How to set up your Samsung Series 7 Slate for 'Serious Photoshop Work'!

[tbaldree]

How to set up your Samsung Series 7 Slate for 'Serious Photoshop Work'!


http://www.twinstickgames.com/downloads/PaintDock.zip



[UPDATE] - Left Handed mode has now been added - there is a separate PaintDockLeftHanded application ( And layout .txt file ) included in the zip.
[UPDATE] - The Cut command was incorrectly mapped, and has been fixed.

DISCLAIMER - NOTHING IN HERE IS THAT CRAZY, BUT OF COURSE, DO AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I've now got a setup that feels really nice, really portable, and circumvents most of the issues you'll run into using hotkey-centric Photoshop on your tablet. It is now, dare I say, a pleasant drawing and painting experience! Yay!

In this tutorial, you're going to fix your busted stylus sensitivity, make various system adjustments, and install a super-cool overlay tool that will let you do most common Photoshop operations with touch WHILE using a pen and while DISABLING touch everywhere on the screen that you don't want it ( i.e. where you are drawing )

First, download the goodies here -

PREP WORK -
a) Disable Flick gestures in pen and touch settings
b) In Samsung Easy Settings, make sure Reduce Noise in the touch section is OFF - it makes touch response a crapshoot at best, and you're going to need it.


STEP 1 - MAKE PEN SENSITIVITY NOT SUCKY

First of all, the default curves for your stylus on the Samsung really, really suck. The pitiful slider to change between soft and hard isn't a lot of help - the threshholds are just awful. You can't have fine soft control without having to double-stroke to get full opacity. It is blotchy and janky.

You should absolutely adjust your settings for your stylus and you will be amazed at how much better it feels.

I've got a setup I spent a good hour tweaking using this program - Tablet Pressure Curve Tool | Secret Laboratory

Make sure you get the beta, which lets you edit individual values on the pen.

Your ISD_Tablet.dat file contains your sensitivity curves. These are very, very important to making your stylus feel nice. My setup has nice soft control from light to midtones and ramps to full opacity at about 80% pressure.

The ISD_Tablet.dat file is located under USERS/YourUser/AppData/Roaming/WTablet - you will have to be able to see hidden files and folders to get to this location.

Edit it with the curve tool OR you can use my ISD_Tablet.dat file (included in the zip ), and replace yours with it. I recommend trying mine out to see what you think before you start fiddling to save yourself some time.

Once you have saved or replaced the file, you need to stop and restart the tablet service -

Go to Control Panel->System and Security->Administrative Tools->Services and select TabletServiceISD, then stop and restart it. That will commit the changes from your curve twiddling.

NOTE! IF YOU USE THE PEN AND TABLET CONTROL PANEL YOU WILL OBLITERATE ALL YOUR NICE CURVES AND IT WILL REPLACE THEM WITH THE CRUMMY HARD->SOFT SETTINGS AGAIN! BACK THEM UP!

STEP 2 - INSTALL MY COOL TOUCH OVERLAY TUNED FOR PHOTOSHOP

My touch overlay is based on the RawInputControlTest AutoHotkey script available here -
RawInputControlTest.ahk Many thanks to the author for an awesome script!

I call my variant PaintDock, and I've made several changes, ( apart from basic visuals and functionality of the keypad )

When run, PaintDock disables touch, and when closed, it restores touch to its original state.
That means you don't have to worry about palm rejection or annoying errant scribbles from your pinky.

Paint Dock automatically hides if your stylus gets near it.

PaintDock has controls, tuned for your hand's position, for the following -

Pan
Eyedropper
Zoom In/Out
Brush Size Up/Down
Step Back(Undo) Step Forward(Redo)
Brush Mode
Eraser Mode
Select All
Deselect
Copy
Cut
Paste
CTRL
SHIFT
DELETE
Flip Horizontal

These are all things I use all the time. Swatches, selecting individual brushes, and managing layers all work fine with the stylus.

