Wacom tablets, which one for digital photography/art

I'm about to purchase a Wacom tablet, and was leaning towards the 9X12 Intuos. The new 6X11 looks to be a better choice however, given the slightly smaller size and widescreen configuration. I've never used a tablet and would appreciate any advice. I'm curious about the various ways visual artists and photographers use a tablet and if it has become a prefered addition to workflow for photographers that have one.

I'll be checking out the online academy website for tutorials on setting up and using a tablet. Are there other good sites with info on using a Wacom?
Thanks,
Robert
http://www.pbase.com/robert_m_mcfarlane

If you're serious about painting, retouching, any graphics work, then a pen tablet is the way to go. The accuracy and precision is greater with respect to a mouse. Zooming in for fine detail work with a pen is unbeatable whether you're painting or just doing selections. I love mine (Intuos 3 6x8) and it has been a valuable addition for me. I think the larger Wacoms (6x8, 9x12, the new widescreen model) will benefit painters the most. The smaller models should be fine for photo retouching because you zoom in on the image anyhow. My 6x8 at default mapping was too large so I remapped the pad a bit smaller. These units are not small, however. My 6x8 takes up a lot of real estate on my small desk. See photo below. Good luck in your choice.
Regards,
Bill
PBase seems slow tonight...

Robert M. McFarlane said:

I'm about to purchase a Wacom tablet, and was leaning towards the
9X12 Intuos. The new 6X11 looks to be a better choice however,
given the slightly smaller size and widescreen configuration. I've
never used a tablet and would appreciate any advice. I'm curious
about the various ways visual artists and photographers use a
tablet and if it has become a prefered addition to workflow for
photographers that have one.
I'll be checking out the online academy website for tutorials on
setting up and using a tablet. Are there other good sites with info
on using a Wacom?
Thanks,
Robert
http://www.pbase.com/robert_m_mcfarlane

Click to expand...

Your mileage will vary, and I'm sure you will get many different opinions on the size preference. Here is mine.

I love the 6x8 format. I have used everything from the 4x5, 6x8, 12x12, and 12x(15?)

I used the large ones for several years, and I find the small ones (4x5) a little cramped to work with, and quite sensitive to movement, since you are maping your entire screen to such a small area. (you can use a tablet in a special "mouse" mode, but it takes a little practice and feels a bit wierd)

It also depends a bit on how you would like to draw,... with the large 12x12 tablets, you will be moving your whole arm, at least from the elbow down to cover the screen. With the medium 6x8 it will be much more of a wrist action, and with the small 4x5's you will be just using finger movements mostly.

In conclusion,... go WACOM and you can't go wrong. I would recommend buying the best fit for how you want to draw from the paragraph above.

Can't comment much on the new wide one, but one thing bugs me about it. It does not seem to fit any real format. It's not wide enough for a dual monitor setup, and would be too wide for a single monitor. Perhaps one of the widescreen monitors though.

good luck

Intuos 2 or 3, 6"x8". Indispensable.
David
http://www.davidcolepictures.co.uk

Thanks all...I'll make a decision soon. Like you Troy, I'm wondering about the new 6x11. Eventually I'll upgrade to a widescreen monitor, but that's not what I'm using now. I do want to try my hand at some drawing and so perhaps will go for the slightly larger 9x12.
Your advice is appreciated!!
Regards,
Robert
--
http://www.pbase.com/robert_m_mcfarlane

I have the A4 oversize Intuos 2 (guess this is 12"x12") and the only suggestion I can give you ... BIGGER IS NOT BETTER.

And I use a 30" apple cinema display and a quato 21" tft beside in a dual head setup.

I'd much rather have a tablet maybe half the size of this beast. It feels like a workout in the gym. Not very convinient and it doesn't help for precise retouching. If I was in the same buying situation I'd either get a smaller tablet or the Cintiq 21" tablet tft screen. I've heared that there will soon come a successor to it btw.

The newly announced tablet wide tablet seems nice.

Cheers

Epix

It's driver is excellent. I can map the whole screen to a smaller area so i don't need to move my arm across this large tablet. I will hold this reserve space for a wide screen LCD in due course. This way i ve got flexibility. I am now setting my 9 x 12 to act like 6 x 8 until i ve got the wide screen LCD. The driver also allows you to tune this mapping and other settings specific to individual programs. You can have one setting for photoshop and another for corel paint for example.
--
Nikon D70, SB-800, Sigma 100-300mm F4
Sony P150 & F717

Robert M. McFarlane said:

I'm about to purchase a Wacom tablet, and was leaning towards the
9X12 Intuos. The new 6X11 looks to be a better choice however,
given the slightly smaller size and widescreen configuration. I've
never used a tablet and would appreciate any advice. I'm curious
about the various ways visual artists and photographers use a
tablet and if it has become a prefered addition to workflow for
photographers that have one.
I'll be checking out the online academy website for tutorials on
setting up and using a tablet. Are there other good sites with info
on using a Wacom?
Thanks,
Robert

Click to expand...

Just to let you know that the active area of the tablet will cover the screen of monitor no matter how large the monitor is or how small the size of tablet is. The larger the tablet the more desk space it will take and the more hand movement you need to move acrosss the active area.

I know that many people have good experiences with Graphire and Intuos.

I have graphire3 6x8 and to be honest I have never been comfortable with it. So finally I still use my mouse to select areas, paint with brushes or retouch images.

