wacom intuos 5 - kink in strokes

thomasp

just wondering if anybody has tips on how to cure this kink i am seeing in paint strokes:



- this is not application specific! i can reproduce the behaviour in photoshop, krita, affinity photo, whatever. always happens when doing quick strokes and rapidly changing stroke direction. slower, controlled strokes come out clean. brush size or options such as photoshop's smoothing do not seem to have an effect either.

- does not seem to be linked to a particular OS/driver: i see this on windows and on OSX with different versions of the latter 6.3 driver series (required for intuos 5).

- does not seem to be related to the screen vs tablet surface mapping since it happens on two quite different setups with varying resolutions and numbers and orientations of screens attached.

- lasty it does not seem to be an issue related to a specific device either - i have two intuos 5 M 2013 model and intuos pro medium 2015 (with touch disabled). exactly the same issue.


tried: set tablets to data recognition mode. old trick from years ago to improve performance but does not seem to affect anything anymore. played with the compatibility setting for pressure levels (only available in windows) - messes the tablet up completely here.
do not want: wildly update to random drivers in the hopes to find a magical cure.

needless to say: previous intuos tablets i have used did not show this behaviour. what gives? did i miss anything?

thomasp

didn't manage to solve this, just work around it by using lazy mouse equivalent functions and resorting to slow strokes. can't be only happening on my intuos 5/driver setup?

AtticusMars

When you tried with multiple tablets were you using the same pen? You say you tried on both OSX and Windows, was that dual booting on the same computer?

To be honest my first guess would be that your pen nib is slightly worn on one side which is why I ask about the pen. I've had similar problems with my strokes when one side was flattened out enough and it was especially noticeable on curves where the nib couldn't rotate smoothly.

Edit: Also noticed you specifically said paint strokes/applications, does this mean you don't see it in 3D apps such as ZBrush?

thomasp

hey,
i tried with both my pens actually and it gave the same result. and i do see the behaviour everywhere, definitely in zbrush although there it's barely noticeable since i don't 'sketch' sculpts with quick strokes.
so far i definitely put it down to the driver side and assume it must be fairly low level if it shows up on two entirely different operating systems and tablet hardware revisions.

at a loss here... it's not a feature by any chance?

AtticusMars

Are you using the wireless kits or is it plugged directly into the PC? Failing that, the only thing left I can think of to narrow it down is to find a friend with the same tablet and have them test it in their own environment (testing and home would probably be best), that would at least confirm whether or not it is something specific to your setup.

I'm not entirely sure how the driver interacts with the hardware, I've been under the impression that all of the modern tablets are using the same (or at least very similar) driver with different user interfaces because I do not have a pro series tablet yet my Wacom service description describes it as the pro service. I could be wrong, all I can say for sure is that this issue is not present on my CTH-680, not very useful as a direct comparison though.

Only other recommendation I could give is to contact wacom if you haven't already, they might have more diagnostic tools. Sorry man

PolyHertz

Does the bump happen consistently over certain areas of the wacoms surface? There could very easily be minor imperfections in the tablet surface itself causing this.

thomasp

nope, it happens all over the place. the tablets are not worn at all. i just tried it at another computer (another mac, different OS version from the one i mentioned in the OP). happens there as well.