If you are a graphic designer, artist, comic book illustrator, photographer, or anything in between, you will likely be using two specific tools.
One is the graphic drawing tablet, a device that makes graphic design and editing more straightforward, particularly when connected to your computer. The second is drawing and editing software.
Adobe Photoshop is probably the most popular graphic editing software. You will probably want to use your graphic drawing tablet with Adobe Photoshop at some point.
Most graphic drawing tablets should be plug-and-play in the sense that you should be able to plug them in and use them with Photoshop right away.
However, this might not always be the case, and chances are that you might have to set up, install drivers, and customize tablet controls. Let’s discuss how to set up a graphic drawing tablet with Photoshop
On a side note, this is a general guide for all graphic tablets with Photoshop. Depending on your specific graphic drawing tablet, there may be some minor differences.
Step 1 – Recent Version of Adobe Photoshop & Uninstall Old Drivers
Before anything else, you need to have a more recent Adobe Photoshop version installed on your computer. Next, If you have any older graphic drawing tablet drivers installed on your computer, you will want to remove them.
Although it’s not always the case, old drivers and software can interfere with new drivers and software. If you are using Microsoft Windows, go to “apps and features,” find the old drivers, and uninstall them.
Step 2 – Restart PC After Uninstalling Drivers
After uninstalling all old drivers and software that you don’t need anymore, restart your computer. This is necessary, and it is something that you should not skip.
Sometimes, for all changes to be applied, such as after uninstalling something, computers often need to be restarted.
Step 3 – Install Latest Driver
The next step is to install the latest driver. You will need to use the included USB port and cable to plug the tablet into your computer. You can also use the HDMI port, although this is less functional, with USB being the far better choice.
Most of these tablets feature plug-and-play connectivity. This means that, for the most part, when you plug your new tablet into your computer, it should automatically force the driver to download and install on its own. This is perfectly fine, and you can leave it at that if you so choose.
However, with many products and software, drivers are often updated, and new drivers are usually released. When you plug in your tablet, your computer might only download the base version, not the newest one.
If you want your graphic drawing tablet to function to the best of its capabilities, you want to find the latest and most up-to-date driver for your tablet and then install it.
Step 4 – Restart PC
Just like in step 2, you now need to restart your computer. Although for some this may be optional, for full changes to take effect, and to make sure that the new driver is installed correctly, restart your machine.
Your tablet driver should now be installed on your computer, and you should be able to use the tablet in Adobe Photoshop.
Step 5 – Configure Settings
With the tablet connected to your computer and Photoshop open, go to the tablet settings within Photoshop. Within the tablet settings, the first thing is to allow pressure sensitivity.
You need to go to the brush panel and enable pressure sensitivity, which will allow Photoshop to register the pressure applied on the tablet by the pen.
Within this settings section, you will be able to configure many settings and options. We recommend sticking with the default settings while you are getting the hang of the tablet. It’s pretty easy to change things around to the point where you really mess it up.
That said, this is the time to configure everything, including things like the speed of double-tapping, spatial tolerance, navigational flicks, overall sensitivity, and more.
Other things that you may want to change and configure over time include brush size, brush opacity, and brush flow, as well as brush scattering, color dynamics, and the eraser. It might take a while to find your preferred settings, but this is to be expected.
Conclusion
Setting up a graphic drawing tablet with Adobe Photoshop is not difficult. As long as you follow the above steps, you shouldn’t have any issues.