How to Set Up a Wacom Tablet for Retouching

[Music] today I'm going to share with you how you can set up your Wacom tablet for the best retouching experience the main goal is always to customize the tablet in a way which makes the retouching process faster efficient and more comfortable for your hand so in the process we will also change some keyboard shortcuts to make your keyboard coordinate much better with your tablet and if you're new to tablets a do stay tuned till the end because in the end we're going to cover a very important trick that you should not miss under any situation this trick is so important that it has saved my sanity more than a dozen times very important don't skip it so without any further ado let's get started [Applause] [Music] before we begin make sure that you've installed the latest drivers for your Wacom tablet which can be found right here just a side note if you use in Windows 10 you might want to turn off Windows ink and make a slight change in Photoshop settings to avoid running into errors you can watch the video right here on how to do that now that we have the technical stuff out of the way let's start with a very important tip [Music] first of all I prefer using my Wacom tablets wired all the time and I would suggest the same especially if you're using a desktop or if you're not moving you're in the same table keep it wired even though this has bluetooth keeping it wired serves two purposes number one you won't ever have to charge it and this is big for me because I'm too lazy to charge all of my electronic gadgets you know the lesser the gadgets we have that we have to charge the better right and guess what the Wacom pens use some crazy magnetic technology it doesn't need any batteries which is amazing unlike the Apple pens tube number two there is lesser lag when it's wired as compared to Bluetooth connectivity it's like wireless bluetooth headphones you might not be able to notice it but there's a tiny bit of lag between the audio that you hear and the video that you see on your phone because of Bluetooth connectivity and when you use the wire to connect it with your phone there's much lesser lag noticeable sometimes sometimes not noticeable depending upon the technology so when to use wireless when you're moving traveling it's much more convenient that way [Music] now that we have the tablet set and ready to go let's start with customizing the pen and to customize your tablet open up the Wacom tablet properties on a Windows PC just search for Wacom tablet properties and that's how you open that up if you're using a Mac you might have to do this so here I am on a Mac and all you have to do is to go to your system preferences alright so click on the system preferences and at the bottom after you install the drivers you will have the Wacom tablet just open that up and this is the Wacom tablet properties to setup the pen first of all make sure that your device is selected in my case only one device is connected to my computer Windows PC and the other Wacom tablet is connected to my Mac so right now we are on the windows so it's showing just one because one is connected to make sense and we have two pens here so I have two pens right here I can use either one of these so I'm going to select the one that I'm using right now which is the probe and two and here it gets interesting the application right here always make sure that you change your shortcuts application wise you cannot have the Photoshop shortcuts in your regular desktop while you're browsing on Google Chrome you would want different shortcuts for that you would want different shortcuts for illustrator or Premiere so make sure your application is added here and you change the shortcut only for that application and to make sure that happens make sure you select that application if you cannot find your application here let me show you how to add that if I delete Photoshop from here you can simply click on the plus right here and add your application so I'm just gonna scroll down and add Photoshop here there you go and just hit OK you can also browse and find your application just add your application select that and only then you change the shortcuts for the bottom key on my Wacom Pro pen to this one I'm gonna use a specific modifier and it's special so click on this drop down menu and then go to keyboard and then select modifier if you're on a Windows it should be left alt and then clicks right what the that do well let me show you what that does hit okay if I open up Photoshop have a look at this if I select the brush and then if I hold the bottom key that we just modified and even if I hover over the tablet just press the button and drag it to the right to make the brush larger drag it to the left to make the brush smaller drag it up to make the brush softer and drag it down to make the brush harder you don't even have to press it just hover over it make it larger smaller softer and then harder so if you take it up soft take it down hard on a Mac on the other hand there's a little bit of difference let me show that to you so here we are back on our Mac nice rhyme everything all you need to do is to set this to modifier but first let's select Photoshop CC 2019 or whatever version you add here from here let's go to keyboard and modifier here we will select control option and the