Knowing how to use a graphic tablet with Photoshop is essential for every digital artist. While you need a graphics tablet for Photoshop to unlock its pressure-sensitive features, knowing how to set it up and configure hotkeys, pen buttons, and brush settings is what finally allows to get the most out of your creative experience as you use the drawing tablet in Photoshop.
If you’re the lucky owner of a graphics tablet and you’re using Photoshop to create your digital art, then it’s important to have your settings on point to get the most out of your drawing experience!
Most graphic tablets are plug & play and work right out of the box. However, there are still some basic essentials to customize that you shouldn’t skip. These include the settings for pen pressure, brush properties, on-tablet keys, and pen side switches.
However, if you’re new to digital art, you might not only wonder how to use a graphic tablet with Photoshop, but whether you actually need a tablet at all. So let’s figure out first what a graphics tablet can do what a mouse or trackpad can’t!
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Do I need a graphics tablet for Photoshop?
If you’ve so far been using a mouse, trackpad and keyboard shortcuts to create your digital art, then consider getting a graphic tablet for beginners. The basic tablets are quite inexpensive, but they open up so many more possibilities for you when editing in Photoshop!
Graphic tablets offer you a tremendous amount of control and precision, and give you the most natural drawing experience possible.
What matters most is that you work with a digital pen, which you hold in your hand just like a real pencil. This makes drawing much more accurate, because you’re not using wrist movements anymore to control the strokes as you would with a mouse. What’s more, it also speeds up your workflow a lot and helps you get more natural results.
But that’s not yet all: there are a number of pressure-sensitive tools in Photoshop that are only accessible with a pressure-sensitive pen and tablet!
Most of these settings require some sort of customization. Actually, the number of customization options are the big difference between basic graphic tablets, such as the regular Wacom Intuos or the One by Wacom, and higher-end models.
Professional tablets, such as the Wacom Intuos Pro Small or Medium, let you customize to a higher degree.
The One by Wacom is a basic entry-level tablet with 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity. (Image Credit: Wacom)
How do I connect my graphics tablet to Photoshop?
Setting up the drivers
The first thing you should do with your graphic tablet is make sure that it’s set up properly.
First off, check for any previously installed tablet drivers and uninstall any drivers that you don’t need any more. Unused drivers can easily lead to driver conflicts with your new tablet.
After uninstalling any previous drivers, make sure to restart your computer.
Instead of using the drivers that come with the tablet, it’s a good idea to always download the latest software from the company’s official website. Depending on the tablet you get (for example, used or refurbished), the supplied drivers might be outdated.
Once the software is installed, go through all the options and set up everything to your personal preferences. Skipping this step can result in you missing out on a lot of features.
Your preferences may change over time. If you find that something isn’t working for you anymore, go back to the settings and see if any changes can help you solve the issue.
How do I use a drawing tablet in Photoshop?
Configuring the on-tablet hotkey buttons
Many graphic tablets have built-in hotkey buttons that you can program to any function of your choosing. Some of the more basic tablets might have fewer buttons, while the high-end models have more buttons, and perhaps an additional touch ring.
The way you program the hotkey buttons depends on how you use the graphic tablet with Photoshop. What actions do you use the most in your normal workflow? Which shortcuts do you access the most frequently on your computer keyboard?
Set up the buttons in a way that make it easier for you to access your most used actions and shortcuts. Frequently used functions are zooming in and out, rotating that canvas, saving and undo.
Six customizable ExpressKeys and a Touch Ring on the Wacom Intuos Small. (Image Credit: Wacom)
Customizing the pen switches
Most styluses will have two side switches that you can customize just like the hotkeys on your tablet.
When you use a graphic tablet with Photoshop, it usually involves a lot of brush work, which doesn’t always turn out perfect at the first go. That’s why setting one of the pen switches to Undo can be a good idea. With the second button, you can, for example, change brush size, opacity, or hardness.
That way, you have your most used functions right at your fingertips, and you can keep your workflow going without having to reach over to your keyboard or going into Photoshop settings.
The Pro Pen 2 with two side switches supplied with the Wacom Intuos Pro Small. (Image Credit: Wacom)
Enabling pressure sensitivity settings
As mentioned at the beginning, when you start using a graphic tablet with Photoshop, you unlock some of the features that were previously inaccessible to you.
The most important feature is pen pressure sensitivity. By turning on the pressure sensitivity settings, you gain control over the pressure you apply to your brush strokes on the tablet. Pressure sensitivity settings are a bit of a snag even for those artists who otherwise know pretty well how to use a graphic tablet with Photoshop.
And btw, not only brushes are pressure-sensitive in Photoshop, but also tools like the Dodge and Burn tool!
