Global and Application specific configuration

You can configure driver's use Windows Ink:

• For all applications

• For specific applications

This allows you to have a baseline configuration and then modify the behavior for specific applications as needed.

In general for the tablet driver I recommend:

• Enabling Windows Ink for all applications

• Disabling Windows Ink for specific applications that need it.

Every driver has a different way of configuring it in their UI:

• Wacom: Wacom Tablet Properties > Application

• Huion: The drop-down with the gear icon at the top.

• OpenTabletDriver: N/A - OTD does not support per-application Windows Ink configuration

Wacom Driver > Wacom Tablet Properties

• Open the Wacom Tablet Properties app

• Under Tool select your pen

• If you have a pen tablet, go to the Mapping tab.

Wacom Driver > Wacom Center

Huion Driver > Huion Tablet app

• Open the HuionTablet app

• Navigate to Digital Pen

• Under Press Key, set the Enable Windows Ink to turn on or off Windows Ink in the driver

XP-Pen driver > PenTablet App

• Open the PenTablet app

• Navigate to Digital settings

• Set the Windows Ink to turn on or off Windows Ink in the driver

Xencelabs Driver

OpenTabletDriver

NOTE: To see the Windows Ink option, you have to install the OTD Windows Ink plug-in first.

Overview

By default modern versions of Photoshop on Windows require the use of Windows Ink. However, you can configure Photoshop to not use Windows Ink and instead fall back to the WINTAB API.

To do this you need to create a file called "PSUserConfig.txt" file. Below you can see the instructions for creating this file.

The PSUserConfig.txt is used in general for lots of different configurations options. For more general information about the PSUsertConfig.txt, see: Enable Optional Extensions for Photoshop

Instructions

STEP 1: Find this folder

Mine looks like this

STEP 2: With notepad create a file in that folder called PSUserConfig.txt

NOTE: Get the spelling and capitalization of the filename EXACTLY as shown.

So my filename is

STEP 3: Edit the txt of PSUserConfig.txt with the following two lines

The first line does not matter but the second does.

Make sure the spelling and capitalization are exactly as shown.

Also make sure there aren't any leading or trailing spaces.

Save the file.

STEP 4: Close Photoshop if it is open

STEP 5: Launch Photoshop

Other resources

Reddit posts:

Overview

Windows Ink is an API and set of features in Microsoft Windows that enable using a pen to work with your PC. More here: . Windows Ink is one of two APIs used for Windows to talk to a tablet. The other, older one, is called WinTab.

There are two places to configure Windows Ink and they should be coordinated:

• In your tablet driver - you can configure it for all apps or for specific apps. See

The user experience

Apps vary in how they present the configuration for Windows Ink vs WinTab .

Tablet drivers always show it as a simple checkbox.

Apps may present it like this (Krita is shown). Notice that some apps use the phrase like "Windows 8 pointer API" to mean "Windows Ink"

Other apps may use the phrase "Tablet PC"

Clip Studio Paint

• Open Clip Studio Paint

• Go to File > Preferences > Tablet

• In the Tablet Input API section, you can choose to enable or disable Windows Ink

Krita

• Open Krita

• Go to Settings > Configure Krita > Tablet settings

• In the Tablet Input API section:

Adobe Photoshop

See these instructions:

Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer

• Navigate to Edit > Settings > Tools > Tablet Input Method

• There are three options there:

  • Low Precision (this is the default value)

  • High Precision

ArtRage Vitae

• Navigate to Edit > ArtRage Preferences > Input Device > Tablet Options > Use Wintab checkbox.

• Set the checkbox as you need

  • CHECKED -> enable Windows Ink (it is checked by default)

  • UNCHECKED -> disable Windows Ink

Firealpaca

• In FireAlpaca, navigate to File > Brush Environment Settings

• To the right of Select Pen Pressure API choose an option

  • Touch PC + Pen Tablet (Wintab) -> disable Windows Ink

  • PC + Pen Tablet (Wintab)

Medibang Paint

• In MediBang, navigate to File > Prefs and Settings > Brush Preference Settings

• Set the Validate native OS pen pressure detection

  • CHECKED -> enable Windows Ink (it is checked by default)

  • UNCHECKED -> disable Windows Ink

Rebelle

• in Rebelle go to Edit > Preferences > Tablet

• Under Tablet Options you can pick whether Windows Ink is used:

  • Wacom compatible (WinTab) -> disable Windows Ink

  • Xencelabs tablet

Configuring other applications

Many other apps covered here:

This list includes

• Photoshop CC

• Paint Tool SAI 2

• Corel Painter

• Rebelle

Background

Windows Ink is the evolution of the pen/stylus capabilities that started appearing in Windows in the early 2000s. This was an era when Microsoft was focusing on building products around a Tablet PC concept - what we might call a pen computer today. And as a tablet, it was thought that using a pen with these devices would be critical for tasks such as note taking, marking up documents, electronic signatures, etc.

And this support is extended not only to computers that have a screen that can be used with a pen, but also tablet devices that attach to computers such as pen tablets pen displays.

Adoption

This has been a bit of a rough journey in Windows.

Before Windows Vista

When the first tablet PC features appeared they could easily interfere with drawing tablets.

Windows Vista (2007)

You can see some of how the pen input evolved in this document from Microsoft describing (). But it was easy to disable those tablet PC features.

Windows 7 (2009)

By the time Windows 7 appeared, the ability to disable Tablet PC features via the Windows user interface started going away. People were forced to edit registry keys.

Windows 8 (2012)

By Windows 8, Windows stopped listening to the registry keys. So the previous workaround to disable these features no longer worked. At the release of Windows 8 it was essentially not possible to correctly use a drawing tablet with Windows.

Eventually tablet drivers started offering a checkbox to disable the use of Windows Ink features and then we could all draw again.

At this point many apps only used WINTAB. So, many people just disabled Windows Ink entirely on their computer. And this was a workable solution for the vast majority of people.

Windows 10 (2015)

As we progressed to Windows 10, several things happened:

• Some apps started to ONLY work with Windows Ink. Microsoft OneNote is a great example.

• Some apps work with BOTH Windows Ink and WINTAB

• Most modern apps handle Windows Ink.

• There are are still some apps that only work with WINTAB.

So these days the best option is to ENABLE Windows Ink in the driver, but disable it for specific apps using the driver's app-specific settings.

The future (updated on 2024)

Writing this in April 2024, we may be looking at more disruptive changes.

Windows on ARM CPUs seems to be coming. I expect this may affect the driver situation:

• It's unclear if older drivers can work with Windows on ARM.

• If that is the case, it is unclear how long a drawing tablet manufacturer will take to have updated drivers

• When they do have updated drivers, they may drop support for older tablets.

When Windows-on-ARM computers start appearing, I'll get one and start experimenting.