mirror because I tried with the left and right it works best with the middle select the middle control and option and then hit okay now when you open up Photoshop on a Mac it is a little different if you press and hold this button right there the bottom one and if you hover and drag nothing happens you will have to click and drag on a Mac on a Windows you just hover and drag on Mac you have to click just click on the tablet and drag then it does the exact same thing time for us to set the top button right here and that people set to right-click because that is something we use time in again so simply set that to clicks and then right click this is very useful all the time maybe you want to right-click on the layer and select convert to smart object or something maybe you want to right-click here or something select the brush maybe on a right-click outside and change the canvas background to light gray so that is that right-click is very important set the top droid click and the bottom one to control the brush size and hardness though this technique of controlling the brush is efficient for the most part if you are dodging and burning of painting it can bring breaks let me show that to you so here we are back in Photoshop and we up a little bit of dodging and burning on this one so simple dodging and burning with the curves adjustment layer here is the before here is the after let me do that again for you let's turn this off create a curves adjustment layer then this up just like this select the mask press ctrl or command I then simply take the brush just the way we do decrease the flow to around 1% and just zoom in and start dodging this area let's make the brush a little smaller and make it softer all the way up and then we are painting right here making this area writer well this is nice but let's say I want to increase the size of my brush suddenly so we are painting right here I wanna increase the size of my brush I would have to stop just increase it this way and then resume painting isn't that much better to use the keyboard shortcuts in this place so when we are dodging and burning it makes so much more sense to keep the hardness zero and control the brush size especially when you're doing something that small control it with the bracket keys so when you are painting so you're continuing to paint and as you are painting can just simply keep on pressing the bracket keys to make it bigger or smaller you won't have to take bricks like you're painting here you just take a break make it large and then paint again make it smaller then paint again so it creates a disruption so when you're painting something you can use the bracket keys but here's the thing the lesser the effort that we have to put the better your hand is on the left hand side if you are a right-handed person and you have the keyboard on your left hand side your hand is around the control all shift the left hand side of the keyboard to use the bracket keys you would have to lift your hand and move to the right hand side of the keyboard which can be a little disturbing so this is the time we change the shortcuts for our keyboard [Music] now keep in mind if you are a left-handed person you don't have to do this this is only for right-handed people so you can go to edit and then keyboard shortcuts and here just move down to brush size make sure tools is selected at the top and move down to brush size it will be somewhere around here have a look decrease brush size increase brush size so I want to keep and assign a key somewhere on the left hand side of the keyboard now I cannot assign q because I use it for quick mask mode I cannot also assign R because I use are all the time for rotation but we can assign W and E right so for decreasing the brush size we can keep it W now it's showing you a warning that W is already in use for quick selection but anyway I don't really use W for a quick selection I just go ahead and select that too that's it so it doesn't matter to me if it matters to you consider another shortcut for increasing I'm gonna keep it e now E is for the eraser - you're gonna directly select the eraser from here it doesn't really matter and if you're using a Wacom Intuos Pro at the back you have an eraser you can just turn it around and it's an eraser cool isn't it so W E is fine hit okay now it's far more convenient now any paint somewhere let's say I want to brighten this particular area right so you just have to press W and E see your painting here wanna make it larger press E want to make it smaller press W it's much more easier that we have a look here stir before here's the after that's how we do dodging and burning it does take a lot of time now since we were talking about our end rotate let me show you an additional trick as well this is not related to tablets but this might be helpful so let's say you're painting in a particular direction so we are painting right here and it's not easy for you to paint in that direction maybe it's not easy for you to paint top and bottom like that right so you might want to and then pain without going to the rotate to you can easily do that and here is how you can hold the are just hold it don't release it while you're in the brush tool just hold the are then you can rotate it now once you have rotated it release the AR and you get back to the brush tool which