Pressure sensitivity settings for opacity
For instance, if you have ‘Always use Pressure for Opacity’ enabled, the opacity will change depending on how hard you press down the tip of the pen.
Let’s look at an example: when using a hard round brush without having the pen pressure opacity settings enabled, your brush stroke will look like this:
Then, when you enable the pressure opacity option by clicking on the little icon next to the Opacity slider in the top bar, your brush stroke will look like in the second image below.
The edges of the stroke have become more opaque, and when you take a look at the Brush Panel, you’ll see that Pen Pressure has been enabled for Opacity Jitter in the Transfer tab.
Pressure sensitivity settings for size
Similarly, you can enable the ‘Always use Pressure for Size’ button at the top right of Flow (the icon directly next to Flow activates the airbrush settings).
Enabling the pressure size setting will automatically enable Pen Pressure Control for Size Jitter in the Shape Dynamics tab of your Brush Panel.
When you now look at the hard brush, you’ll see that the stroke is not only more opaque at the edges but also thinner.
You now have the greatest control possible over your brush strokes: light pressure will result in a thinner line with lower opacity. Increasing the pen pressure, on the other, will lead to a thicker and more saturated line.
Setting the brush spacing
One more thing you should pay attention to is the Spacing setting under Brush Tip Shape. You can find it in your Brush Panel (Window > Brush).
It’s best to have Spacing set to a value around 10%. If the value is set too low, it’ll cause a significant brush lag. If it’s set too high, the brush will create circular patterns that can lead to image artifacts.
Getting to know other brush setting in your brush panel
There are a few other settings available in your brush panel, apart from Brush Tip Shape, Shape Dynamics and Transfer that we’ve already talked about above.
Just playing around with the settings is also part of learning how to use a graphic tablet with Photoshop. Feel free to try out the settings for some random doodling to get familiar with them and watch how your brush is changing accordingly.
To help you get clued in, here’s a quick overview of what those settings are for:
- Shape dynamics: Allows variable size, roundness, and angle.
- Scattering: Causes random distribution and count of the brush strokes (i.e. for painting water droplets or water bubbles in Photoshop)
- Texture: Adds a texture to the brush.
- Dual Brush: Adds a texture based on a second brush.
- Color Dynamics: Allows variability in the brush color. The “Apply Per Tip” option defines whether the color variations occur within a brush stroke or between strokes.
- Transfer: Controls opacity, flow, and a few other settings.
- Brush Pose: Allows you to override various default input settings, such as tilt, rotation, and pressure.
- Noise: Adds some noise to the tip of soft brushes to avoid banding.
- Wet Edges: Emphasizes the brush edges to simulate the look of a watercolor brush.
- Build-up: This is the airbrush tool that you can also enable in the top bar next to Flow. Turning it on will simulate a continuous flow of ‘ink’, even when you are not moving the brush.
- Smoothing: Is a default brush setting in Photoshop to help create a more natural line.
- Protect Texture: Preserves texture pattern when applying brush presets.
Adjusting brush tilt
Some of the better tablets are able to also recognize pen tilt, besides pen pressure. The Wacom Intuos Pro Small and Intuos Medium, for example, support up to 60 degrees of tilt response, the highest in class.
Precisely, tilt recognition means that the brush responds to the way you hold your pen. While not all brushes in Photoshop are tilt-responsive, there are some, such as the charcoal pencil brush or the calligraphy brush, that change shape and texture of their output depending on how you hold the stylus.
Even though it might not be necessary to use such brushes for digital editing, they are a great tool to add writing to your images, create your own fonts, or do sketches in Photoshop.
Practice, practice, practice…
Theory is important, but practice is what eventually teaches you how to use a graphic tablet with Photoshop.
Now that you learned about the most important settings to use your graphic tablet with in Photoshop, it’s time to dive into practice!
Take the time to set up a blank canvas and practice some brush strokes with the various pressure and other brush settings we talked about above. Start customizing your tablet hotkeys and pen side switches and figure out which settings are best for you to speed up your workflow.
Using the Wacom Intuos Small photo editing in Photoshop. (Image Credit: Wacom)
What is the best graphics tablet to use with Photoshop?
Now that you’ve got a good idea of how to use a graphic tablet with Photoshop, you might wonder about the best graphics tablet to use with Photoshop.
In order to help you find the best drawing tablet for you, we’ve compiled a number of guides you can consult before making your final choice:
I hope this guide on how to use a graphic tablet with Photoshop was helpful and you were able to take away some tips to improve your digital drawing experience! See you on the next post, Angie 💖
My name is Angie and I’m a self-taught digital artist. On this blog, I am sharing my knowledge and discussing the best software and hardware for different artistic needs. My desire is to offer options for all creative stages and budgets so that everyone can follow their dream and create art!
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