Wacom Express Key Remote- Touch Ring Rotate & Zoom Not working in Photoshop

[Brett613]

Model: Cintiq 27QHD

Wacom Driver: 6.4.0-9 (current)

Photoshop: 24.1.0 (Latest)

Apple M1 Max Mac Studio 

MacOS 13.1 Ventura

After upgrading my computer (from a 2013 iMac running OSX 10.13.6 with Wacom driver 6.3.44-2) to the current setup listed above my Express Key Remote is not fully working. Specifically two the touch ring settings for Zoom and Rotate. Everything was set up exactly the same on my old system and working flawlessly.

All of the other buttons on the remote are working as sett up, including the center touch ring setting for brush size, but the settings for zoom and rotate no longer function at all.

I don’t know if this is a Wacom related issue or Photoshop but I’m hoping there is a simple fix for this, or a setting in Photoshop that I have missed. I use both of these features extensively in my work on a daily basis and really need to getting this working. 

Does anyone here have any insight as to how I might resolve this?

Grateful for any help offered.

Brett B. 

[CShubert]

Hi @Brett613 sorry you are having issues.  Have you done a clean wipe of all Wacom software, made sure you had the latest for Mac OS and then installed?  Others have mentioned this as an issue.

Have you checked with WACOM to see if there are known issues with their driver and the M1 Macs/OS?

Let's make sure we're in a default state and there are no stale settings somewhere: 

Restore your preferences using this manual method:  

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html#Manually  

Does it work correctly? 

If that doesn't solve it, you can quit Photoshop and put the Settings folder back. 

It may help if we could see your Photoshop System Info. Launch Photoshop, and select Help >System Info...and copy/paste the text in a reply.  

Thank you,

Cory

[Brett613]

Hi Cory and thanks for taking the time to respond. Yes, I did wipe all the Wacom software then reinstalled the current driver. Issue continued.

I reached out to Wacom and spoke with a seemingly knowledgeable gentleman who had me uninstall the software again, along with a couple of manual deletions, and once again reinstall the current driver. Issue still persisted in Photoshop so he had me try another app. I opened Illustrator and the zoom and rotate functions both worked correctly. Back to Photoshop and still not working there. He was about to walk me through another step and we were disconnected, he did not call me back. 

I just tried your suggestion and removed the PS prefs from my user library. Upon restarting Photoshop the zoom and rotate were again working - Yay! Briefly anyway. I moved just the three toolbar preset and customization prefs and the custom workspace pref I previously created into the new PS Prefs library folder and relaunched PS. The zoom and rotate were still working.

I then manually reset all of my PS settings and Color settings to my custom selections and discovered that both the zoom and rotate functions were again not working. It appears something I selected/changed in the settings is preventing those two functions from working.

In the morning I will try resetting everything again and then check after each selection I make in settings to see if/when the zoom and rotate functions cut out on me again.

I tried pasting below the PS system info you suggested but got an error message stating there was a problem with HTML coding found and to fix the issue. I’m not sure what that means so I copied the info into an rtf file and attached that here. The info is quite long but maybe you will see something there that gives you a clue. I’m stumped.

Best

Brett B.

[Brett613 · Accepted solution]

I may have found the solution. This morning I removed my Photoshop Settings preference file and again started fresh. I began replacing my toolbar preferences and then manually entering my PS settings one at a time, restarting PS after each change. I discovered two (2) settings that created the problem:

• The first is in the “Interface” settings. Under “Presentation” when you check the box for “Scale UI To Font” the zoom and rotate no longer work on the  Express Key Remote touch ring. Unchecking the box returns the function to normal.

• The second is in the “Tools” settings. If you Uncheck the “Enable Gestures” the zoom and rotate once again stop no working. Checking the box restores the zoom and rotate functions.

I believe that I now have Photoshop set up the way I’ve always used it on my previous system and everything appears to be working as expected. If anything changes and this issue pops up again I will report back here. 

Brett B.

[Reginald28088354xkhx]

Thank you for sharing what you found.

I'm experiencing the same issue of the EK Remote Touch Ring not working in Photoshop (but working in other applications, like a web browser.) Unfortunately the settings you mention in PS: Gestures is enabled and Scale UI To Font is unchecked- so it doesn't seem to be related that that. Any other suggestions of what might be disabling the touch ring? 

Thanks in advance!

-Reg 

MacBook Pro M2 Max

Wacom DTH-3220

Photoshop 25.2.0 (2024)

Wacom Driver 6.4.4-5