is super cool this trick can be used to switch between any tool that you like so let's say I'm brushing right here right and I want to move to the lasso tool so I can hold L it moves to the lasso tool you can just make a selection and then when you release the L it gets you back to the brush isn't that amazing let me give you a personal tip if you find a keyboard with extra assignable keys like the ones I have please go for it so this is the corsair k95 and i own it they have not sponsored me to say this it has got these additional six keys that you can assign to anything even you can record long combinations of key presses this is completely advanced but you can at the simplest level assign it to a photoshop shortcut that can be very very helpful that way you don't have to change the existing shortcuts and by the way these are gaming keyboards if that turns you off let me ask you this isn't photoshop again well if you ask me definitely yes a productive one [Music] time for us to set the Express keys now depending upon the model you have the number of keys that you get on your Wacom might differ if you have no keys on you a comp don't worry about it you can always customize your keyboard shortcuts according to your comfort so how do we assign these keys according to your comfort there are four simple steps step number one determine the shortcuts that you use the most which is not fairly easy to do with the keyboard on a level of how often you use them prioritize it now depending upon the number of keys that you have on your Wacom tablet pick the top four six or eight then you assign these shortcuts that you picked to the keys according to your comfort for retouching let me show you my setup the one that I'm using is the Wacom Intuos Pro medium-sized paper edition and it has eight Express keys let me show you how I set them up to setup the keys first of all make sure that your device is selected and then we're gonna click here in functions now select your software now I'm using Photoshop CC 2018 so the step backward and step forward shortcuts are a little different from Photoshop CC 2019 and we're gonna guide you there have a look eight keys show up here now the first one that I use I use it for step forward okay and we can click on in here and go to keyboard and keystroke the shortcut first step forward is ctrl shift Z command shift Z okay and hit OK you can also name it by the way so if you are here in keyboard and keystroke you can also name it step forward for extra organization but I'm gonna skip that now the next one here the second one is the one that I use for step backward so let's go to keyboard keystroke and for step backward in the CC 2018 the shortcut is ctrl alt Z command option said on a Mac okay and just hit OK if you're using Photoshop CC 2019 then it's just ctrl Z or command said hit okay now the third one is the one that I don't use more often and we're going to talk about that later you can also disable it so I'm just gonna click here and click on disabled now the fourth one is very very important to me even if you have just four keys just have this as of one of them and that is control zero command zero it fits the canvas to the screen so let me show that to you so here just click on this one and then go to keyboard keystroke and then press control zero on Windows command 0 on Mac hit OK now let's understand these four and then we'll move to the other four so here we are in Photoshop so let's take the brush and start painting he painted one time right let's increase the flow we paint it twice thrice and four times now you can press the second key from the top to go back the top key to go forward step backward and step forward the third one is disabled and the fourth one is very important let's say I am zoomed in and I'm retouching here very minutely right so with W and E remember the keyboard shortcuts we are decreasing and increasing the brush size and then you want to just zoom out to fit the canvas to the screen you just have to press and the key that we assigned and boom even if you zoom out and check your composition and all that stuff press that key boom it's all set up so that is a very important key to me just working on it you don't have to zoom out and then just fit it you don't have to do any of that just press that key it's all set up let me show you a real retouching example so here let's say you want to remove this line right so I'm just using my regular Healing Brush tool so let's select the regular Healing Brush tool and then decrease the brush size with W and E don't forget that and then we take a sample here and then just V paint her that's all good nice and fine and once we are done we can simply press that key and it just fits and now we can see whether it looks good when zoomed out or not speaking of retouching let's assign the rest of the keys the top one at the bottom I'm gonna assign to moving up a layer and we can do this by clicking here keyboard key stroke and here old and the right bracket key on a Mac that would be option and the right bracket key and hit okay okay and the bottom one moving down the layer it can be keystroke old and the left bracket key option and the left racket key on a Mac alright now what that does especially when you're dodging and burning you want to move between dodging and burning layer this can be very