Can anyone help me?

[Lorraine]

I have PSP PX2 Ultimate and used it for a few years.
Only a few months with this Windows 7 PC.

This is what I did:
I did a shift-D to save the orginal pic I received without changes.
I put a black border on it and optimised it, does that make a difference?

**I am trying to put a red line on a picture and I can't seem to do it
with the paint brush or a preset slanted line.

I tried using a layer and that didn't work, tried without layer, same result.
Thanks
-Lorraine

[Ron P.]

Lorraine,

Have you tried using the Pen tool? Grab your Pen Tool, then on the Attributes toolbar set the Mode to Draw Lines and Polylines, set the line style, width to your liking. Then click once on your image which will place a start node, go to where you want the line to end and click again.

[Lorraine]

Thanks Ron, but I just want to draw a line on a road.
It's my road in the country, we had a ditch or gully on the
north side of the road. The rain made a mess of the road because
they did a nice job of the road last year but filled in the ditches
hubby used to have so the rain would just continue where it
didn't damage anyone.
it would be on a slanted line from centre part of picture
to bottom left... something like that.
I have a Grahire tablet, which is good for nothing as far as I'm concerned,
and tried to draw a line, doesn't work. Nothing works on this PC.
I sent the picture. Small ditch or gully

country road uphill

should be on the left side.
-Lorraine

[Ron P.]

Something like this...

or this..

[Lorraine]

Thanks Ron, excellent, on the left side.
Now if you could just tell me what you did?
Of course I don't suppose you use Window 7 Internet Exp. 8 or do you?

I want to send it to a contractor as the road was so nice last year.
Thanks ever so much, I do appreciate your help.
-Lorraine

[df]

I have a Grahire tablet, which is good for nothing as far as I'm concerned....
-Lorraine

I had this very problem with both a Graphire 4 and a Bamboo Pen/Touch tablet. The problem isn't with PSP per se, but with the Windows service interfering with Wacom's service.

Click Start> Control Panel> Programs (or Programs and Features).
The Uninstall/Change Features dialog window will open. We are not uninstalling anything here, just turning the Windows feature off so that the Wacom feature can operate unabated.
On the left click Turn Windows Features On or Off. In will take a minute or two for the list to populate. Scroll it down to Tablet PC Components and either check it or uncheck it (do the opposite of what it's at now). Click OK. It will take another minute to configure. It will ask you to restart your computer. Click restart later. Try your tablet. It should work better for you now. If not try restarting your computer and try it again.

If all that doesn't work after restarting your computer open PSP, in the Full Editor click View> Palettes> Brush Variance. You should see a palette show up on the right or maybe somewhere else. Open your image, click your tool that you want, and you will see on that new Palette there's one value set to *Pressure, change that to Normal and you should be in business. I didn't put this first since now you won't have full functionality with the tablet this way. You'll be able to use it, but you won't be able to use the pressure to vary the width of the line for example.

[LeviFiction]

It looks like Ron used the pen tool and drew straight lines in the very way he described to you originally and demonstrated in his video. Though obviously he made a few more clicks, you can tell by the sharp corners in the line.

EDIT: Ah, actual advice on how to use the graphire tablet. Good show, Df.

If none of that works then maybe the rest of my post will be relevant but I think you've just received sound advice.

I can understand if PSP is not registering your tablet as actually drawing. But you should be able to draw with the mouse.
I have two concerns with your problem however.

1) What do you mean when you say you add black borders and "optimize"? How are you optimizing the photo? Can you give us clear steps for what you have already attempted to do.

2) What does it look like when you try to draw? Does cursor remain in one place as you drag the pen around on the tablet? Does it move and just not draw anything? Can you give us a screen shot of your interface so we can get a look at everything that you see?

[Lorraine]

I was looking at your Adobe video with voice.
You do it so fast. It would take me much longer.....
You remove things and edit them so fast...
wonderful to watch a person working and
explaining... I really enjoyed it Ron
The PSP one is very good too.... you see there
are so many things I don't know about PSP.
thanks so much for the lines, much appreciated
-Lorraine

[Lorraine]

Thanks Dan,
I printed it out and also saved a copy, so I will look into probably tomorrow.
I'm too tired now, it's 1;30 AM here where I live now. I did check to see
what you meant as I have a program called: Web Tablet IE Plugin and then another
called Bamboo. I imagine the latter is the site Wacom sent me for my Graphire with
Windows 7. Should I go to both after configuration and when it Populates?
I thank you very much for your help and have to be alert to do all those
applications you state. Will try anyway. Thanks DF
-Lorraine

[Lorraine]

Hi LeviFiction:
What I meant by a black border was I added a 5 inch border in black and then clicked adjust and Sharpen
Then I 'saved as: in my library folder and when I saved as, it said optimise at the bottom so I did and it compresses it.
Sometimes I export, Jpeg optimiser and then I usually optimise at 20 and it makes a big difference. sometimes at first I will make them about 800x600 in a photo that is full size.....it's about 1938 x 1500 thereabouts when full size.. I have a 23" monitor.

