Problems with your Wacom tablet and Photoshop? Check these settings

Kareem Anderson

If you’re an artist looking down at your Wacom tablet and scratching your head as you try work with Windows today, take comfort in knowing you’re not crazy and you’re not alone.

According to quite a few artists using the Windows 10 platform, a series of unfortunate events has led to a frustrating work day for many as the latest Windows 10 Update has stopped Wacom tablets from working with the Adobe Photoshop software.

https://twitter.com/tj_ryan90/status/984431655820591111

On its face, that’s a pretty damning look for Microsoft, as the company continues to court creatives with subsequent ‘Creator’s Update’ of the same name. However, the egg (broken pen support) in this case appears to be on Adobe’s face, at least in part.

A community of proactive artists on Twitter have gotten to the bottom of the issue and have come up with several workarounds for those suffering from broken Pen support after the update. In their back and forth, the artists discovered that a specific add-on by the name of Lazy Nezumi explains the default nature of enabling Windows Ink by Photoshop in the developer’s FAQ section on its website.

As for the workarounds, there are a couple that have surfaced as viable solutions. The first solution is relatively straightforward where users can go to their Wacom settings and uncheck Windows Ink as the default mapping set up. The second is a bit more complicated but allows a user to keep their pressure sensitivity settings intact, and it requires an adjustment to the PSUserConfig.txt file. Using the string below, most people were able to fix the problem:

# Revert to WinTab
# This should be saved in your PS settings folder
# ie. C:\Users\[User Name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2014\Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 Settings\
#
UseSystemStylus 0

The last fix is similar to the second and developers of Lazy Nezumi Pro recommend:

https://twitter.com/LazyNezumiPro/status/984262854017662976

(Update): Apparently some users are having problems even if they’re not using a Wacom tablet.. One Twitter user found a workaround that has helped:

If all else fails, there is hope that when Microsoft finally pushes out Redstone 4 officially, sometime next week, bugs and settings errors such as these are fixed.

If you have been experiencing these sorts of pen-enabled issues or have found solutions, please share in the comments for others.