helpful so here we are for a shop and here we have the dodging and burning layer before and after let me show ya after zoom in and let me open those layers so this one was darken this one was burning layer this one was dodging layers so have a look at this we just brightened some areas using this layer now let's say I am here with the brush why does the foreground color flow at let's say 1% and we are just painting here you're just brightening this particular area all right this is super cool now I want to darken it I'm gonna move down how can I do that simply press the button you move down the layer automatically right here now you just darken some areas let's say I want to darken this area then you want to brighten some areas again you click the button at the top in the bottom you just move that layer you see and then you just frighten it now these are the buttons that I have assigned according to the comfort of my hand my hand is in the middle we are painting all we have to do is to move the hand slide the hand to the key and then with the third finger just press it just like that you don't have to put much effort the lesser the effort the better always remember that the third one I'm gonna assign to new layer so that I don't have to go to the corner and click on that button so let's go there keyboard key stroke and the shortcut for a new layer without a dialog box is ctrl alt shift + n right and hit OK now when you go back to photoshop and you want to create a new layer it's very easy just press that button it creates a new layer just keep pressing it keeps off creating new layers and the last key we can ask to a very special shortcut we use it all the time and that is creating a stamp visible layer and click on in here keyboard key stroke and then press ctrl alt shift e on windows command option shift e on a Mac and hit OK now let's say we want to liquefy so here via with our next example it's the same example and we have done most of retouching so here is the before here is the after now it's time for us to apply a little bit of liquify to it and to be able to do that we have to create a stamp a visible layer and just press the last key right there it creates a stamp visible layer automatically you don't have to press that complex shortcut now we have to convert this layer to a smart object to be able to change the liquify later how about assigning the key that we had just turned off or disabled as converting it to a smart object wouldn't that be awesome but there is no shortcut to convert it to smart object if you right click on this one and have a look at convert to smart object there is no shortcut right here so first of all we have to create a shortcut for converting to smart object and to be able to do that very simple again you have to go to edit and keyboard shortcuts here this is in the layers panel so for the shortcuts for select panel menus and we have to come down to layers so there we go here are the layers as you can see now just come down to convert this smart object and let's assign a keyboard shortcut to it let's assign it ctrl shift alt and s now it's already used for save for web that I don't use it personally if you use it you can assign some other shortcut click on accept and then hit OK now when you press alt ctrl shift and s it will be converted to a smart object we don't want to do this let's go back edit step backward or simply press the step backward key right there ok and now let's go to the week on properties the key that we had disabled lets keyboard keystroke alt ctrl shift + s hit okay now all you have to do is just press that key the third one and it will be converted to a smart object very easily now you can simply go to filter liquify and apply as much liquify as you want now inside of liquify just keep in mind that your W and E key that you had assigned won't work and that's why that shortcut is very essential because that works all the time everywhere whether you are masking or anything it's very useful left-side makes it smaller right side makes it bigger top here decreases the pressure if you take it at the bottom it increases the pressure so I'm just gonna fix the nose a little bit and that's fine and hit OK and it's solved before after [Music] now let's talk about mapping what is mapping let me show that to you to open up the mapping settings first of all select the device make sure that is selected select your pin and then click on mapping right there now mapping simply is how much of the tablet represents the screen that said have a look at this diagram this will make it clear for you so this much of the tablet is representing the entire screen so if I move my pen to this corner so on the screen as well it will be on this corner so if I move to this corner have a look on the screen as well it's on that corner it's not like a mouse that you can move in just one place a couple times so this is a mouse right have a look in the screen and have a look at my hand as well so it's at the same position I'm just moving it a couple of times and it moves to the right hand side it's again at the same position I'm just gonna move it a couple of times 1 2 3 and it's moving to the left hand side but with pens and tablets it is different it's just like a piece of paper and drawing you cannot just paint on the same place and move to the edge of