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Using two monitors with single tablet

Discussion

5 replies
Posted by hari ari on April 16, 2006 at 5:20 AM
Proposing to use two 19 inch monitors, which allows me to have my photo full screen on one, and all my pallettes and toolbars on the other, but.... I use my graphics tablet in absolute (pen) mode and so the extent of the tablet only covers the first monitor, so every time I want to change tools, I need to put down the pen and use the mouse.
I don't suppose anyone knows a way of either extending the tablet area over both monitors, or a hotkey switch to change which monitor is in use?
I am running XP home with PSCS2.
Thanks
Hari
Posted by Guy Tal on April 16, 2006 at 7:52 AM
I can't answer the tablet question but an easier way to do it might be to use keyboard shortcuts for the various Photoshop tools, as well as assigning function keys to your actions.

Guy
Posted by Rob Theoret on April 16, 2006 at 1:52 PM
Hi Hari
What kind of tablet are you using? I have a WACOM and I have done the following. Adjust the amount of pixel width that you want the cursor to travel on your desktop, depending on the monitor resolution that you have set up. Example: my monitor resolution is 1280 x 1024 so I adjusted the coordinates of my tablet as follows.

Top = 0
Left = 0
Bottom = 1024
Right = 2560

Monitor 1
Aspect = To Fit

The above adjustment are found in the in the software setup.

Hope this helps, let me know.

Best regards,

Rob Theoret
Posted by todd roseman on April 17, 2006 at 12:42 AM
I tried doing this with a small wacom tablet and found a lot of "jitter" in the pen since it's mapped to a larger number of pixels. Very hard to make small precise selections in photoshop, but it would probably be easier with a larger tablet. fyi.
---todd
Posted by hari ari on April 17, 2006 at 1:07 PM
Rob, I have just got the use of a Wacom A5 size tablet. Looks that Todd has encountered problems with the small size of the tablet.
Hari
Posted by todd roseman on May 5, 2006 at 9:25 AM
Just found another option for 4x5 tablets. You can set one of the buttons on the pen to switch from Pen mode to Mouse mode. The pen mode will be jittery but then you click and do fine selections with Mouse mode and back when done. Not perfect, but could work for you. FYI.