How to setup and use a graphics tablet with Photoshop – Wacom Intuos Pro

I recently purchased a new Wacom Intuos medium tablet to replace my old graphics tablet. We also got a small-sized Wacom tablet so Ashleigh (a member of our team) could learn to retouch using a tablet and pen instead of her mouse.

I show you how to correctly set up the Wacom and how I use a graphics tablet with Photoshop. Ashleigh shows you her experiences during the initial setup and how she adjusted to all the functions whilst using her graphics tablet and pen on a retouching project.

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  1. Wacom Intuous tablet pen may have problems after upgrading to macOS Big Sur.

    I have a Wacom Intuous Medium tablet that was quite easy to install in my previous iMac from 2010, running on OS High Sierra, with hardware too old to enable newer OS updates.

    I recently upgraded from it into my new iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) with macOS Big Sur, Version 11.3. I transferred all my data and apps from my old iMac via the Time Machine, and initially everything seemed to work fine in my new computer, including Photoshop (which I could now update to 2021, 22.3.1. Release) and Wacom Desktop Center (6.3.42-1). Also, the mouse moved the cursor normally on the screen.

    But when using the Wacom pen over the tablet in Photoshop, a window popped out with an error message saying “Security settings prevented the Wacom software from posting an event”. It turned out that Apple’s Gatekeeper triggers an “unidentified developer” warning when anything is downloaded outside the Mac App Store and prevents your Wacom device communicating with your Mac properly.

    There was a nightmare of a problem in making the Wacom pen work again with the tablet.

    Wacom has instructions and videos at their web pages on how to solve the problem, but for some reason they did not quite match the problem as it appeared in my iMac, and the suggested solutions did not replicate on instruction videos what was happening on my screen, either.

    I used hours in struggling with various suggestions that I found with Internet searches, removing existing and re-installing new drivers and trying to locate certain files and place them in appropriate boxes of the user interface as instructed, restarting my Mac repeatedly, but to no avail.

    The only tricks that finally did work in my own iMac I found from the URL

    machow2.com/wacom-tablet-driver/

    This web page has subtitles Step 1 and Step 2 with sets of bullet points with details on manual adjustments to be made, and I had to follow them all through literally – but thankfully it finally did resolve the problem, and now my pen works again.

    Because it might save time and effort from some others, I decided to share my experience here. Hopefully, over time there will be an easier solution in the form of a script to run, or some later Wacom software update will do the job.

    Cheers,
    Hannu

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