Choice of lenses and accessories may be very personal - perhaps too personal for gifting, but a graphics tablet is almost universally desired. Too difficult, too pricey? Most people, once they get their hands on a tablet, wonder how they ever did without! The recipient will thank you daily - and how about gifting yourself?
A graphics tablet is not just for sketching with a pen, animating a cartoon feature or brushing on watercolor effect over a base photographic image. Just like a camera should become the extension of the photographer’s eye and hand, to me my Wacom tablet is actually the extension of my hand and imagination that allows me to work very detailed, down to individual pixels. With speed, accuracy, flexibility, creativity.
Don’t we all spend a good deal of time in postproduction? Anything that would speed up the process would be extra valuable, right?
Say goodbye to scooting with a mouse
A graphics tablet, pen tablet, digitizer or drawing pad is a small, flat board (mine is 12x10” approx.) on which you “draw” with a stylus or pen as input to your computer. Using the stylus, you draw or write on the tablet with the same actions you would use with a normal pen. You never run out of real estate - like the annoyance when you get to the edge of your mouse pad and have to pick it up and put it down again to get the cursor where you need it to go.
With a graphics tablet, you move almost effortlessly around the real estate of your monitor.
Eye-hand coordination is a wonder. The hand moves automatically across the graphics tablet while you are looking at the screen, and in an ordinary set up where the screen sits vertically on a the desk top, looking straight out to the screen improves computer posture.
When designing book layouts or multi layering pictures, I often have 10-12 image files open to once on the desktop. I like a really big monitor, a 30” Apple, to be able to see them all in big size. Even though I’ve always used a Kensington trackball rather than a mouse (I still find the trackball best for document writing), I would be very slow and imprecise without my Wacom tablet.
The simplest use of a graphics tablet is therefore mouse replacement. Holding a pen has a much more natural feel than holding a mouse, and is a lot less stressful on the wrist. If you find you're getting RSI (repetitive strain injury) from frequent mouse usage, swap to a graphics tablet and you'll find things a lot easier. Not to mention way faster.
Since a tablet does everything a mouse does, and easier and faster, there are a multitude of daily workflow uses.
Precision retouching and manipulation have a whole new meaning with the advent of timesaving archive/optimization applications like Lightroom, and the accompanying facility of opening any JPEG file in Photoshop with all the possible controls that were previously the province only of RAW files. This is yesterday’s news, but the secret of working through the many options is unknown to the majority. Now that graphics capabilities are coming into the mainstream for everything from not taking in lectures to kids practicing their penmanship and doing math problems, photographic tablets are coming into their own as well.
Don’t discount the possibilities for scrapbooking and making killer business presentations that give Powerpoint a kick in the tush.
OK, so now I have to admit I’m using an old model Wacom, the Intuous2. It’s pronounced Wah-cum, with a soft a and the accent on the first syllable. Mine works like a dream, has worked every day I’ve had it. I’ve always used keyboard shortcuts, drilled into me more than a decade ago by John Anderson, then professor at Red Rocks Community College, and a friend since high school. So I use my right hand on the tablet, and my left on the keyboard.
But there’s now an even better way. Wacom is on the Intuous5 issue, and there are lots of new, easier to use facilities, such as multi-finger touch, wireless kit option and heads-up display.
What model to recommend? I’ve got small hands, so I never considered the less expensive tablets, such as a Monoprice Graphics, where a fat battery needs to be housed in the pen itself. What I can tell you is that generally the smallest model of any tablet is less useful, and the bigger ones for most of us will not be worth the price performance. Best all-round handleability and performance is the 6x8” (about a 12x10” board), at least according to a lot of people who have commented on the products on line - and me too. The Medium 6x8” is B&H’s best seller at $323.95. Don’t gasp! It’s worth all that and more.
Typical comments from international users are “high quality, more control, should have bought one years ago, works as advertised, I can use it without even reading the instructions, worthy upgrade, ergonomic, for pro or beginner, don’t miss the mouse at all, great, great, great”!
Tablets for less pricey gifting
If you need a little more economical gift - and maybe not all the advanced bells and whistles - compare the Wacom “Bamboo” line, starting at about $85. If you want to really splurge, look at the “Cintiq”, starting at about $825 up to $2,500, which is an active monitor display showing the image under your pen. I wanted one of these originally, but changed my mind when I realized that you don’t have to look at you hand while you are moving the stylus. In fact I feel your hand and stylus get in the way of seeing what you are doing on the Cintiq.
I’m hoping Santa Clause comes to photographers. At least a new Wacom Inutous5 won’t take up more than a little corner in his pack!
Visit these other sites for further info and advice.
- Which tablet is best for you?
- Photo.net on Wacom
- Pen tablets on Wacom.com
- Guido from Wacom video how-to
- Wes from Wacom quick start 1/2 hour tutorial
All images in this article courtesy of Wacom.
