The first time you tried to use your Wacom tablet with Photoshop you were probably wondered what all the fuss was about. Clicking on the menus was hard and your efforts to paint resulted in lines that were never quite right. Relax - the problem isn't with you, or with the Pen, it's a problem with Photoshop itself (at least from a Photographer's point of view!).

Pens should work best when you're painting and when I paint in Photoshop its usually on a layer mask or when cloning (are there any other uses for a pen :-). Either way, I don't want my lines changing size while I'm trying to paint! What's happening is that Photoshop is prepackaged with brush settings that favor people who want to paint pictures with their pens - I don't know why they don't just call it Painter-Shop because you'd think that photographers weren't supposed to be using it... Fortunately, the solution is pretty simple. Open up your brushes palette and make a few simple changes and you might just start to fall in love with your pen after all.

(I'll be showing screen shots from CS3 - it all works pretty much the same in every version since CS, but remember that the Adobe gods will be very upset if you call them palettes if you are using CS4 - they're panels now!)

This is the what you get when you install Photoshop (except for the color I've added so that you will...) notice that the pretty preview of what a brush stroke is going to look like gets bigger and smaller. Hmmm, not much use to me - let's fix that. If you're wondering how to find your Brushes Palette go to the "Window" menu and select "Brushes".

1. Check the box next to "Shape Dynamics" to turn it off (so that it won't change size any more)

2. Click on the words "Other Dynamics" to turn that option on and allow you to modify the settings

3. Change the "Opacity Jitter" Control to "Pen Pressure" and then do the same for the "Flow Jitter" (as shown on the left side of the screen shots below)

4. Click on the words "Brush Tip Shape" and change the spacing to "20%" (as shown on the right side...)

5. Click on the box next to "Airbrush" to turn that option on.

6. Click the locks next to all the settings to make sure that changing brushes doesn't mess you up (more on this in a minute)

Now when you try to paint with your brushes you will find that the flow of "ink" can be easily controlled with the pressure of the pen and that your experiences are a lot more in line with what you were expecting. You may also find that you want to change either the Opacity or Flow controls from "Pen Pressure" to "Off" for an experience that better matches the way you use the Pen. Do a little experimenting to see what works best for you and don't forget to modify both the Opacity and Flow of your Brush (in the Option Bar - see below).

Caveat Emptor

By "locking" all the options you will not get dumped unceremoniously back to using a brush that changes in size instead of in "density". The "locks" keep the settings that you have made from being changed when you switch to a different brush (using either the Brushes Palette or the context menu). If you don't lock the settings then you have to reset them every time you switch brushes! If you regularly use different brushes or paint something other than layer masks you may get frustrated by locking-up all the brush dynamics. In that case you will need to create custom brushes for use with your pen (maybe that will be a topic for another day)

OR - you can download a set of brushes that I have modified for you! I simply recreated the first 18 brushes that appear in the preset list, but with pen-friendly dynamics. Just download my brushes and then load them into Photoshop. If you are savvy enough to have a lot of custom brushes, then I trust that you can figure out how to install them for yourself. If, like most people, you have never modified any of your brushes since installing Photoshop then you can follow the instructions below which will put the custom brushes at the top of your presets, making them easier to use.

1. Use the fly-out menu on the Brushes Palette (see red circle above) and select the "Replace Brushes..." command. Note - this will delete all your current brushes so DON'T DO THIS IF YOU HAVE ANY CUSTOMIZED BRUSHES THAT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO REPLACE!

2. Navigate to the "Pen Friendly Brushes.abr" file that you just downloaded and load it.

3. Use the same fly-out menu to choose "Reset Brushes..." - this will allow you to reload all the brushes that shipped with Photoshop.

4. In the dialog box that appears choose "Append" to add the default brushes after the custom brushes.

That's it - now you will see two seemingly identical sets of brushes at the beginning of your Brush Palette - the first 3 rows contain the customized "Pen Friendly" brushes and the rest of the brushes are the standard Photoshop brushes. Maybe you'll find a good use for that maple-leaf brush one day!