PP9 + Wacom ArtZ II ?

[athena]

Hello fellow PhotoPainters!

I just recently upgraded to Corel Draw 9 (I'd been waiting 'til I thought they had finished tweaking it).

I am running Win '98 SE and I have this Wacom ArtZ II which, incidentally, gives me no problems in PhotoPaint 7, PhotoPaint8, Painter 5, Painter 6 or PaintShop Pro 6.

But now I have PhotoPaint 9. When I first tried using some tablet features of PhotoPaint 9, (like the tablet setup) the program gets fatal errors and I have to shut it down.

Another problem is that I can't see the ghosted paintbrush shape on some of the tools like "fine streaks" in the paint brush tool. In the fine streaks, I actually don't see a cursor anywhere until I finally move the cursor off of the document. (I have not yet tested to see if color depth is affecting this at all).

Back to my Wacom ArtZ II (which is admittedly "old" but very functional) even with the quick doodler, the program seems hypersensitive to my tablet (can't do the PP9 tablet setup because it kills the program). Just moving the stylus over the tablet (not pressing down at all) causes the quick doodler to leave a mark across my document 60% of the time(I realize I can pause and click undo).

But what I'm wondering is everybody else having great success using their version of PP9? Is my PP9 experience doomed because I have an old ArtZ II?

(incidentally, since I got Corel Draw 9, I did download the newest Wacom driver for ArtZ and other tablets. After installing this new driver, Corel PhotoPaint 9 works much better but it is still not problem free. I don't doubt that there may be something still amiss with the Wacom driver since it seems to me that Wacom has written a driver that covers too many iterations of their tablets but I could be very wrong)

Is there anything I'm missing. I do have version 9.397. Have you seen or heard of any more patches? Is there a .dll I should look into? Anything?

Should I just copy this stuff to Corel Tech Support? Do they still have any free Tech Support? Or is the free stuff resting on the backs of volunteers?

I just thought I'd ask here first before I try to talk to Wacom and Corel Tech Support.

Any Tech Support via email often seems like a black hole. When I'm talking to a big company, if I do get answers from a live human being, I consider myself lucky. When I get thoughful answers from someone who actually read my message then I know I've been really lucky. (I hate it when a company sends an answer to your email (I'm talking beyond auto-responder here) but their message still has not answered your question . They just send you something, anything, -- just so that they can claim that you always get a response within 48 hrs or a week)

Anyway, I apologize for the tirade against corporate tech support. I'm not posting this to criticize Corel or Wacom, I'm just a little lost as to what to do next. I hate not knowing what to do because I'm very self reliant when it comes to computers. I rarely ever need to call tech support. As it stands, my PP9 is only partially usable -- sigh.

Thank you,

Athena

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[athena]

Hello fellow PhotoPainters!

I just recently upgraded to Corel Draw 9 (I'd been waiting 'til I thought they had finished tweaking it).

I am running Win '98 SE and I have this Wacom ArtZ II which, incidentally, gives me no problems in PhotoPaint 7, PhotoPaint8, Painter 5, Painter 6 or PaintShop Pro 6.

But now I have PhotoPaint 9. When I first tried using some tablet features of PhotoPaint 9, (like the tablet setup) the program gets fatal errors and I have to shut it down.

Another problem is that I can't see the ghosted paintbrush shape on some of the tools like "fine streaks" in the paint brush tool. In the fine streaks, I actually don't see a cursor anywhere until I finally move the cursor off of the document. (I have not yet tested to see if color depth is affecting this at all).

Back to my Wacom ArtZ II (which is admittedly "old" but very functional) even with the quick doodler, the program seems hypersensitive to my tablet (can't do the PP9 tablet setup because it kills the program). Just moving the stylus over the tablet (not pressing down at all) causes the quick doodler to leave a mark across my document 60% of the time(I realize I can pause and click undo).

But what I'm wondering is everybody else having great success using their version of PP9? Is my PP9 experience doomed because I have an old ArtZ II?

(incidentally, since I got Corel Draw 9, I did download the newest Wacom driver for ArtZ and other tablets. After installing this new driver, Corel PhotoPaint 9 works much better but it is still not problem free. I don't doubt that there may be something still amiss with the Wacom driver since it seems to me that Wacom has written a driver that covers too many iterations of their tablets but I could be very wrong)

Is there anything I'm missing. I do have version 9.397. Have you seen or heard of any more patches? Is there a .dll I should look into? Anything?

Should I just copy this stuff to Corel Tech Support? Do they still have any free Tech Support? Or is the free stuff resting on the backs of volunteers?

I just thought I'd ask here first before I try to talk to Wacom and Corel Tech Support.

Any Tech Support via email often seems like a black hole. When I'm talking to a big company, if I do get answers from a live human being, I consider myself lucky. When I get thoughful answers from someone who actually read my message then I know I've been really lucky. (I hate it when a company sends an answer to your email (I'm talking beyond auto-responder here) but their message still has not answered your question . They just send you something, anything, -- just so that they can claim that you always get a response within 48 hrs or a week)

Anyway, I apologize for the tirade against corporate tech support. I'm not posting this to criticize Corel or Wacom, I'm just a little lost as to what to do next. I hate not knowing what to do because I'm very self reliant when it comes to computers. I rarely ever need to call tech support. As it stands, my PP9 is only partially usable -- sigh.

Thank you,

Athena

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img]

[mikeius]

I use a Graphire table. I don't know if it use the same software from Wacom than yours, but here is what I did.

Open PP9 and the Wacom software.
Customize your Wacom Table for PP9.

In PP9 go to Tools/Options/General
There you will see a button to configure Pen Tables. Follow the instructions.

I hope it help.

Regards

Michael Cervantes

[athena]

Michael,

A thousand thank yous!!! Your advice was right on. Before I read your advice, I would use the Wacom tablet control panel and then close the control panel and then open PP9.

But thanks to your advice,
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Open PP9 and the Wacom software. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I thought I'd be brave and try having them both open just like you suggested(having both open never used to work with last year's Wacom driver -- or maybe it was the win 95 driver).

And abracadabra! That was the magic sequence. I was finally able to get the tablet setup in PP9 to work. You're a genius! Thank you sooo much! You made my shiny new copy of Photopaint 9 work.

As to the invisible paint brushes like "fine streaks" (no ghosted cursor). I did figure that one out on my own (once your fabulous advice got my Tablet working correctly).

I figured out that on my PC, the fine streaks brush is invisible to me because the program defaults to 99% transparency on the pen/brush properties. If I just move the transparency down to 89% transparency or even as high as 98% transparency, then I see the ghosted image of the brush's cursor.

So now everything works!! (I do have to decide whether I'll used Photopaint or Painter in a given computer session . . .they don't seem to share my tablet very well. . . nothing a quick Windows restart can't cure. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] )

Thanks again,

Athena
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]