surface pen not working in canvas area of photoshop

[Mer Mer]

my pen works everywhere less except in the canvas area, this is NOT the panning problem other people reported as that is all I've seen online.

whenever I put my pen close to the screen, it shows the estimated pen tip location like normal. but it does not draw when I touch the pen to the screen. I can still use the pen to click on the toolbar and sidebar, it just doesn't draw. this does not extend to other programs. OneNote and word drawing functions work properly so it seems to be adobe ended problem.

other than that I don't know how else to describe this problem.

(both system and photoshop/creative cloud are up-to-date)

[JJMack]

The surface Pen will use Windows INK  for pen interface and so will Photoshop  Creative Cloud Photoshop except  Photoshop version 13.1.2 CS6 does not have Windows INK support.   You also need to configure Windows 10 for use with Photoshop.  You should not have a PSUserConfig.txt in your Phoyoshop Preferences folder.    I use a Wacom Tablet  I can configure  the Pen to use WinTab or use INK.  Here is how I configure Windows 10 for Pen support with Photoshop.  You can ignore my Wacom and psuserconfig.txt setting.  Follow the Windows 10 Settings. Again you should moy have a psuserconfig.txt file in your Photshop Preferebces folder.

[Hồng5E61]

can you do the same but for Win11 and without all the wacom settings? Mine has the very same problem but I don't use wacom so they confuse me.

[nuomation]

Thanks JJ That worked! You are a community hero for sure.
I have windows 11 surface laptop studio with slim pen 2 and all I had to do from that impressive guide is change the user pref txt on Photoshop directory. Hopefully in newer versions we will have a checkbox withing the preferences instead of having to tweak outside.

[ENZO DARIO]

Can you be a bit more detailed as to how you got it working again? I am using the same system as you, and the pen used to work, but all of a sudden it stopped

[pony plop]

Thanks JJMack! (For those who use the surface pro 8/7/whatever slim pen (or v2), all they need to do is edit the PSUserConfig.txt inside Users/<name>/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop (yyyy)/Adobe Photoshop (yyyy) Settings.

Change UseSystemStylus 0 to UseSystemStylus 1, save it; et voilà, there it is!

No idea why it suddenly stopped working in the first place, but it's good to know in case something goes awry in the future.

[pony plop]

(And remember to enable 'view hidden files/folders' in the file viewer, otherwise the AppData folder won't be visible by default.

[Sab24573152chg3]

I have a main rig but for mobility I have a Surface pro 4 and this made it so I don't have to carry around my graphics tablet with me everywhere thank you so much JJMack

[Hồng5E61]

i have the very same problem 

[JJMack]

I can not install Windows 11.   

The configuration thing is not a Wacom thing its a Pen interface matter. 

In Windows XP there was only a WinTab  api interface for Pen support.   All version of Photoshop CS6 and Prior only have support to use Pen via WinTab api. 

In some Window release updated after Windows XP Microsoft decided that they would do their own device support for Pen devices and add a Windows system API for Pen support that device manufacturer user applications developers can use for systen native system pen support.  Microsoft's INK API.   This cause Problems. 

Current Application and current Pen devices used WinTab API not INK and when code was added by pen  manufactures and Application developers to support INK the were Performance issued and compatibility issues. Microsoft support work out most of the issues with their INK API  so  in Windows 10 there are two Pen API  that are unable that have some differences.  Performance and user feedback is different between the two interfaces. 

Now  Application and Pen device drivers must configured to  use the same API Interface to be able to work together.    Adobe Creative Cloud version of Photoshop can be configured to use either INK (the default) or WinTab API to work with Pen and Some Pen Devices Drivers like Wacom can also be configured to use INK and WinTab APIs between applications.  This is why I posted  two sets of configuration file and also windows settings that should be used with Photoshop. 

IMO WinTab is the Interface that should be used with  Photoshop For old CS version of photoshop do not have  INK support and WinTab Performance seem better then INK performance.  There is also Windows INK  user feedback that some users find annoying. 

I have no idea what the story is on Mac does Apple support Microsoft INK  or in  Windows 11 is WindTab still available..

[Hồng5E61]

Thanks for the information! Do you know with my adobe photoshop 2022 if I should change the PSUserConfig.txt below to fix the issue?

[iogames5C75]

I have a same problem. although i take an exceoptional effort to deal with this. it is useless. io games