It is compiled to an Exe, so you should not need AutoHotkey to use it ( although I include the script )

You can modify any of the buttons and their controls by editing the paintdock.txt file included, WITHOUT having to recompile the script. I also included the PSD I used to generate the button art.

I link PaintDock to the taskbar near the start menu, turn it on for Photoshop, and turn it off when I'm done.

NOTE: FLIP HORIZONTAL IS MAPPED TO CTRL-H -
There is no default mapping for flipping the canvas horizontally in Photoshop. If you would like to use this control, make sure to assign the keyboard shortcut in Photoshop.

Enjoy! Hope this proves a help to other artists fumbling around in a hotkey-less world.

Travis

[timpaatkins]

Excellent work! Is the touch overlay avalibaly for left handers too?

[earwolf]

Holy mackerel superb post!!!!

[tly80]

one word. awesomness.

[tbaldree]

Excellent work! Is the touch overlay avalibaly for left handers too?

It does now - I've included a variant in the zip. I've done my best to do a sensible button arrangement, but not being a lefty, it's a little tough to extrapolate. Let me know how it feels.

[jamesT]

Awesome contribution! I too am having fun making custom tailored icons and layouts. Incredibly useful, since I have some unique hotkey preferences. Plus I'm using ridiculous images for the icons, which has been entertaining.

This is quite a gift for those who don't want to mess with the script, though. Very good work, and very kind of you!

[lblb]

Nice contribution tbaldree! Great looking icons! Thanks for sharing!

[PhotoMuis]

This looks soooo cool! Is there any way to get it to work on a Fujitsu slate or is it Samsung-specific in some way? Tried to run it on my T4410, the dock appears where it should and buggers off nicely when the pen gets close to it, but it does not respond to my hand at all. Which is sad because it feels just so very right to have it where it is.

Or do I have to configure something on the Fujitsu? Did switch off flicks, but did not tune my curves in the way you described, cause I am quite happy with my pressure sensitivity the way it is now. Do I have to do those steps to get the Paintdock to work?

Do I have to have AutoHotKey installed? In your description it sounds as if running the .exe is sufficient? I remember trying AHK out long ago, could not make heads or tails of it and deleted it again, as my programming knowledge and skills are zero. But will install it again if it is a prerequisite for PaintDock.

[tbaldree]

I'm not sure on the Fujitsu -
You can try this, but I don't know if it will work - please let us know if it does.

If you install autohotkey, and edit PaintDock.ahk in a text editor, look at the beginning.

Make the changes below, and then run the .ahk script by double-clicking it and see if it works -



Change this --


; for Samsung Series 7 Slate
MaxRawX := 0x0fff
MaxRawY := 0x0fff
RawHidOffsetStat := 1
RawHidTouchIdMask := 01111000
RawHidTouchIdMinimum := 1
RawHidOffsetX := 2
RawHidOffsetY := 4

/*
; for ASUS EP121 / B121
MaxRawX := 32752
MaxRawY := 32752
RawHidOffsetStat := 1
RawHidTouchIdMask := 01111100
RawHidTouchIdMinimum := 0
RawHidOffsetX := 2
RawHidOffsetY := 4
*/


To this --


; for Samsung Series 7 Slate
/*MaxRawX := 0x0fff
MaxRawY := 0x0fff
RawHidOffsetStat := 1
RawHidTouchIdMask := 01111000
RawHidTouchIdMinimum := 1
RawHidOffsetX := 2
RawHidOffsetY := 4
*/

; for ASUS EP121 / B121
MaxRawX := 32752
MaxRawY := 32752
RawHidOffsetStat := 1
RawHidTouchIdMask := 01111100
RawHidTouchIdMinimum := 0
RawHidOffsetX := 2
RawHidOffsetY := 4

[Darkink]

Would you consider making this for Autodesk SketchBookPro 2011? It would make my life easier... Thank you for considering