tablet + pen pressure + illustrator CS5 issue

[Todditron]

Hello all,

   I just installed Illustrator CS5 and I can't get the brushes to recognize pen pressure from my graphics tablet (intuos3).

I have tried all the combos of brushes, strokes, etc.  It looks like all the 6D options (bearing, tilt, pressure) are greyed out. Thus, the ap doesn't recognize when I am using my pen.

Oddly, the pen works great in Photoshop CS5.

I am working on Windows 7.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

_Todd

[Larry G. Schneider]

Calligraphy brushes only.

[Monika Gause]

I can get my Intuos 3 to work with art brushes and pattern brushes as well.

see here: http://www.vektorgarten.de/img/tut/intuos-art-pattern-brush.png

[Todditron]

Tried caligraphy brushes.  The 6D options are all locked and un-editable.

Same computer, same pen, photoshop CS5 works just fine ...

[Cedworth]

I have an intuos 4 and pressure works just fine.  Maybe look into driver updates, other than that I don't know.  If you have the current driver, try reinstalling it anyway.  I have to do that at least once every few weeks because something goes squirrely on my system.

Also Larry, with CS5 you can use pressure on brushes other than caligraphic.  It is fantastic.

[Todditron]

Thanks for the advice.  I re-installed the drivers, but still getting the same thing.  Pen works in Photoshop, but not Illustrator.

I guess we will see if this is just an anomaly with my setup or if others have this issue.

[Monika Gause]

Re-installing the driver doesn't fix some problems with preferences and other things the Wacom driver establishes on your system. I had trouble  with that some months ago. If you contact Wacom, they can give you advice how to delete anything that belongs to the driver and re-install from scratch. Maybe they have posted that information somewhere on their website as well, but I didn't have the time to search for it.

[Todditron]

Thanks for the advice.  I will look into the situation from that perspective.

_T

[IndianapolisWebDesign]

I am having the same issue with my Monoprice Professional Tablet.  (yes, I am a cheapskate)  I have tried downloading drivers, restarting, and everything else I can think of, but all of the pressure settings for the calligraphy brushes remain greyed out.  Can anyone help?

[_scott_]

Many other brands aren't tested to work with anything other than Photoshop. And often, even with Photoshop the other brands won't allow all the dynamics.

If it's not a Wacom, you should contact the manufacturer to ensure your tablet is designed to work with Illustrator.

That being posted, there's no reason an Intuos 3 shouldn't work. I used one for years. You should be getting dynamics for all the brushes in AI. If not, try trashing your AI preferences/settings.

[ArtimeArts]

I have the same issues with my Intuos Pro

[KokoBlue]

I'm having the same problem!  This is annoying the hell out of me tonight!  What will fix this???

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

you do not have any settings for variations in the brush options so hence there is novariations occuring.

sethe brush options properly and it will work the way you would like it to as long as you have the right settings

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

Sorry I was reading fro my Android and did not read the screen shot well I see it is not available and then you have to rash the settings folder first quitting Illustrator uninstalling the driver and then trashing the settings folder and then reinstalling the drivers then restart the computer and then launching Illustrator.

[lhwohl]

I didn't quite understand what you wrote — looks like a text with all the usual typos, etc. Can you clarify? What settings folder? Where? I am having this same problem (thanks Adobe, yet again, for buggy software!) and don't have time for a non-fix.

[ehmahh12]

Hello all.
I seem to be having the exact same problem! i cant use the pressure option on illustrator, i cant seem to get it to work on photoshop either. 
I use mac, cs5 and bamboo fun & pen. Did anyone find a solution to the problem?

[Francis92104]

I'm with Todditron and the others with lack of pressure problem.

I'm on a Mac running OSX 10.6.6, with a Wacom Graphire4.

Pressure works in Photoshop CS5. In illustrator, pen works-making lines and scribbles as directed, but no variation with increased/decreased pressure. In the Brushes panel, I can double click on selected brush, opening an Art Brush Options window, and change width, roundness, etc from "fixed" to "pressure," but those qualities remain fixed, regardless of my pressure.

Wrote to and heard back from Wacom Help Desk. Followed their instructions..

