Hey everyone! So the past few days have been pretty stressful, as after my Windows PC updated, my pen tool in Photoshop CC would constantly pan the page instead of drawing a line. With multiple book deadlines coming up, and Photoshop completely unusable for digital drawing, it wasn't exactly great timing! I trawled the internet for apparent fixes, spoke to both Microsoft and Adobe, and found a huge amount of conflicting information on forums and help centres "add this file to this folder", "roll back the update"...it was a bog of information, so after some serious trawling, I wanted to share the way I fixed it in a few clear steps to help any other digital artists. To fix the Window's Ink pen tool pan glitch for Photoshop: 1 - In your computer's search bar type the letters ' cmd ' 2 - Right click on the 'Command Prompt' app and select 'Run As Administrator' 3 - On the black and white text input box type: reg add HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Pen /v LegacyPenInteractionModel /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
4 - Press Enter
5 - Test in Photoshop (it worked for me straight away), or restart your computer. That should hopefully fix it! I'm finally back to illustrating, and I'm relieved to see I haven't lost pressure sensitivity with my pen (as some of the other fixes mentioned might happen). It is pretty disappointing to read Microsoft's statements on the issue, which seems to completely gloss over the fact that an awful lot of people use pen input as professional creatives and not just to pan around web pages...but hopefully with these fixes we'll all be back on track creating amazing digital artwork! You can find this fix on Microsoft's answer page here.
March was a busy month for me, lots of deadlines, lots of places to go - but I was thrilled to finally take part in Joanne Hawker'sMarch Meet The Maker project on Instagram! Jo's a schoolfriend of mine, we grew up together and were berated by the same graphic design teacher for being silly together in class - so it's been amazing to see her project connecting so many creative people across the world who are just so passionate about making!
March Meet The Maker is basically a month of prompts for people (generally Etsy sellers) to reveal the person behind the products and let their followers know a little more about them, their creations, their passions and work environment! I took part in as many days as I could (it was a little tricky to do every day, especially with visits to Cornwall to see my Granny), and had such wonderful feedback.
It often feels easier for me to fill my Instagram feed with commissions, scrappy illustrations and prints, so it was quite a change for me to be like "Okay, here's my workspace! Here's how I create these images! Here's the park I love walking to on my break!" and get such insight into how so many other creatives go about their day to days.
It was brilliant to scroll through the hashtag and discover so many new talented creative people, and it really drove home the strength of the creative community. Here's to makers!