Wacom brush issue: pen pressure with buildup (Wacom/MacOS Catalina/Photoshop 2020)

[DMNKHRMN]

Hi! I have issues with brush losing pen pressure when starting to draw. My setup is MacBook Pro 16 with latest Catalina OS, Wacom Intuos Pro M (2017 release) with latest drivers. Important brush settings are: transfer set to pen pressure for both opacity and flow, opacity set to 100%, flow set to 10%, buildup is on.

When I draw a line with very soft touch of pen tip to tablet surface, first brush stroke registered by Photoshop is like I was applying full pressure to pen tip, then it starts to register proper (minimal) pressure - until I raise pen from tablet surface. Then on next draw, issue starts again.

Checked Wacom diagnose tool and it seems that driver reads proper pressure from pen tip. Setting "Tip Double Click Distance" in Wacom panel to off doesn't help. Tried to play with smoothing settings in Photoshop, but that doesn't help too. The only think that helps is to turn off buildup settings in brush panel, but it really messes my workflow as I am not able to use flow settings efficiently any more.

It happens in every version of Photoshop CC2020 since release 21.1.x and now in 21.2 too! So basically the last usable version of Photoshop for me is 21.0.3. I was hoping that latest release of 21.2 would solve this issue, but it doesn't, so I have to revert back to 21.0.3 again!

The issue seems to be reported by other users aswell and I was thinking that it had more to do with Wacom drivers (which were mess in Catalina until latest April release), but now I am almost certain that this is Photoshop related only.

I hope Photoshop dev team would hear this and resolve it very soon. Thanks!

{Thread title edited by moderator}

[nikunj.m]

Hi there,

We're sorry about the trouble due to the pen pressure issue while working with your Wacom tablet in Photoshop. Have you tried to uninstall the Wacom drivers completely and re-install them to check if that helps?

You can try the steps suggested here: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/tablet-support-faq-photoshop.html

Let us know how it goes!

Regards,

Nikunj

[DMNKHRMN]

Hi! 

I am using latest Wacom driver for MacOS Catalina which was clean installed. Changing Wacom drivers doesn't help - tried that before. Since Wacom diagnose tool report that pen pressure is working fine (pressure applied to tip seem to be on par with numeric reading in diagnose tool), my conclusion is that every version of Photoshop since 21.1.x have problems intepreting pen pressure readings from tablet. As mentioned, turning buildup setting off resolves issue with first draw point to be 100% pressured, however it messes my workflow as I need brush flow control to retouch things efficiently. Reverted to PS 21.0.3 again, no other changes in my system, and pen pressure works well again.

[PECourtejoie · Accepted solution]

Hello, please update to 21.2.1, and report here it it helped: brush issues involving buildup are listed as part of the fixes addressed: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/fixed-issues.html#photoshop-desktop-fixed-issues