Digital Tablets

[mcopan]

I saw an ad for a digital tablet on one of the sites I read. I don't know much about the digital tablet and would like to know how much it could advance my editing abilities in CS5.

I work with the mouse now but would like to be more productive with my graphics work with a couple medium sized projects coming up.

I literally don't know much of anything about the tablets so I would like some help please.

 

[battylittlesister]

Hey there,

I've been looking for a decent but affordable graphics tablet myself. For as long as I've done graphics my mouse has been my "pen", like yours. The tablets I've looked at range from $200 on up, but I think if you're doing graphic work or photo editing as a career it's well worth it.

I'm not sure about what sort of work you actually do. If it's photo editing or illustrating, if it's mainly editing you should probably try the Wacom Bamboo series tablets first. These range anywhere from $60-$300 and are reasonably sized.

If your doing illustrations and actual drawing check out the Wacom Cintiq Series Tablets. These are quite a bit more expensive ranging from $1000 up. The reason why is because these are actually screen tablets, not just the regular tablet and pen. Quite a bit nicer and easier to use. (But don't hold me to that, it's a matter of what you prefer.)

I recommend taking a look at the Wacom website, find a graphics tablet you really like, and then look for youtube videos of people using the tablet. It will give you an idea of what it's mostly used for and if you like it.

Wacom Bamboo Tablets: Bamboo Overview

Wacom Cintiq Tablets: Cintiq - Product Overview

Wacom Intuos Tablets: Wacom Technology - Intuos4 (I don't know anything about this series, but I thought you would find the link helpful.)

Don't forget to check out youtube videos for a better look at the tablet you like best.

Hope this helped!

 

[Garbz]

I literally don't know much of anything about the tablets so I would like some help please.

- They come in various sizes.
- They come in various qualities (512 pressure levels vs 1024 etc),
- They emulate a mouse on the computer if you don't install the driver.
- If you install the driver you get a choice of emulating a mouse or having absolute positioning meaning the bottom left of the tablet is the bottom left of the screen.
- It's really fun to watch people who have never used a tablet like this pick it up and then have no idea how this absolute positioning works.
- RSI gets replaced with tennis elbow if you spend all day at your computer.

I have a Wacom Graphire 3. It's ancient. Had it for ... 4 years now I think. The pen is falling apart. None the less it's the best $100 I ever spent, and not just for photography.

 

[RHFphoto]

I currently am using a tablet from monoprice.

 

[KmH]

I use a Wacom Intuos 4 Medium, daily for photo editing and web surfing. I use the pen tablet, and the pen instead of a mouse.

Here is a shot of my image editing workstation so you can see how much space the tablet requires. The pen is in a holder there on the right just between my computer tower and the tablet:

 

[Big Mike]

I use a small Wacom tablet. I only use it for certain tasks, like photo touch ups etc. Still, it's a great tool and I highly recommend it for photo editing.

 

[ann]

i have been using a wacom cintig 15 inch screen and it is worth evey penny i paid. i lust after the 21inch one, but too much money and not enough working space (thank goodness )

 

[Village Idiot]

I've been using an Intuos 4 and it's amazing for any pen based task or tasks like outlining objects for selection/masking/etc... in PhotoShop. If you're not going to be doing a lot of that and most of your edits are global edits like curve adjusts and sharpening, then it's probably not going to be very helpful. I still have a USB mouse that I use for all other tasks. My screen resolution is set at 2560x1600, so it's kind of a pain trying to use it for general things like browsing the web.