P: Finger painting/drawing support for touch screen monitors. [2015]

Report · Dec 07, 2015

Whaaaaaat.I'm finding it incredibly hard to believe that every graphics program supports using the brush and pen through touch screens EXCEPT for Photoshop, the Queen of them all. Am I really going to have to draw in GIMP?I'm well aware that touch screens aren't nearly as ideal as graphic tablets but really, GIMP even supports pressure sensitivity and Photoshop doesn't support anything?Please, please incorporate this feature, it should have come standard years ago.

Report · Dec 07, 2015

Finger painting or drawing on the canvas is not currently supported. Hit the Upvote button at the top of the page.

Report · Jan 09, 2017

I have seen multiple, different answers on how to use a touchscreen with Photoshop. I have the lastest version currently installed, CC 2017, I have a dell Windows 10 touchscreen pc, and a wacom drawing pen and tablet.

People have said it is impossible to draw with fingers or a standard stylus. Some say there's a patch for it, and some say there is a way if you have a wacom, which I do. I cannot find an answer ANYWHERE. I'd love an answer, and asap please if possible!

I can use my fingers to hit options, such as Edit, Select, Colors, different tools... And I can use the finger gestures such as zoom and pan. But how do I draw with the brushes, with my finger or a standard stylus? Please help me. I am an artist who would love a touchscreen drawing capability with my favorite program Photoshop.

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Report · Jan 09, 2017

There are only a few finger gestures that work with Photoshop, which can be seen at this link:

Photoshop Touch capabilities and customizable workspaces

You can, like other apps, use fingers to press buttons, menu items, scroll bars, etc. You can't use fingers to paint. Various styli respond differently, some work, some don't. with my Microsoft Surface Pro 3, I have no problem painting with the stylus - is it as good as a Wacom, no, but it works.

Report · Jan 10, 2017

Touch support seems to vary between touch devices. You can paint with some touch devices with you finger if you can use your finger like a mouse. That means you need to be able to use something as a left mouse button you can hold down to flow paint. For example on my Wacom Intuos Pro I can set an express key as a left mouse click button. Selecting Photoshop Brush tool and holding the express click key down I can Paint with my finger. On My Surface Pro 3 I can hold down the touch pad left click and Paint with my finger using the touch pad. I can not paint with the surface Pro 3 Touch Screen with my finger while holding the touch pad left click. I can Paint with my Bluetooth mouse while holding the touch pad left click. The only Finger Paint control I see in Photoshop is in the Smudge tool option bar and it not for using your finger it is for using the foreground color paunt to smudge with. The smudge tool icon is a finger. The only touch screen I have on a PC is the one on my surface pro 3 and it also supports a pen so I can paint with its pen but not with a stylus. I do not know why I can not paint with my finger when the pen is nowhere near the display. IMO I should be able to. I do not how other touch screen drivers work on touch displays that do not have pens support. So I write touch support varies between touch devices.

Touch screen support is really not good for panting there is no finger or brush cursor no good way to position the brush then start paint flow. With a Pen not a stylus there is a brush cursor when the pen is near the screen so you can position the brush then touch the display and paint with the pen with pressure control. There need to be a device to sense where the pen is and when its neat the pen sensing device in the display or tablet. So the surface also has a pen sensing device built into the display. It is not just a touch screen.

JJMack

Report · Apr 18, 2017

I recently bought Photoshop and fund that I could only zoom and rotate using the touchscreen built in to my PC (I have a Lenovo AIO 700 Series) and could only draw with the mouse. I feel this especially odd seeing how During my free trial of Illustrator, I found It had full touchscreen support. I would very much like it for the talented people at Adobe to do the same for Photoshop.

Report · Nov 05, 2017

Just updated to 2018 and found this issue to still not be resolved! this is crazy! I get that Adobe wants to simplify apps UI and I appreciate that, but please add an option in the preferences to control how touch input is interpreted.

I am using a Dell XPS 13 and find it frustrating that I cannot use my finger to rough in masks, etc.

These features would be equally helpful in various other apps (lightroom, after effects, etc.)

Please include in the next update!

Report · Nov 11, 2017

I have a Lenovo Yoga Laptop with Windows 10. When I touch with my fingers anywhere in photoshop it works except the canvas, meaning I can't draw anything. Is there a solution to this?

for clarity I have a wacom tablet but I do not currently have it on me and I need to do a piece of artwork last minute, and it's very frustrating using the touchpad. I don't see why my touchscreen isn't compatible with photoshop, do I need some sort of stylus or something?

Report · Nov 11, 2017

If you mean you can not finger paint with your touch screen that is correct. Photoshop supports touch gestures not finger painting. You should be able to paint with a mouse or touch pad which have a left click button your finger lacks. Your Wacom will also work.

