giano but thought it a tad too large, although I like the buttons it had, I opted for simplicity with 6 buttons and a funky dial. Whats your views on the Giano?

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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It wasn't called the "Giano" when I bought it. It was just the biggest they offered, and had specs similar or better to the Wacom's I had owned a few decades earlier, but at a fraction of the price.

I got the Huion because I hated working on the relatively small area that the old Wacom's had. I had and Intuous 1, and then an Intuous 2, 6" x 8". I wanted something with an area that allowed the drawing to proceed from the elbow, as well as the wrist and fingers. The Huion does that. My current work space is quite cramped, and it is somewhat too large to work with. Not really a problem w. the tablet.

The 2 down sides. As I mentioned above, the iPads screen is too slick for my liking, but I found a surface that helped that. The Huion is worse. Skating on ice on roller skates. I suspect that one could track down a source of the plastic covering that adds some drag w/o dimming the display noticeably. Would be nice if it was offered as an option at purchase, as putting the stuff on is not very easy.

I hardly use the buttons. I don't use the tablet often enough to remember what I've mapped to the buttons. But the big thing is they are black like the tablet body. I most often work in a dim room, and my eyes often can not see the buttons clearly enough to press them reliably. It would not look as slick, but for my use, making them a pale grey w. a number on them would be so much more usable than tiny black rectangles that can only be seen in near daylight.

 

iMac 27" Retina, c. 2015: OS X 10.11.5: 3.3 GHz I c-5: 32 Gb,  AMD Radeon R9 M290 2048 Mb

iPad 12.9" Retina, iOS 10, 512 Gb, Apple pencil

Huion WH1409 tablet

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26 minutes ago, gdenby said:

I most often work in a dim room, and my eyes often can not see the buttons clearly enough to press them reliably. It would not look as slick, but for my use, making them a pale grey w. a number on them would be so much more usable than tiny black rectangles that can only be seen in near daylight.

Couldn’t you paint on them with Liquid Paper or something like that? :/

 

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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1 minute ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

Couldn’t you paint on them with Liquid Paper or something like that? :/

 

I'll look that up, thanks.

iMac 27" Retina, c. 2015: OS X 10.11.5: 3.3 GHz I c-5: 32 Gb,  AMD Radeon R9 M290 2048 Mb

iPad 12.9" Retina, iOS 10, 512 Gb, Apple pencil

Huion WH1409 tablet

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12 hours ago, gdenby said:

It would not look as slick, but for my use, making them a pale grey w. a number on them would be so much more usable than tiny black rectangles that can only be seen in near daylight.

<rant> I hate the trendy low or zero contrast look that seems to be so popular now, not just for electronics but just about everywhere. That includes the tool & button icons in Affinity products that do not show a lot of contrast difference whether enabled/selected vs not, but the absolute worst example I have seen so far is the instruction sheet that comes with an Apple Pencil. Everything is printed with such a light shade of gray that it is almost invisible unless viewed under very bright light.

Almost as bad is the light gray text in many of Apple's online user documents, which makes them almost useless when viewed on a mobile device in bright sunlight. </rant>

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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1 minute ago, R C-R said:

<rant> I hate the trendy low or zero contrast look that seems to be so popular now, not just for electronics but just about everywhere. That includes the tool & button icons in Affinity products that do not show a lot of contrast difference whether enabled/selected vs not, but the absolute worst example I have seen so far is the instruction sheet that comes with an Apple Pencil. Everything is printed with such a light shade of gray that it is almost invisible unless viewed under very bright light.

Almost as bad is the light gray text in many of Apple's online user documents, which makes them almost useless when viewed on a mobile device in bright sunlight. </rant>

Form should never be a detriment to Function. If Form makes something "less than" it is a failed design. :S

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
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2 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Form should never be a detriment to Function. If Form makes something "less than" it is a failed design. :S

I could not agree more, but far too many product designers seem obsessed with how "pretty" they can make a product look, regardless of how much that compromises its functionality.  I blame Apple & particularly Jony Ive for much of this. The Pencil documentation may be the worst, but a close second is the Siri Remote that comes with the 4th gen & 4K Apple TV products:

2028792147_Siriremote.png.a86ee50aa1dbfc79924c52ae436a9f86.png

The original version (which I have) did not even have the white outline around the menu button, which I think they added because the design was almost universally hated by users. The highlight in Apple's glamor shot is not really that dramatic in real life, so in dim light (like how people so often watch big screen TVs) it was just about impossible to tell if you were holding it right side up or upside down. The result was you could not tell if you were tapping or dragging on the touch surface at the top or the plastic at the bottom.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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1 hour ago, R C-R said:

I could not agree more, but far too many product designers seem obsessed with how "pretty" they can make a product look, regardless of how much that compromises its functionality.  I blame Apple & particularly Jony Ive for much of this. The Pencil documentation may be the worst, but a close second is the Siri Remote that comes with the 4th gen & 4K Apple TV products:

2028792147_Siriremote.png.a86ee50aa1dbfc79924c52ae436a9f86.png

The original version (which I have) did not even have the white outline around the menu button, which I think they added because the design was almost universally hated by users. The highlight in Apple's glamor shot is not really that dramatic in real life, so in dim light (like how people so often watch big screen TVs) it was just about impossible to tell if you were holding it right side up or upside down. The result was you could not tell if you were tapping or dragging on the touch surface at the top or the plastic at the bottom.

I'm always dumbfounded as to why all TV remotes aren't backlit considering the majority of TV viewing occurs of an evening. I think all TV makers should make an App remote for the apple and android phones, oh and the windows phone owner lol! I mean they tell you to turn lights off to save electric, then sell you automated systems, like echo, hue lights etc that require er! electricity.

 

Makes you wonder if they are trying to bring back Hieroglyphics and maybe call it Iconogyphics, the iconification of the written word.

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12 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I'm always dumbfounded as to why all TV remotes aren't backlit

Battery drain, probably.

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18 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

I'm always dumbfounded as to why all TV remotes aren't backlit ...

My cable TV remote has a backlight function -- it lights up for about 10 seconds each time the backlight button is pressed so it does not run down the battery much. I guess the Siri remote doesn't include that feature because you are supposed to talk to it.

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On 5/29/2018 at 10:34 AM, firstdefence said:

Form should never be a detriment to Function. If Form makes something "less than" it is a failed design. :S

Pure Bauhaus, yup.

On 5/29/2018 at 10:23 AM, R C-R said:

<rant> I hate the trendy low or zero contrast look that seems to be so popular now, not just for electronics but just about everywhere. That includes the tool & button icons in Affinity products that do not show a lot of contrast difference whether enabled/selected vs not, but the absolute worst example I have seen so far is the instruction sheet that comes with an Apple Pencil. Everything is printed with such a light shade of gray that it is almost invisible unless viewed under very bright light.

Almost as bad is the light gray text in many of Apple's online user documents, which makes them almost useless when viewed on a mobile device in bright sunlight. </rant>

Indeed. Back in the day, just a decade ago, the golden years of CSS (now is IMO the golden era of Javascript, IMO, in all what is web, at least) or a bit more, accessibility was super essential. I'm kind of seeing it being less of a priority in some aspects.  That it has been "relaxed" in  certain bits... Let the young engineers reach their 40s, they'll put more love in those contrasts.... ;D 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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To the OP : Deco tablets  -unlike other XP-PEN tablets- are well known for a very unseen feature in the market: they are done in a harder surface (you have many alternatives needing more pressure for registering, but most of them providing with a bad surface, to be scratched easily, like happens with any wacom, except some quite older models glass based,  due to  stronger pressure ) so that the user needs to press more, kind of willing to force a sketching expression more similar to real pencil over paper. This is so noticed with every software, not just Affinity, I have seen several video-reviews....Perhaps is true that a firmer grip might provide a more steady line, less jitter. But from the tests I've made, the issues are in the magnetic technology of every tablet brand out there, and how much more accurate are our hands with regular, traditional pen and paper. So, IMO, is a bit of a nice try, but I don't think this attempt solves the issue. In any case, a very good tablet, kudos for the purchase.

I'd play with both the pressure sensitivity curve of the driver, and also the software apps pressure curves settings. But after that, you might have to press a bit harder than you would do with a Wacom. I'd minimize it as much as you can by software, as I don't fully trust that "specially harder" surfaces in the Deco tablets.   I believe a Deco 03, which is 99 bucks at Amazon, for specs, features, certifications, and other stuff I've checked, seems a great purchase to me... if I had to buy now a non-display tablet, that'd be a Wacom Intuos Large (L), or a Deco 03. Surely not any other option. And in pen-display, probably one of the latest Huion Kanvas pro, or, money allowing, much better, a Dell Canvas. I dislike 16" pen-display (tablets which are monitors) size...If I wouldn't, the most evolved devices now are in that size, and not in 22" yet, for whatever the production or production costs reason.  I couldn't believe it when I saw two devices, one from Artisul and another from XP-PEN, surpassing the 90% support of Adobe RGB color space (OR SO THEY SAY....I'd need to see a real lab test from some serious company, or at least, get my hands on one and calibrate them myself, see how much of that is true)....But only at 16".

My own setup: Just a Wacom Intuos Pro 4, XL size. Works like charm with everything, but I have a two tables desktop config....

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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