Pen pressure

A stroke feels more expressive when its width responds to the pen, swelling under pressure and tapering as pressure eases. This demo uses a simple, rounded gray stroke, so you can focus on how pressure affects width. Draw with a pen tablet; a mouse does not report pressure, so the stroke stays a constant width.

Pressure controls width relative to a set base width: at medium pressure, the stroke matches that width; a light touch makes it thinner, and a firm press makes it wider, up to the Scale setting at either end. A dead zone (Threshold) treats the lightest touches as zero, since pens rarely report a true zero. The numbers a tablet reports do not always match how the pressure actually feels. The response curve (Curve) reshapes the low-pressure range, where raw tablet input can feel too sensitive. Finally, a slope limit (Limit) caps how quickly the width can change along the stroke, so pressing firmly makes it swell and releasing quickly makes it taper smoothly rather than change abruptly.