Multi touch and single finger touch gestures though should work on canvas. Rotate,zoom. pan scroll etc should work.

Photoshop Touch capabilities and customizable workspaces

JJMack

Report · Nov 12, 2017

yes I used that, seems very ridiculous to me that adobe doesnt support touch screen ”painting” with a stylus or something when paint tool SAI supports it just fine. Thanks for answering

Report · Jan 02, 2018

Hey y'all

I've just bought a Surface Book 2, which has a touch screen. I've seen that for example Illustrator and InDesign have a very own touch workspace, while Photoshop CC 2018 (almost) doesn't support touch at all. Sure, I can zoom, click on tools and stuff, but shouldn't I be able to just draw with my finger? I don't have a pen, a stylus or whatever you want to call it. I'd just like to draw with my finger.

Is there any way how I can achieve this?

Thanks.

Sandro

Report · Jan 02, 2018

Photoshop does not support Touch. It has supports for graphic tablets pens with wintab device drivers. It has support for mice and keyboards. No where do I see touch support documented in Photoshop manual. Here is a link to Photoshop manual search it for touch, http://helpx.adobe.com/pdf/photoshop_reference.pdf The closest thing I found to touch support is the following:

Use the Rotate View tool

You use the Rotate View tool to rotate the canvas non-destructively; it does not transform the image. Rotating the canvas can be useful for any

number of reasons, including facilitating easier painting or drawing. (OpenGL is required.)

You can also use rotate gestures on MacBook computers with multi-touch trackpads.

1. In the toolbox, select the Rotate View tool . (If the tool isn’t visible, hold down the Hand tool.)

2. Do any of the following:

Drag in the image. A compass will indicate north in the image, regardless of the current canvas angle.

In the options bar, enter degrees in the Rotation Angle field. Click or drag the circular Set Angle of Rotation control.

3. To restore the canvas to the original angle, click Reset View.

For a video on the Rotate View tool and other workspace tips, see www.adobe.com/go/lrvid4001_ps. (Discussion of the Rotate View tool begins at the 5:10 mark.)

Disable trackpad gestures (Mac OS)

If you have a MacBook computer with a multi-touch trackpad, you can use the trackpad to flick, rotate, or zoom images. This functionality can

greatly increase your efficiency, but you can disable it if inadvertent changes occur.

1. Choose Photoshop > Preferences > Interface (Mac OS).

2. In the General section, deselect Enable Gestures

My Wacom Intuos 5 Touch device driver has some touch support for some Photoshop features. I do not try to finger paint I use the Wacom pen for that. I also do not get the strange finger paint in Photoshop when I use my finger to move the mouse cursor with the Wacom Intuos 5 touch support. Starting outside an image window or inside one,

However if I add two finger support add tap to click I can finger paint and also use other tools. However I'm not into finger paint so I do not configure Touch support that way for Photoshop.

Report · Jan 02, 2018

Okay, that's a bummer... Thanks anyway for your answer!

Report · Jan 17, 2018

Just got a lenovo yoga, how can this basic feature not be supported in photoshop?

Report · Feb 01, 2018

same!! can't believe it's not supported...sad

Report · Feb 04, 2018

Is it, really ?? I always thought (when using and demonstrating Photoshop on the MS Surface Studio) that it was just a matter of a setting, which I needed to look-up and set correctly. (The Studio units I present on are always out-of-the-box, and I have not much time to get them up-and-running.) So as I finally took the time to look it up how to edit some images on a Surface Pro by touching, I end up in this thread and read the hilarious news that finger-painting is not supported !
(BTW using the interface with your fingers does work.)

And since the Photoshop Fix, Mix, and Sketch apps are not yet available for Windows, maybe the only tool to doodle in a Photoshop environment, is to download Photoshop Elements. This application is not for free but costs € 60 to 90, so I'm not going to download and test it. (The old Photoshop Express app is only capable of doing some color and lighting corrections.)

Either Adobe is just dragging their feet here, or Microsoft has told them to cut the new MS Paint some slack. The next update will tell...

Report · Mar 02, 2018

Hi, May I ask if a stylus (Lenovo Active Pen) will work or not on a yoga 520?
I am just about to purchase the laptop, but the only reason to buy touch screen is to use the screen with stylus for PS.

Thanks!

Report · Mar 19, 2018

I'm a little disappointed in learning this, but makes sense. touch screen wasn't even on of the features I was looking for in buying mine;Just an added plus.

Report · May 07, 2018

The paint brush feature works with touchscreen in photoshop elements 2018.
Why not in CC?

Report · Jul 06, 2018

I'm not sure why this is listed as "Answered" at the moment. All we are being told (in multiple threads where users have been crowing about this for ages) is that "it doesn't work"

Users are asking why it doesn't work. I have yet to see an explanation yet for this.

