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dennisd62965911
Participant
March 11, 2021
Question

Pop up when using Photoshop with a Wacom tablet

  • March 11, 2021
  • 1 reply
  • 730 views

For a Dutch television show, we are using the Wacom Cintiq 16 tablet together with Photoshop, so our guests can illustrate a graphic of draw on a photo. Most of the times this works properly together with the Wacom Pen. But sometimes there is a pop up saying: Can't use the move tool because the layer is locked. Does anyone know how this happens and how to make it stop? It only happens when one of our guests use it. I have tried to trigger the pop up many times but it did not show up. We don't want that pop up during our TV show ofcourse 😉

(Attached file is in Dutch)

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1 reply

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d0nut247
Inspiring
March 14, 2021

ok so im guessing you are giving them the tablet, and choosing them a paint brush and picking a colour etc, and then hoping they can just draw away on top of an image you previsouly opened....

the message is basically popping up because the user is triggering the selection of the 'move' tool (which will swap away from the brush tool you probably want them to have) and photoshop thinks you want to 'move' something instead of draw.

The move tool is then selected and them clicking or pressing is telling photoshop you want to move whatever they are clickgin on (i guess the photo underneath) so the layer that is on is preusmably the 1st / background layer which is always 'locked' by default - hence the 'layer is locked' message.

 

so you need to do 1 of a few things..

presuming you dont actually want the user to 'move' something on the design on screen then you need to ascertain why the move tool is being selected. most likely this is due to a button on the wacom pen, or the tip itself being assigned to 'move' or to 'select' or to a keystroke shortcut that executes the command to select the 'move tool'. the 'v' key selects teh move tool normally

so go to wacom prefernces for your tablet and pen and turn off the 'buttons' on the side of the pen, and disable all the buttons on the tablet so no accidentaly taps occur. disable any slider bars, touch wheels, or 'touch'  gestures etc that it may support too if you only want them to have a dumb paintbrush they cant mess up with.

 

If it turns out that you actuallt DO want them to use the move tool i.e. to move an existing drawn element around on the design, then you need to ensure that a layer other than background is selected, this needs to be the layer you want to move things around on. they would still need to be careful that they dont click anywhere other than the contents of that layer though, as clciking somewhere else would both select another layer and try to move it. unlocking the background layer could help with this, but i'm guessing this isn't what you want anyway so wont go further with these options.

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dennisd62965911Author
Participant
March 17, 2021

Hi, thanks for the reply. Our guests are just doing a dumb paintbrush with the pencil so we dont want them to be able to move any object. All the buttons on the Wacom Pen are locked on Undo so when one of our guests makes a mistake, he can Undo it himself. The tablet itself has no physical buttons except the on/off and the tablet does not respond to fingers on the touchscreen. 

 

It does indeed feel like our guest triggers the move tool, but we cant figure out how. When a pencil is used, you see the circle on the screen and somehow it sometimes jumps to the cursor and thats the point where it switches. This is after a short pause but sometimes while drawing.

 

I will give your answers a shot, but most things are stuff I already tried, thanks anyway!

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d0nut247
Inspiring
March 17, 2021

Ok given that you are a TV show and presumably have some budget, is it worth just buying an ipad Pro, and a copy of procreate? you're only looking at about £700 for a large ipad pro and a pencil once you claim the VAT back. your only worry then is to keep them charged up, and turn off notifications. 

 

 

 

 

 

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