[beerbohm]

Hi

I am an art & graphic design student and considering buying Surface Pro 2 mainly due its pen capabilities (pressure). From what I have gathered so far, this machine should be just fine for 2D work and very likely struggle with advanced 3D tasks, due to lack of dedicated graphics card. The machine I work on right now is a 4 yrs old vaio f11z1e (quad 1.6, 8gb ram, ssd) - I would like to see more horsepower but I guess I can live with it as long there is no egregious heat and fan noise. Are there any graphic designers / artists around here, who consider a purchase or have bought SP2 already? If so, would you be kind enough to share your impressions?

Thanks

[Jazmac]

If I were you, a graphics artist, I would make it a point to contact Adobe about Photoshop and its drivers and Surface Pro 2 before you make a decision to buy. It makes no sense to assume it will be the solution you need. I hope it is. Watch this video. Check the 12:35 mark. Maybe it will get to some of your questions.

[dwigfor]

I just got some stuff installed and started playing around. I'll have to give it a bit of time. You need to goto Wacom to download surface driver to enable pen pressure! I didn't have a mouse with me, and I think it's necessary, at least with After Effects. I'm thinking Photoshop might be better with the detachable keyboard accessory. One major drawback is you can't do simple touch gestures, like pinch to zoom. It would be great if Adobe could enable that in new PS CC update. So the keyboard is still necessary. I was experiencing a weird problem in After Effects, where the cursor point wasn't matching the pen point. So that was frustrating.

All but 1 of my coworkers use mac, and are all wishing apple would be able to run Photoshop with Wacom pen. When I showed them Sketchbook, they were impressed (but Galaxy Note is cheaper). I'll get their opinions on Photoshop, now that I've got it up and running. They draw much better than me. I mainly use After Effects.

I'm gonna tryout Sketchbook pro. That was the only app I bought on my android phone. But this is a full x86 program, right? Not modern app? Curious if it supports gestures. I wish there was a $5 version, comparable to Android, that had brush control and layer support.

Anyone tried the Surface Arc mouse? I'm looking for a nice Bluetooth, portable mouse. Surface arc mouse looked like it could fit nicely in a slipcase pouch. But... Can you middle click with that? I need that for my 3d DCC. It's just a strip, rather than a wheel or even a button... Is there a way to configure it, so maybe a tap and hold would middle click, and swipe down would scroll? How good is scrolling on those touch mice?

[Polychrome]

Keep in mind also that WACOM is now putting out a competitor to the surface specifically for art. I'd check out both.

[dwigfor]

I was thinking about that after I posted. The buttons on the side of the Wacom tablet are really advantageous. But I'm thinking the battery life is gonna be Horrible.........

[freshfelicio]

I have a Surface Pro 2. Here is how Adobe Apps work on it:

Photoshop - Works, but no DPI scaling = very small. Pressure Sensitivty, eraser works. No pinch to zoom or moving the page with fingers without having hand tool selected.
Premiere - Cant get it running, it always crashes. I think its because of Intel graphics.
After Effects - Works, but no DPI scaling.
Flash - Works with DPI scaling. No idea why here it scales perfectly and not on the other programs.
Illustrator - Works, but no DPI scaling.

However what you can do is connecting a Full HD monitor and mirror the screen and use it like a Wacom tablet.

[gumster]

I tried Photoshop CS6 and CC, both crashed. It gives this message when it crashes "display driver crashes and recovers" Illustrator on the other hand works fine, ACAD too, Sketchbook Pro, and Manga Studio - all work except for PS. Any help would be greatly appreciated.Hope this helps the original poster. Thanks!

[stephen_az]

Hi

I am an art & graphic design student and considering buying Surface Pro 2 mainly due its pen capabilities (pressure). From what I have gathered so far, this machine should be just fine for 2D work and very likely struggle with advanced 3D tasks, due to lack of dedicated graphics card. The machine I work on right now is a 4 yrs old vaio f11z1e (quad 1.6, 8gb ram, ssd) - I would like to see more horsepower but I guess I can live with it as long there is no egregious heat and fan noise. Are there any graphic designers / artists around here, who consider a purchase or have bought SP2 already? If so, would you be kind enough to share your impressions?