Spent about 2 hrs trying to get it to work, thought I had lost my memory...
night now....thanks for your "thumbs up" Levi.

Thanks to everyone who helped me tonight..... I snagged the picture Ron and thanks. My daughter and her hubby took pictures last weekend and worked a bit on the road and cut the grass. I didn't go as I watched the Royals, Paddle racing, but now they call it Dragon racing.
-Lorraine

[df]

Thanks Dan,
I printed it out and also saved a copy, so I will look into probably tomorrow.
I'm too tired now, it's 1;30 AM here where I live now. I did check to see
what you meant as I have a program called: Web Tablet IE Plugin and then another
called Bamboo. I imagine the latter is the site Wacom sent me for my Graphire with
Windows 7. Should I go to both after configuration and when it Populates?
I thank you very much for your help and have to be alert to do all those
applications you state. Will try anyway. Thanks DF
-Lorraine

In the first part of my post I outlined how to turn off Microsoft's tablet software. It interferes with Wacom's software. I am assuming that you have the latest drivers for your tablet from Wacom and that Microsoft's drivers are interfering with Wacom's drivers. To put it very plainly I suspect you have two drivers trying to interpret your tablet, they are conflicting with each other, you only need one.

In the second part of my post I outlined what to do if you either don't want to screw with your system that much or if you did what I wrote in the first part and it didn't work. It's also making your tablet "dumded down" as you won't be able to use the pressure sensitivity, but it will work just fine for what you're trying to accomplish.

I had the issue of the conflicting drivers with both Windows Vista and Windows 7.

[Ron P.]

I used my WinXP machine to produce the video, since I don't have PSP X2 installed on my Vista machine. I also used a mouse, and pen tool to draw the line. I have my Wacom Intuos 3 installed on that same machine, and don't like using on my Vista machine for similar reasons pointed out by df.

On my WinXP machine was able to draw a line in PSP X2 using my Wacom tablet and the paintbrush tool. I also was able to do this on my Vista machine, however I was using PSP X3.

[Lorraine]

Thanks Dan and Ron, haven't tried to fix the Wacom yet.
Wacom sent me a driver and I installed, I don't know if it is still there or not,
as I had a few Restores done by Microsoft I believe.
I did one Restore myself a long time ago.

I think perhaps my Wacom is a Wacom 3 altho' I looked at the box and it
says Wacom 4. I bought it in Montreal, several years ago.
Isn't the one they are selling now a Wacom 4.

But Wacom sent me a driver to download.
Some recovered folders are back, well that's good but the Wacom File
isn't here.. I think the man's name was Tom Feston that sent it to me\

Time to have something to eat now. thanks for info, appreciated.
back later
-Lorraine

[df]

Graphire 4 was (I believe) the last of the line before the Bamboo lineup started. Win7 came out after the Graphire tablets, so you need to use the most current drivers which are made for the Bamboo tablets. Drivers aren't like programs in that they don't install to your start menu or onto your desktop. They do tell the computer how to operate and interpret the signals coming from the tablet.

If you have tried installing the driver and the tablet still doesn't work properly try my second set of instructions, I'll copy them here to be clear:
Open PSP, in the Full Editor click View> Palettes> Brush Variance. You should see a palette show up on the right or maybe somewhere else. Open your image, click your tool that you want, and you will see on that new Palette there's one value set to *Pressure, change that to Normal and you should be in business.
You can do this whether you have the proper driver or not. As long as the tablet registers the movement of the pen/mouse and the left and right clicks it will work. You just won't have pressure sensitivity.

[Lorraine]

O.k. I did what Dan recommended I do.
Went in Control Panel and unchecked tablet.
Clicked O.K. I guess and then the only place I
knew where to try it was PSP X2 and this is what
I did.

Not the curve in it like Rons which is better,
I have to practice the vectors which I haven't done yet.
It works now, so what I what I want to know is:
Can I close my control panel now? I'm not an engineer
thanks Ron and Dan, had to open PSP to see what I had to
do Ron.
-Lorraine