"I would recommend removing your current driver by opening your Applications folder and double clicking on the Remove Wacom tablet icon or the Wacom tablet utility icon found in the Wacom tablet folder there.  Inside that removal utility you’ll want to click on the remove tablet software button and then enter your password to remove your current driver.  Once the driver has been removed you’ll then want to repair your disk permissions before installing the latest.  To do this if you open your Utilities folder at the bottom of your Applications folder, in there will be an icon for Disk Utility that you’ll want to double click on.  In the Disk Utility you’ll then want to select your Macintosh HD on the left hand side and then click the repair disk permissions button towards the bottom.  Once the permissions repair is complete you can then download and install the latest driver for your tablet from our website."

to no avail. Tried the process again, restarting the computer after repairing Disk Permissions and reinstalling newest tablet driver. No go.

Wrote Wacom Help Desk again. Will follow up here once I hear back.

-F

[Francis92104 · Accepted solution]

Got it!

At least I think I got it working on my iMac running OSX 10.6.6.

I heard back from Greg, a Sr. Customer Care Technician@ Wacom and carefully followed his directions (I'm paraphrasing)..

• Go to APPS > Bamboo folder (may be Wacom on your machine) > Bamboo Utility
  
• Click REMOVE button under the Tablet Software
• Restart computer
• Download and reinstall latest driver from Wacom
• Restart computer
• Go to Illustrator and get busy with the brushes
  

It may have worked earlier (see previous post), but I might not have noticed Illustrator reading pressure variances from the Wacom until I adjusted a specific brush's pressure settings enough.

For example, when I set the Pencil brush width from FIXED to PRESSURE 150%, I didn't notice the change. When I changed PRESSURE to 300% I did notice. Similar situation with other brushes' diameter settings.

Hope this can help someone out.

-F

[sirsnuggles]

Wow I was having the same problem with the pen pressure and I figured it all out on my own by accident by just clicking on a new tab in the brush tool bar on the top.  Its Very Very Silly that adobe had no idea what the probelem was.  I feel bad for Wacom having to deal with this.  It has nothing to do with your driver, just this tab that overides your tablet. 

[_scott_]

This is the Illustrator forum, that's a Photoshop screen shot.

[ryan_lockhart]

I was like, wait, this option is in Illustrator?

[PaperFlower]

Thank you for posting this screenshot! I can't believe something so small could cause so much trouble!!

[123Wacom]

I tried the solution posted by @Francis92104 and I did EXACTLY as it says:

• Go to APPS > Bamboo folder (may be Wacom on your machine) > Bamboo Utility
• Click REMOVE button under the Tablet Software
• Restart computer
• Download and reinstall latest driver from Wacom
• Restart computer
• Go to Illustrator and get busy with the brushes

I'm working on a Mac OSX 10.8.2 using a Wacom Intuos4 wireless tablet and Illustrator CS6. I have the same problem described above - Pen Pressure works fine in Photoshop, however Illustrator doesn't even give me the option to select pressure when I go into brush options. It's greyed out. Same thing when I try to create a new calligraphic brush, pressure, stylus, tilt, bearing, and rotation are not available selections.

I have the installed the latest Wacom driver, and my mac OSX environment is all up-to-date. Has anyone figured this out?

Update: I also just deleted my illustrator preferences, and still have no luck.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

[VeryFirstDenis]

Okay - none of the above tips unfortunately worked for me (Mountain Lion, Bamboo Touch and Adobe Illustrator CS6). I googled myself silly, and this problem has been known for seemingly countless versions. Most suggest something along the lines above.

However, looking at a Youtube video, which also did not solve the problem, I found this comment:

Juan Coleman

On Mac OSX Lion. Still no pressure sensitivity for the brushes in Illustrator ONLY! Greyed out and un-adjustable.

Found a work around...

Go to BRUSHES PANEL, look for the tiny dropdown menu in the top right hand corner of the pane, click this and OPEN BRUSH LIBRARY. Find WACOM 6D Brushes, select this, a brush panel shows up with these brushes. DOUBLE CLICK one to take it into the BRUSH PANEL, double click it here again... When editing the WACOM 6 D brush you will now have pressure sensitivity

It works!!!

All thanks to Mr Coleman - unfortunately, the other brushes still don't work, but at least we have something. I hope it works for you guys too!

(I thought I repost it here, so hopefully people in the same boat will find it.)

Message was edited by: VeryFirstDenis to remove some weird formatting...

[Guest]

VeryFirstDenis thank you for your post so much. It works!

then I discovered, that if you double click on brush (dont have to be wacom 6D) in BRUSHES PANEL, you can set a "pressure" (default is "fixed")on the roll panel next to "Size" (Also you have to set the "Variation" panel to more than 0). After that work pressure for every brush. This work on Adobe Illustrator CS6.