How well will the pen work

[narv]

So I was wondering if any of you guys knew from either a different touch-screen display'd computer or what. I have the Surface RT so I know that this isn't going to be a fair comparison but I have Windows 8 Pro at home and the RT. I have the regular pen for the surface RT too. I remote connected to my desktop (which is not a touch screen) and used the pen on the surface RT. opened photoshop and it wasn't working very well. Photoshop (CS 5) had no real idea what was going on.

Now I don't have a pressure sensitive pen obviously and I know with the WACOM tablets it works just fine. However if you put PS on your Surface Pro, should this not be an issue? I was curious to see how it might work but it would sometimes zoom in and other times make the brush stroke.

 

[ybahman]

As a disclaimer, I really don't know the answer to your question. But I am curious, what do you mean when you say "I have the regular pen for the surface RT"? Are you talking about a capacitive pen like Amazon.com: AmazonBasics Stylus for Touchscreen Devices Including Kindle Fire HD 8.9-Inch, Kindle Fire HD 7-Inch, Kindle Fire, Apple iPad 2, the New iPad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab, BlackBerry PlayBook: Computers & Accessories or something else?

 

[jhoff80]

Yes, he's talking about a capacitive pen for the Surface RT. Those are the only ones that will work.

As for the problems with Photoshop, there's a few things going on there. First of all, if you're not in a touch aware app, then using touch only acts as a mouse click. With a pen digitizer like the Surface Pro will have, the pen is detected for what it is, a pressure sensitive pen. That means that for apps like Reader and OneNote (the Metro version) you can just write on them and it's seen as pen input automatically.

Secondly, with regards to zooming in, it sounds like you're trying to put your hand on the screen, and that's causing it to zoom. The reason for that is because your palm is being seen as a second touch input. If the screen detects two touch points moving away from each other, then it zooms in. Unfortunately, that's just how capacitive screens work. With a pen digitizer, they have palm rejection features built in. A true pen digitizer has "hover" capabilities; basically, there's a range within half an inch or so of the screen in which the pen is recognized and you can move the pointer around (it doesn't actually click until you tap the screen). So, what happens with most dual pen/touch digitizers, is that when the pen is moved into that hover range, the touch digitizer instantly turns off. As long as you don't move the pen tip more than half an inch away from the screen, it's impossible to touch, so your hand isn't detected as anything.

 

[Chemilinski]

Very good answer above! (Thank god someone on these forums knows what they're talking about)

I heard and read from The Verge (Tom Warren wrote a preview on the Pro) that using the pen with the Surface Pro is like writing on paper (as opposed to glass), so that sounds very encouraging!

Does Photoshop have a touchscreen/pen input mode by the way?

 

[anon(5370748)]

Very good answer above! (Thank god someone on these forums knows what they're talking about)

I heard and read from The Verge (Tom Warren wrote a preview on the Pro) that using the pen with the Surface Pro is like writing on paper (as opposed to glass), so that sounds very encouraging!

Does Photoshop have a touchscreen/pen input mode by the way?

I'm not sure how Photoshop does in a 100% pen environment, but it has heavy Wacom support (and is probably the single largest reason Wacom exists), so I'm sure it'll be fine. When I get one, I'll let you know

 

[Steve Ridges]

I use Photoshop with a tablet on my desktop PC and Photoshop has all the needed support for pressure etc.