Nisis Hyperpen G3 USB Tablet (aka Aiptek HyperPen 8000U)OK, strictly this isn't a review, more of a support guide for the Nisis Easypen G3 USB graphics tablet as I had some major problems getting Photoshop to recognise the pressure-sensitive stylus.

Scan had them on special offer (again), and I finally decided to get one. They were reviewed in one of the digital camera magazines recently and faired pretty well, so for about £10 (OK, more like £18 with P&P!) I thought I'd give it a go and see if it helped with photo editing.

It arrived, I installed the drivers, and it appeared to work. The systray icon fires up a configuration control, letting you set the working area of the tablet, the speed of the mouse (it comes with a mouse and a pen) and the sensitivity of the pen. All well and good. However, upon firing up Photoshop CS2 and trying to configure the brush dynamics to use the pen pressure to control size/opacity/flow of the brush, I discover Photoshop doesn't recognise the tablet!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, get yourself the latest drivers. Unfortunately, Nisis's website (http://www.nisis.com/) was non-existant (perhaps that's why Scan are selling the tablets cheap...). Fortunately, the Internet Archive has copies of them from their archived copy of the G3 drivers page (or try to download direct). Note that the drivers packaged as version 3.10 do enable the pen pressure control to work with Photoshop - other (earlier) versions I've tried don't.

For reference, the Nisis products appear to be re-badged Aiptek tablets, so their drivers should work. However, they only appear to have version 3.08 drivers, which didn't enable pen pressure control in Photoshop for me.

Finally, I ought to plug Adobe Forums. There's a few threads on there about Nisis, Aiptek and other branded tablets (which seem to be the same models), and the problems associated with them. Expect lots of comments about "you should have bought Wacom". It's clear that Wacom tablets are the most reliable, but they are several times the price, so I guess the Nisis G3 was worth a couple of late nights tracking down the right drivers to get it all working.

Now all I need to do is actually try using the tablet for photo editing!

Update (11 September 2007):

As has been pointed out in the comments, the Internet Archive link no longer works. Please check my more recent post for links to the Aiptek V3.15 drivers.

Update (18 October 2007):

Surprisingly, there still seems to be some demand for the v3.10 drivers. Due to a lack of time, and giving up caring whether it's going to cause me problems making it public, here's the link to the drivers.

Download and use them at your own risk. I got hold of these from the Internet Archive's archive of the Nisis website. I believe them to be free from viruses (virii?) and other nasty things, but please feel free to check them yourself first. Also see the note above that more recent v3.15 drivers are available from Aiptek.

Finally, I haven't actually used mine in a long time. Between various issues with drivers (lack of pen pressure sensitivity in older drivers, newer drivers crashing after a couple of minutes) and general poor feel, I can't be bothered. Once upon a time a graphic designer told me to buy Wacom or I'd regret it. He was right, and I think my G3 is going in the bin/on freecycle/on eBay. Whether I'll get a Wacom or not to replace it, I don't know. To everyone else still persisting with the G3, good luck!

Thanks,

Kev

Update (21 January 2008):

Seeing as there are still lots of people asking about the drivers for the Nisis Easypen tablets, I'll re-post the links here, even though they I've already posted them on the article linked in a previous update (above). These are for the Aiptek HyperPen tablets, which appear to be identical to the Nisis ones apart from the branding (at least, the Nisis Easypen G3 and Aiptek HyperPen 8000U look physically identical). So, as stated previously, the latest drivers are version 3.15 for Windows XP and Vista (or 3.08 for Windows 98, ME and 2000): 

Once again, good luck!