Thanks

If you don't mind dealing with microscopic menus and icons I have found all CC apps work. That, however, is a huge if to consider. Other than attaching to an external monitor, there is also no current solution for the CC applications I have used, with the exception of Lightroom and InDesign. Until Adobe recompiles for high resolution devices, the issue will persist. It is not a Microsoft or Apple issue - it is on Adobe.

[WG Rowland]

Also getting graphics driver related freezes/crashes in Photoshop. Apparently this isn't Surface related but a known issue with the Intel 4k GPU series and their driver support. If I were doing more photography right now this would probably be driving me nuts, but I just moved (studio's in boxes) so not much of an issue yet. I haven't taken the time to turn off hardware acceleration in PS to see if that helps or not.

[username55]

Ive been using Photoshop a lot lately as well as zbrush. They both accept pen pressure and run better than id hoped. There is an awesome program that will help out with keyboard shortcuts why you work called artdock

[randomscandinavian]

I ordered the Photoshop CC package but found it hoplessly awkward to use on the SP2. Currently trying to get them to honor their promise of a refund if you cancel within the first thirty days. I cancelled on the first day, a week ago, and I am still listed as having a subscription that will automatically continue. Despite speaking to their support twice so far. I guess they won't give up your money without a fight once they have it.

But I digress... The point is that I think it is a bit early to have a fluid tablet experience with large desktop applications. And since I bought the Surface Pro 2 for that use, it isn't a great success so far in my case.

[RetBchBoy]

Has anyone just used LightRoom on the SP2?
Mine is on the way and I can see using it on the road.

Thanks

[cgmonkey]

Here is a work around to get around the tiny menus

Hack makes Photoshop and Illustrator readable on Surface Pro — Surface Pro Artist

[username55]

I ordered the Photoshop CC package but found it hoplessly awkward to use on the SP2. Currently trying to get them to honor their promise of a refund if you cancel within the first thirty days. I cancelled on the first day, a week ago, and I am still listed as having a subscription that will automatically continue. Despite speaking to their support twice so far. I guess they won't give up your money without a fight once they have it.

But I digress... The point is that I think it is a bit early to have a fluid tablet experience with large desktop applications. And since I bought the Surface Pro 2 for that use, it isn't a great success so far in my case.

To be honest I really wanted this to be a dream machine and they fell way short for artists. I think if they had just done some product testing with professionals for a few rounds they could have worked a lot of this stuff out alot better. Wish this hadn't been marketed to me.

[MBytes]

Didn't Adobe said that they'll fix the DPI issue?
I mean now we have somewhat affordable 4K consumer grade monitor, IPS panel, wide gamut, out too. (Dell UP2414Q).
The pressure for Adobe to move is starting.

[timmiller]

Hi,

I was wondering if you could give some feedback on your surface pro and AE. I've got an ASUS G75 that's about a year old and really need to scale down, but have the ability to "dock" at home...I actually have all adobe products and most of the time have AE and PR open simultaneously, along with PS. They are all CC.

Thanks in advance,

tm

[jojoe42]

Hi,

I was wondering if you could give some feedback on your surface pro and AE. I've got an ASUS G75 that's about a year old and really need to scale down, but have the ability to "dock" at home...I actually have all adobe products and most of the time have AE and PR open simultaneously, along with PS. They are all CC.

Thanks in advance,

tm

The problem with the Surface tablets and Adobe software at the moment is not performance (the CS6 suite runs very well for a tablet) but merely the scaling of the UI. I've never plugged my SP2 into an external monitor before so you might want to look at some threads on individual display scaling, but running After Effects and Premiere Pro on the SP2 is usable, but the UI is quite small and will most likely kill your vision. As MBytes mentioned above, Adobe announced with the Pro 3 announcement that they would be fixing the HiDPI issue (specifically on Surface tablets because of the high DPI) in Photoshop CC with the release of the Pro 3 I think. Hopefully this will extend onto other Adobe products.