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Adobe CS6 Brush tool DOESN'T WORK with Surface Pro 4. Photoshop works fine. Using latest wintab driver.

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
August 23, 2017
5 replies
13424 views

[Moderator moved from The Lounge to Adobe Animate CC - General.]

I recently purchased a Surface Pro 4. I have installed the latest wintab drivers and surface pro drivers from Microsoft's website. With the wintab drivers installed pressure sensitivity in photoshop works fine.

My problem is that I do animation work in Flash CS6 and Animate CC from time to time and the Brush tool as well as the pencil tool doesn't work with the surface pen. When I press the screen the pen makes a dot and just hangs there until I exit the program or use the touchpad. I am able to draw fine in Flash with an external wacom tablet installed. I am also able to draw directly on the screen with just my finger which leads me to believe it's an issue with the surface pen itself.

I've tried uninstalling the wintab driver and flash still acts the same.

Any help with this would be much appreciated, Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Asymetrical

You're correct it does NOT work with Flash or Animate. I think it's that Flash and Animate were designed for Wacom drivers and Windows is n-trig. I have not found one person yet who can use the Surface Pro with Animate or Flash EXCEPT the original Surface and the Surface Pro 2 because THEY actually ARE Wacom which is why I suspect the n-trig drivers. Sorry it's not the answer you're looking for but if you do a search on these forums you're definitely not alone.

S

sheyc43797218

Participant

I have the exact same problem except I have the surface pro 2. I tried contacting adobe about it but I was just sent to a forum that was entirely unhelpful. Does anyone have a solution?

resulb19516862

Participating Frequently

There is no solution because it just doesnt Support Windows ink and we have make more noise in order to get smthing done. But on Surface pro 2?... They should have wacom feel Driver Support?

DigitalDesignDude

Inspiring

I've stated earlier that the brush tool works with the surface pen, however, I overlooked that I was not able to use pen pressure. Fortunately, after I downloaded and installed Wintab_x64_1.0.0.20.zip from the Microsoft Download Center, the pen pressure was made available on both Animate CC and Flash Professional CS6. However, when I used pen pressure in Flash Professional CS6, it did leave a unwanted dot whenever I started to draw a line.

Download Surface Pro 4 Drivers and Firmware from Official Microsoft Download Center

Animate CC 2017

Adobe Flash Professional CS6

Asymetrical

Inspiring

Wow you got it to WORK!?!?!? That's outstanding and the first time I've EVER heard anyone say pressure worked in Animate. I don't really use CS6 so I don't care much about that really, it's 10 year old software so you can't really expect too much from it but pressure working with a Surface Pro 4?!?!? That's outstanding!

DigitalDesignDude

Inspiring

I recently got a SurfaceBook 2 as well, and I can verify that the above fix works! However, I still get lag at the beginning of every brush stroke.

It always seems to be the first 3-4 cm of every stroke.

The message in the center is supposed to say 'writing is impossible'. some letters that are less than the 3-4 cm range don't even register as a press.

Is this a behavior that you get in flash TheDramaStudent?

I do get similar issues when drawing strokes that are relatively small compared to the screen,. For instance, when I try to write the dot in the letter "i" Animate will not recognize my stylus movement or will interpret it as a press and hold command. Annoyingly, this then makes the right click menu appear instead of drawing a stroke.

Here is a quick video overview I made that goes over this. It also shows how little lag you should normally have. Please excuse my subpar video presentation skills as I am still improving.

Animate CC Surface Book 2 Drawing Impressions - YouTube

My recommendation for any handwriting is to exaggerate your stylus movement or zoom in further on the stage so that your stylus movements cover a greater area. Animate should then recognize your pen strokes better.

Asymetrical

Inspiring

Well earlier versions of Flash work (like CS3) and so does the earlier version of CC but once they changed the name to Animate they started to refine the brush and make it better to draw with and I think that's what caused the incompatibilities. Glad to hear some are getting it to work but can you confirm the Flash that worked was indeed the most recent version of Animate CC 2017?

DigitalDesignDude

Inspiring

Yes I can confirm that. I am currently running Adobe Animate CC 2017.5 on my Surface Pro 4 and it works with the surface pen for the brush and pencil tool. As well, I have a student version of Adobe Flash Professional CS6 also installed on the Surface Pro 4 and the surface pen works with brush and pencil tool too.

DigitalDesignDude

Inspiring

Ever since I bought my surface pro 4 I was able to use the surface pen for drawing in Animate CC, Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC and I still do so daily. I even have a copy of Adobe Flash Pro CS6 and the surface pen works with both the pencil and brush tool as expected. I believe you may have to run updates on your surface pro 4, uninstall and reinstall Animate CC or something else to restore the surface Pro 4's default behaviour. It's not the best answer to the problem but regardless, using the surface pen in Adobe Animate and Flash CS6 is normally possible.

R

RaymondrawsAuthor

Participant

Someone else in my studio is using a Surface Pro (the newest model) and flash CS 3 seems to work on her device. I will try uninstalling and reinstalling flash. I've installed the latest firmware for my surface from Microsoft's site so I'm not sure what else I can do.

I'm skeptical that flash simply does not work with the N-trig pen because Photoshop works fine. There must be some kind of work around or setting I've missed.

Maybe a setting in windows 10 itself regarding pen and touch?? Disabling tablet settings in the registry???

I asked her how she got it to work but she said it literally just worked with flash out of the box.

DigitalDesignDude

Inspiring

Mine worked out of the box too with the surface pen without needing to install drivers or change pen settings. I couldn't say personally what settings to disable but if it's doable I would consider restoring your surface pro to factory defaults or doing a system restore to a point before you installed the drivers. Try to get it to work with the surface pen first before you try to get it to work with the N-trig pen as there is a possibility the styluses can conflict with each other. For these cases I find it's better to restore your computer to the way it was rather than fiddling with settings or installing more drivers/software. This is because the pens are normally meant to work without the extra effort.

Hope that helps. I know how annoying getting styluses to work with Flash can be. I've had my share of problems with getting flash to recognize my Wacom tablet in the past.

AsymetricalCorrect answer

Inspiring

You're correct it does NOT work with Flash or Animate. I think it's that Flash and Animate were designed for Wacom drivers and Windows is n-trig. I have not found one person yet who can use the Surface Pro with Animate or Flash EXCEPT the original Surface and the Surface Pro 2 because THEY actually ARE Wacom which is why I suspect the n-trig drivers. Sorry it's not the answer you're looking for but if you do a search on these forums you're definitely not alone.

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