Ok. So, while I love my bamboo drawing pad I got last year, and I have an awesome new laptop this year, I've realized that nothing really beats drawing by hand. I now prefer regular thin paper, with a .5mm pencil (and a .25 pen for inking) and scanning in my drawing before pulling it into photoshop for re-inking and coloring.

There are a few problems with this now.

1. Photoshop is not installed on my computer. I can not bring myself (yet) to try to learn Corel Painter, even though I've heard 'tis better to draw with. I'm in a rut with photoshop, and I like being stuck in my ways.

2. My scanner has died. The Epson multi-functional printer/scanner/copier thingy will not scan. I don't know what did it; some kind of upgrade (re-installation?) of the main computer to Win XP, and all of a sudden, there are no good drivers for the darn thing. No scanner. Ugh!

This dilemma has left me with an unwillingness to attempt drawing. Everytime i pick up my bamboo pad, thinking I will try this again, that it's got to be not-as-bad-as-I-recall, it becomes so. I can't draw with corel painter; it's little delayed reaction thing with my bamboo throws me off and I can't even draw a closed circle!!!!! I mean, seriously!

That, and mspaint (now that I've figured out where the crud they've hidden it in Windows Vista, btw, like they would rather you not know it even exists) is just as bad. Seriously.

I can't draw. This is ridiculous.

Anyone know how to fix an Epson scanner driver problem? Or have another copy of photoshop I can use? Because otherwise, I am doomed to finger-drawing with my laptop-mouse-pad in microsoft paint if I get desperate to draw.

And I am almost that desperate.

*sigh*