Pen and pressure

A pressure pen such as the Samsung S Pen draws with real pressure on your computer. Krita is the drawing app we test with, on both Windows and macOS.

On Windows

Pressure works out of the box: setup installs PixelBridge’s own pen driver. Two things to know:

• Connect first, then open the drawing app. Krita and similar apps pick their pen when they start. If the app was already open when you plugged in, restart it.
• Pen in Krita and other Qt apps (tray menu, on by default) lets those apps read pressure from PixelBridge. They read pen pressure from one shared Windows file, so PixelBridge takes that place on this PC while a device is connected. Any other tablet driver you have, such as a Wacom driver, keeps answering the rest of the time. This setting applies to every account on the PC.

If another tablet driver’s update takes that place back, the tray tells you once, and the menu item reads “Pen in Krita and other Qt apps (… took it back)”. Click it to turn it back on. Uninstalling PixelBridge puts the other driver’s file back exactly as it was.

With a Wacom tablet plugged in at the same time, apps you open during a PixelBridge session use the PixelBridge pen until you restart them.

The pen settings live in Settings › Pen. All are on by default.

On a Mac

• Grant Accessibility in the Setup assistant (menu bar › Setup Assistant…). Without it, the pen and touch can’t move the pointer or draw.
• Pressure works in apps that read it, such as Krita.
• High-rate pen mode (menu bar › Pen, or Settings › Pen; off by default) gives smoother strokes. macOS delivers pen input at the main display’s refresh rate, so this mode runs the PixelBridge display fast and makes it the main display while a device is connected. Your menu bar moves to the tablet while it’s on. It works in Extended mode only.

In the app: pen or touch

The session’s input control switches between two modes:

• Pen: the pen draws, and your fingers pan and zoom the picture.
• Touch: fingers and pen both work the computer directly.

Tune the pressure curve

Open Pen pressure in the app to shape how hard you need to press:

• Start from a preset: Linear (default), Soft or Hard.
• Drag the dots to bend the curve, or use the Sensitivity slider (softer to firmer).
• Try it in the Draw here to test area, then save it under a name.