First, Iam no very clear with it.

could you tell me which is the difference between graphire and Intuos? if both are made by the same company (Wacom)

Could you tell me with could be the best to get better results in my case?

Thanks fro you help.
orlando

Your choice of tablet size is determined by the space you have available on your desktop. I have an Intuos 2 - 6x9 that I bought when I had very little desktop space and a smaller computer screen. I have recently upgraded to a Mac G5 with a 23" display - and a much bigger desk. I assumed my little Wacom wouldn't work on the big screen - but I was wrong - it's fine.

Eventually I will upgrade to the new Intuos 3 - probably in the new 6x11 for wide screens.

I got used to using the pen and tablet in about 30 seconds. I never use the mouse anymore - for anything!

I am a digital artist - I work mainly from photos and I cannot imagine doing what I do with a mouse. It would be like trying to paint with a brick. I would venture to say almost 100% of digital artists use a Wacom. As far as other brands go - do other brands exist? Wacom is the #1 choice don't even consider anything else.

Carol

than the $99 Grafire 4? Please explain.

I have the 9x12 too. It is a bit larger than I need but I like it. I have more options if I need down the road. I too fixed it so I can use a smaller space. But love it!! Wacom Intuos 2
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carrie

Thank you the replies!!

I was wondering Carol if you could point me towards some good tutorials that would help me get started working from photos. Also, it would be terrific to see some of your work. Do you have an online gallery?

It seems that my decision comes down to the 9X12 or the new 6X11. Having no experience with tablets, I'm not able to foresee what the advantage would be with the newer widescreen 6x11. What benefits do you think there will be?
Regards,
robert
--
http://www.pbase.com/robert_m_mcfarlane

Differences between an Intuos and a Graphire tablet

I doubt someone that has never used a tablet before would notice the "feel" difference, but the Intous tablets are a bit smoother and more precise. That is not to say the Graphire tablets are bad,... they are excellent as well. I could not find a statistic for this, but I seem to recall seing one that showed the precision of the 2 tablets, and the Intuos had about twice the resolution, which would explain the smoother feel.

Here are some additional differences.
levels of pressure sensitivity: Intuos 1024, Graphire 512
Tilt support: Intuos yes, Graphire no
Customizable button strip Intuos Yes, Graphire No
Price Intuos $329, Graphire $199 (6x8 sizes)

Probably the biggest differences between them would be the custom button strip, and the ability to tilt the pen. I honestly don't use the tilt feature much at all (you can map brush parameters such as brush angle to the tilt in Photoshop) The custom buttons are nice, and you can set up a few to do common tasks. I have buttons to do things like duplicate a layer, or add a layer mask. It just makes things go a little faster in your workflow.

As for the size, you should also take a piece of paper and put it on your desk to help you understand how big they are,... the large tablets do take up a substantial amount of desk space. the 6x8 takes up about 9.5x13 inches. I do not have a large tablet anymore, but I would guess you need to add about a 2 inch border around it, making it around 16 inches square.

hope this helps.

for the assistance; I got the small one and did not have to give up too much desk real estate.
--
http://photobucket.com/albums/v348/davemj98

orlando madariaga said:

I know that many people have good experiences with Graphire and
Intuos.
I have graphire3 6x8 and to be honest I have never been comfortable
with it. So finally I still use my mouse to select areas, paint
with brushes or retouch images.

First, Iam no very clear with it.
could you tell me which is the difference between graphire and
Intuos? if both are made by the same company (Wacom)

Could you tell me with could be the best to get better results in
my case?

Thanks fro you help.
orlando

Click to expand...

You just need to learn to let go of the mouse then you would be fine within 1-2 weeks or so. It works just like mouse except that you just grab it in between your fingers and use just like writing with regular pen

The instead of pressing the Mouse Button you just press the TIP of tablet for double_click etc.

I am also looking at getting a Wacom, but read somewhere hear about holding off for a while because an Intuos 4 may be on the way soon. Does anyone here think that is the case?

Have done it may times, as we all have, purchased something to find a week later that a new one is out which has X, Y and Z new features/ inprovements and is the same price.

Cheers,

Fid.
--

(¯'·.,¸¸. · ¤ Fid ¤ ·.,¸¸. ·´¯)

keep in mind how the tablet works,... the area of the tablet equates to the area of the screen. If you move the pen to the upper right of the tablet, it will place the cursor on the upper right of the screen.

Now, if you have a tablet that is a different aspect than your screen, you have two options. You can either have the entire tablet mapped to the screen as mentioned above, or you can choose to only use a portion of the tablet to map to the screen.

The first method means that if you draw a perfect circle on your tablet, it will be an oval on your screen. The second method means you are not using the entire surface of your tablet, and you could have probably bought a smaller size, saving you money. This is a fairly common problem for dual monitor setups, since mapping the tablet across both screens really stretches things out. I prefer to either map one monitor only, or use 2 tablets, one for each monitor. As I have mentioned before, the new wide tablet is not wide enough for a dual monitor setup, but should work very nicely on a wide screen setup.

Don't worry too much about the "next best thing" with a WACOM. I have tablets that are well over 10 years old that are still used daily, and there has been very little added to the newer models that is missed. (mostly better precision/pressure levels, and the addition of tilt control)

to the table

http://www.wacom.com/productinfo/differences.cfm?process=y
--
Nikon D70, SB-800, Sigma 100-300mm F4
Sony P150 & F717