the paper you cannot do that you have to just go to the edge of the paper right similarly this is just a representation you can make it smaller if you want to so you can choose tablet area portion click on that one and you can make this smaller just like this and if you hit OK only that area of the tablet will represent the entire screen so even if I move just here in the tablet it will move to the corner of the screen but only in Photoshop so Photoshop is selected if I open up photoshop and if I move just to half this area and not even fall just to this area it will reach the end of the screen are you getting it so you don't have to move your hands much now let me show you something else as well this is important so let's get back to this one and let's set tablet portion to 4 now the other thing that I keep in mind all the time is I always check force proportions now what does that mean if I check that off entire tablet no matter what the aspect ratio is we'll represent the entire screen not in that proportion so what happens is let me demonstrate this to you with the help of a simple lid now what I'm gonna do I'm gonna keep this lid on the tablet and draw a circle with it let me do that for you so here we on Photoshop and here we have a blank document so I'm gonna take my brush right here I'm gonna keep it right there keep this lid right there and trace a circle you will see that it won't be a perfect circle I'm gonna increase the flow 200 have a look at this this is not a circle at all it is more of an oval have a look and just excuse my drawing right there but it's something like this right it's not exactly a circle at all however if you go back to the Wacom tablet properties have a look this aspect ratio which is even taller than the screen who represents the screen which is narrower and that's why the discrepancy happens and that's why I always keep the force proportion checked it gives you much more true representation now once this is checked now if I go back to photoshop and on a new layer with a different color if I draw a circle you'll see that it's not oval it's will be a perfect circle let's start from here I'm gonna keep my stuff right there and let's draw a circle again now you have a look right it makes so much more sense that way have a look the red one is much more perfect than the previous one this one was oval now we need draw it with the force proportions checked it's much more accurate now this is helpful especially when let's say you're creating your signature right or you're signing your work and you're making your signature it will be a very accurate representation of your signature because it won't be squished right it won't be compressed that's why always keep for proportions checked now the tablet portion depends upon your taste if you don't want to move your hands so much you can keep it small so here we are in the properties so if you are just feeling like not moving my hands so much you're just gonna click here click on portion you can keep it as small as that one and then hit OK and then when you get back to photoshop you don't even have to move your hand so much you can keep it at one place and just move a little bit and draw big stuff just keep it right there whoops it's so big that I'm so small here that it's getting out of control I'm just gonna fit it right there now when you do this when you make things small like this I'm gonna keep it for you trade-off with precision the larger the tablet surface that you have the more precision you will have but the lesser comfort you will have because you'll have to move your hands so much the smaller the area that you have the more comfort you have but lesser the precision that you have so you'll move a little bit it will move a lot on a big screen so this also shows you that the monitor size does matter so right now I'm working on a 27-inch monitor if you're using on your laptop you might want to reduce the size if you're using on a huge monitor you might want to use the tablet fully because when you're using a huge monitor and you're retouching an image you don't have to zoom in so much you'll be just zoomed out all the time and we'll be retouching so you won't be moving your hand so much so all in all whenever you're resizing your tablet area keep two things in mind comfort versus precision if you want more comfort with a smaller area you will have lesser precision if you want more precision with a larger area you will have lesser comfort the second thing to consider is the screen size if you're working on a huge monitor you can use a larger area if you're using a small laptop use a smaller area on your tablet if you ask me personally I've used the full tablet you know that way you just exercise a little more and lose some calories anyway you are sitting down all day retouching not run so at least you have some exercise to do just kidding [Music] and finally we are done setting the tablet but what about the touch ring well I don't use the touch ring personally but you can do a lot of things with it to set up the touch ring settings first of all select your tablet and then click on functions select the software and select touch ring right there now by default you have a couple of settings for the top right you have cycle layers and then you have brush size and for the bottom left you have rotate right