I'm trying to start off in the world of pixel art, by making an avatar for these forums that I won earlier this year (I was the other part of the team for Journey to Black Mountain). I'm basically starting out by taking a picture I drew in my sketchbook, scanning it, and then making it small and starting to "ink" it.

My problem is that Photoshop isn't recognizing that I have two different ends to my pen, and is making both ends do the same thing (either drawing, or erasing). Painter lets me flip the pen and erase with ease, and Kildorf says his tablet does this automatically, but he's got his setup all weird, and I'm unfamiliar with Photoshop, so I can't just go poke around in all his settings.

Can somebody help me figure out how to get my tablet to act like a tablet, and not like a really thin mouse? T_T

Thanks for forwarding it, it's highly appreciated.

As far as I know, the plan is to enter. I'm just the art girl, and Kildorf tells me what to draw. All I know so far is that I have to draw some people, and some better trees than he made in Journey. And such trees they will be! XD Just as soon as Photoshop stops hating my tablet. T_T

Just offhand, you may want to check to see if your tablet's manufacturer has special drivers for photoshop. Their website may also just have instructions on how to help you with photoshop right out in the open.

(That's my suggestion, they're not that quick ;)

I'd imagine you have a non-wacom brand tablet, due to the fact that PS has native wacom support. However, like Grue said, your tablet probably has a setup program where you can tweak your stylus's settings for attributes like nib functions, etc. If you do have a Wacom, you'll find this tool in the Control Panel, under "Wacom Tablet." There's a tab section called 'Tool Buttons' that will let you specifiy your stylus's button functionality.

In Photoshop I never flip the stylus for eraser mode. The eraser on my wacom is rather large and unwieldy. You're better off learning the hotkeys and swapping on the fly.

A few invaluable PS hotkeys:

B = Brush
E = Eraser
W = Magic Wand selection tool
D = Defaults colors to Black and White
X = Swaps your active colors
ALT = When in brush mode, turns into color eye dropper
Tab = Removes the UI

Once you have the hotkeys down, you can tab away the interface and go to town, and you'll work infinitely quicker.

I want a sexy tablet now :(

Thanks, Falthorn. I've always had a hard time with hotkeys. I know some of the Painter ones, but Painter, I hear, is pretty useless for pixel art. This should help a bit.

I do have an Intuos2, it just didn't occur to me at first that other people buy other sorts of tablets. ^^

McGrue: It is a sexy tablet, but I'm holding the mouse together with tape now. It's about 3 or 4 years old, and the little rubber sides on the mouse are starting to disintegrate, and turn into big smears of nubbly bits across my tablet surface if I don't have tape on them. I'd consider buying a new mouse, but they're $100 (Canadian) (at last check) and I figure within a week of getting a new mouse, my actual tablet will self destruct. -_-

The Intuos2 mouse isn't as bad as the Graphire ones. I had a Graphire (first edition) before I blew two paychecks on this one, and I despised the mouse. This one isn't so bad, and over 4 years, I've gotten used to the way it doesn't care how you hold the mouse, but it drives my friends crazy when they use it. Then they discover that I have a Dvorak keyboard, too. XD

edit: And reinstalling sounds like a good idea. Although I did get through the afternoon with the hotkeys that were posted, it would be nice to be able to flip like I'm used to.

I'd do that if the tablet wasn't so big (9x12) and if my cat would stop thinking that my tablet is a nice bed while I'm working on it!

In other news, reinstallinng Photoshop made it stop hating my tablet, but now I also know some more hotkeys, so it works out great. ^^

Now I'm just frustrated with making sprites for the first time in my life. >_

I always thought that was a profoundly sexy explosion.

I looked at your site also after reading Falthorn's post. Holy crap, your HoV is going to rock! u r gud, plz post maor kulerd pix plz kthx.