Report · Jul 06, 2018

Photoshop is working as designed. Touch screen gestures are supported in Photoshop. Touch screen Finger Painting is not support for Photoshop Brush devices need to have buttons like left and right click and Click and hold. Like Track Pads and Wacom Tablets with touch. You can finger paint in Photoshop using those touch devices. Touch Screen support does not provide button support. Stylus and fingers also do not have buttons. You can not position the Paint Brush Cursor with your finger mover it to where you want to paint then click to start painting. Like you can with a digital pen and touch devices with buttons.

This has been posted many times.....

JJMack

Report · Jul 23, 2018

Came here from trying to use my portable copy of Adobe Photoshop CS6 on a Windows 10 all in one touch screen computer at the NSW library. I can't believe how mad this is that the most complex and expensive image software of them all (photoshop) can not support finger painting. Just wondering when those at adobe will get their heads out of the sand, and realise it is 2018? This is nothing short of absurdly ignorant and tardy on adobe's behalf.

Report · Aug 07, 2018

so stupid.

earlier versions of PS was able to work with touchscreen, then they disable it.

Why?

Report · Aug 21, 2018

Well, before looking all this up, I guess I naively assumed that THE photo editing and drawing program would work with a touch-screen monitor... So I did a lot of research, dropped a few hundred dollars on an "Acer T232HL" - 10-point multi-touch, and one of the most responsive touch-screen monitors available - and an "Adonit Pro 3" stylus for precision drawing. My new toys arrived via FedEx, and worked great!

Fast forward to installing Photoshop CC 2018, and at first everything works fine. The program runs like it's supposed to, the monitor responds to the stylus just like my fingers, the program responds to touch input just like mouse input... Until I tried drawing. *Press+drag* ... Nothing ... *Double-tap+drag* ... Nothing ... *Long-press* ... Displays a non-functioning square area under the stylus ... *Long-press+drag" ... Displays the paint brush selection tool ... Retry everything about half a dozen times ... Still no progress ...

I tried finding something in the settings that would change the way PS responded to touch input, but found nothing. I searched through the support forums and countless other threads by others experiencing similar issues, and still found no answers.

Then... I contacted support by chat...

The support rep I chatted with seemed relatively knowledgeable about computers, peripherals, drivers, and program interaction... but I spent the entire session reiterating the same points over and over again. Yes, my drivers are all updated. My stylus is completely manual, it has no drivers. No, it doesn't work now, you disabled the touch monitor when you disabled my GTX driver. Yes, the mouse can draw on the layer, no that wasn't the problem. No, the touch input still won't draw.

Towards the end, the rep adjusted 3 minor settings in PS (that had nothing to do with my issue) and asked for the umpteenth time, "Does it work now?" No, it still doesn't work. I can see this session isn't going to resolve my issue. Can you please escalate my concern to a senior member of the support team and have them get back to me?

The rep ignored my request for escalation and continued fiddling with pointless unrelated settings. I asked again to escalate the issue and had to go through a few more pointless steps (a debug log for Adobe?? It's a fresh installation!) before providing my phone number a second time. I was assured that "when they find the problem" they'll call me.

Ha.

If I get a call, I'll be surprised. If they have a legitimate solution to my problem, I'll die of a heart attack.

Come on Adobe, get your heads out of your asses and just give us an extra settings tab so we can change how PS responds to touch. I want it to act like a mouse click. Others want pressure sensitivity. Few (if any) want a stylus to not have any drawing capability in a drawing program, but feel free to leave that as an option.

Also, Adobe, how about some support staff who actually pay attention to what your customers are saying. That was the most ridiculous hour (or more) I've spent in a while.

Report · Aug 21, 2018

Acer T232 - a $500 monitor plugged into a $1000+ gaming laptop - and a total waste of money since PS CC 2018 is the whole reason I bought the monitor

Report · Aug 22, 2018

Hi Chelsea, according to the Adonit site, they only support drawing into Photoshop on the desktop from Astopad with their device. http://www.adonit.net/jot-ready-apps/

From another thread: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/adobe-photoshop-cc-not-registering-touch-on-t...

"I'm a user-interface engineer on Photoshop and have worked on our touch and stylus code. Your laptop, like the Apple iPad, responds to capacitive touch but does not have a separate digitizer for stylus input. The Adonit Jot Pro stylus works with your computer by essentially providing a very accurate means of "touching" the screen. Unfortunately, Photoshop does not respond to single-point touch input on the document canvas. In our product we have focused on discrete stylus input devices whose input is delivered independently from touch. That is why "finger-painting" does not work in Photoshop. Single-finger touch is recognized elsewhere in the Photoshop user interface and that is why you can select tools and change settings with the Jot."

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like your Acer supports discrete stylus input the way a Surface and other Windows devices.