there and auto scrolling and zooming so you can toggle between different settings very easily so I'm gonna keep it at default and let me show you what that does so if you click on the middle button it toggles between different settings so right now I'm at rotate if I press that one more time Auto scroll and zoom cycle layers so let's go to rotate let's say we are painting right here and we want to rotate and paint for some strokes so take your finger and just cycle around to rotate and then you rotate now I don't use this method why because while I'm painting to rotate I'm gonna pick up my hand then press my finger on the cycle then rotate it and then paint so I don't use it for a rotation let me show you a way that makes more sense so let's say we are painting and we hold the R key it opens up the rotate function and I rotate it and I release the R key it takes you back to the brush as we showed before so that way you don't have to pick up your hand and take it around the touch ring so for rotate I simply use shortcuts even for zooming in and out just press command + spacebar drag it to the right to zoom in drag it to the left to zoom out so you're in the same position you are painting from the very same position press the shortcut zoom in zoom out don't have to carry your hand here and there for any functions other than this the touch ring can be very useful and you can assign it to your taste [Music] now here comes the most important tip ready for this this is gonna save your sanity truly when I say this I mean it if you have not learned anything from this video don't worry about it but just take this we have to take just one thing away from this tutorial let me show that to you without any further ado so we have worked so hard to customize our tablet set it up set up the shortcuts and all of that stuff now let's say you computer just corrupts heart let's say something happens your tablet just resets maybe you disconnected it and connected it again and something happened in your computer that completely reset the tablet or maybe an update came up what to do then you will have to reset that again to prevent that do this all you need to do is to open up Viacom tablet preference file utility so from the search Wacom tablet preference file utility just select that one now all you have to do my preferences area and just click on backup now you can take your backup on your desktop any way you want I'm gonna take a backup on C Drive let's name it W backup and let's say 2019 in January right and save now the backup is saved now you can save this file on the external hard disk or somewhere safe and then let's say your tablet resets or something bad happens you can just simply not worry first of all and click on restore find that file it was in C I guess C enmesh fast it will be right there we come w backup 2019 gen click on that one and click on open it will be set to that preference as easy as that on a Mac you can simply find it here you can just go to your launchpad and then just type in Wacom here you'd find it there you go Wacom tablet utility just click on that it's the same thing remove backup/restore click on backup and it will be backed up just like we did with the windows in the end always keep in mind the lesser the effort the better and the customizations that we today are my personal favorite settings if you find a way that works better for you by all means go for it and teach me as well here's the thing you have your own image style you know your style you know how you edit you know your workflow so your settings might be different from me use this tutorial not as a definite set of rules but as a starting point to guide you in customizing it your way so that it works for you the best I hope this tutorial helped you and if it did make sure to give us a like and also don't forget to subscribe and Nansha subscribe ring the bell so that you might friend don't miss any other future tip trick our tutorial thank you so much for watching I'll see you guys in the next one till then stay tuned and make sure that you keep creating [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: PiXimperfect

Views: 832,098

Keywords: how to set up wacom intuos pro, which wacom tablet to buy, wacom tablet, graphic tablet, best graphic tablet, wacom tablet settings for photoshop, wacom tablet for retouching, retouching, tablet setup guide, driver, windows ink, wacom wireless, pro pen 2, grip pen, express keys, touch ring, mapping in wacom, photoshop tutorial, portrait retouching, adobe, piximperfect, unmesh dinda

Id: 5e4Qok37Qi4

Length: 34min 25sec (2065 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/billbutter]

Nice content, would be better with shorter/less transition graphics and less intense music. Nobody wants to click on a video and see a 20 second intro that should’ve been 5 seconds tops. I’m not here for a big cinematic experience, let’s just cut right to the point and get into it. I do appreciate good production value of course, just think it’s a tad excessive at moments. Otherwise, awesome video!

[u/earthsworld]

Lots of great suggestions here and a nice way of assigning your brush controls to the lower pen button.

There's also a link in his comments to disabling the windows ink disaster if that's your OS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nL10xGIA_s