Question on Sketching in photoshop

[Thomas Monberg Thompson]

This is on my PC that this happens, but whenever I try to sketch lines each time it pauses for a short second then draws (its very anoying when it happens). Also when I draw real fast on the screen the line apears more polygonal than smooth and crisp. I have a wacom tablet Intuos. Any suggestions?

[ProfClayton]

What's the size of your tablet and the size of the monitor you are using?

[Thomas Monberg Thompson]

19'' NEC and a 6x8 tablet intuos 2

[ProfClayton]

Okay... what is the resolution that your monitor is set at? (1280 x 1024 or 1600 x 1200?)

The reason that I am asking is because the ratio of pressure points on the pad and the vs. the size of the resolution might cause this distortion. Lower your resolution to 1024 x 768 and see if that goes away.

[Thomas Monberg Thompson]

Heres what I mean by the lines not being smooth. It also does this at any resolution on my pc for some reason. Any sujestions?

[ProfClayton]

There are only a couple of things that come to mind on why this might happen...

1. Screen to tablet ratio... but you already said that it happens at every setting.

2. Your settings are not correct, the pen might be tracked too slow and its losing the smoothness because you are drawing too fast.

3. Drivers might not be current.

4. Have you tried it on another machine? Does it do the same thing there?

5. Have you tried talking to the tablet to increase your friendship and maybe if you're nice to it, it'll be nice to you. ;)

[Thomas Monberg Thompson]

Either he aint listening, or its jelious of my mouse that sits beside it........(even when I havent used the mouse in years.... silly tablet)

[Professor Watkins]

And there's always my favorite - sketch on paper.

[BigPoppaPump]

Scanning

Yeah! you can always go the route of sketching on paper, but then you have to find a way of scanning that darn image. That is where the fun begins, because then you have to scan the image so that it is workable! If you don’t have a copy of an application like streamline then this will be a very long process.

I have used a form of Wacom tablet but I was not very happy with the result it gave me, so I gave it back to my friend. It’s a good thing that I tried that sucker out before I invested some really hard earned money on one!

[Thomas Monberg Thompson]

yes, but sketching in color is a somewhat different matter when it comes to just doing it on paper for many reasons. one the paper can smudge, become damaged, and also tear making it very unreliable. Yes you can scan it, but Id like to try and tune my photoshop skills to a higher level and start drawing within the program =). that is all

[Jeremy]

Unless you are willing to spend alot of money on a GOOD tablet, any tablet you get is going to do this. Whenever you draw quick sketching lines, especially curved ones, they come out more polygonal. If it lags when you draw them, that is a different problem. Other than what the Pro.'s said, it could be the RAM on your machine. How much memory are you running? Be sure it is enough run Photoshop and the tablet you have. I'm not sure what you have, but my machine is pretty slow at 800mhz, and only 512MB of RAM, but I don't have this problem. I think Adobe recommends 256 AT LEAST, but 512 is favored to have a smooth ride. Then again, it could also be the size of the image you are drawing on. Obviously, if you are trying to sketch on a very high resolution image, it will take a while. ;) Could be a number of things I guess, hope this helps. (BTW, I use a graphire3 and it works great for me :))

[Thomas Monberg Thompson]

actually I found out theres a smoothing option in photoshop, so things are smoother and I can work faster