Is Wacom medium sized tablet needed for 1920x1200 monitor?

[guermantes]

Hi,

What is the trade off choosing a small Wacom tablet for use with Lightroom as opposed to a medium sized tablet when using together with a 1920x1200 resolution screen?

Wacom recommends medium without too much explanation, but I see users saying they prefer small sizes. I have tried to google but have trouble getting an idea of whether it will be difficult to work fast with precision on a small tablet as opposed to a medium sized. Some people say the cursor will be jumpy because of the difference in size

I don't draw or sketch on the computer, the tablet would be for Lightroom developing and retouching and possibly in Photoshop as well.

I do have a tendency to repetetive strain injury in my arm (this is why I want to ditch the mouse when moving the sliders and cropping and retouching), should that impact on what size of tablet I choose?

I am choosing between Intuous (old Bamboo line) and Intuos Pro (old Intuos 5 line). I am very tempted by the ergonomics of the Pro pen and the native wireless support as well as the radial menu, but a medium sized pro tablet would be very expensive... yikes...

Can anyone help me navigate this jungle?

Thanks!

 

[bigfatron]

Hi,

What is the trade off choosing a small Wacom tablet for use with Lightroom as opposed to a medium sized tablet when using together with a 1920x1200 resolution screen?

Wacom recommends medium without too much explanation, but I see users saying they prefer small sizes. I have tried to google but have trouble getting an idea of whether it will be difficult to work fast with precision on a small tablet as opposed to a medium sized. Some people say the cursor will be jumpy because of the difference in size

I don't draw or sketch on the computer, the tablet would be for Lightroom developing and retouching and possibly in Photoshop as well.

I do have a tendency to repetetive strain injury in my arm (this is why I want to ditch the mouse when moving the sliders and cropping and retouching), should that impact on what size of tablet I choose?

I am choosing between Intuous (old Bamboo line) and Intuos Pro (old Intuos 5 line). I am very tempted by the ergonomics of the Pro pen and the native wireless support as well as the radial menu, but a medium sized pro tablet would be very expensive... yikes...

Can anyone help me navigate this jungle?

Thanks!

I use an old Bamboo Pen & Touch in the standard smaller format for that resolution screen for the same purposes and its fine for me. Your mileage may vary and it may yield better results, but I wouldn't say the larger format is absolutely essential.

 

[Allen Gerdes]

I do not often use my tablet, as I have not yet taken the time to become comfortable with using it, but find that the small one is very adequate when I do. My guess is that Wacom suggests the larger size, because they want to maximize their profits. (It probably costs them very little more to produce the medium size as compared to the smaller one).... just my humble opinion, of course.

Regards....Allen

 

[Jorge M]

I wish I had experience using a medium size tablet. I recently bought the entry level Intous Touch small and I have no problem using it every day with my ASUS 24" monitor, if anything I wish I had bought it sooner, it's such a relief to use compared with the mouse all the time, even for masking and complicated extractions the small one seems fine to me.

I'm hoping to hear from more experienced users to get a feeling of what I'm missing without a medium sized tablet.

 

[brucet]

I use a Wacom Pen Tablet.

The tablet size is relative to screen size. In other words the entire width of your tablet will match the entire width of your screen. The larger the screen the more control/resolution you can control. Zoom in and the tablet will match what you see on your screen.

However the movement of the pen on the tablet will relate to the resolution of the tablet not the screen!

I always use a Wacom Tablet. Don't even have a mouse. I find it essential for my work. I started out with Wacom's baby unit. But it had the lower resolution. Each movement related to a bigger movement, ie jumped more pixels, each time I moved the pen. So I traded up to a higher resolution tablet. Now I can edit pixel by pixel. You don't need a pro tablet but avoid the entry level units. The higher the resolution the more precise you can be.

regards

 

[graybalanced]

The other way to look at this is that for photographic work you will not want anything larger than a Medium. Sizes above that are more suited for digital painting and drawing. The tablet resolution is high enough that even the Small tablet has plenty of resolution to control a large monitor.

 

[guermantes]

Thanks everyone for chiming in!

So monitor resolution-wise it seems even a small sized tablet will work fine which is good news for the wallet and the desk real estate.

How about the repetitive strain issue? When working on a small tablet, are the movements of the arm/hand so small so that you have to tense your arm/wrist in order to get precision (as I tend to do when using a mouse to nudge sliders in the develop module)?

I imagine I would force my arm to move in larger sweeps for the same slider operation when using a medium sized tablet and that this would counteract the "tiny movement repetitiveness" that leads to RSI. But maybe I think wrongly about the whole thing?

 

[brucet]

All/most of your movement is in the wrist. When you do the setup you can adjust many features to suit your needs. Such as sensitivity. Left or right hand etc.Your editing software may also provide options/settings to control the pen. You will find no two users with the same settings.

regards

 

[bhill643]

I have a bamboo works fine with my monitor - same resolution.

A lot of the posts are made by the manufactures to create confusion and drum up sales.



I do a lot of drawings in ps and corel painter , I tried the top of the line Wacom tablet and felt it was not worth it for what I do. bamboo works fine for me.

I never use by bamboo as a mouse , I find my mouse runs circles around the pen for basic mouse actions and that's 100% mouse usage in lr

 

[FrankieJ]

I no longer have any RSI related pain.
I use a medium sized Wacom tablet which I recommend to relieve arm / shoulder tension if you have the desktop real estate for it.

 

[fly1]

Hi There,

I have a 27" iMac

Use an Intuos Pro Medium, find it is just the right size

IMHO,

For a smaller screen the Intuos Pro Small would be just right

FWIW,

I am finding the features of the Intous Pro very handy indeed

Like setting the pen and tablet up for different programs has made editing a whole lot faster and easier

Lastly, the Radial Menu options make the Intuos Pro choice a "no brainer"

And, go the wireless!

....Gary

 

[guermantes]

The new Intuos line (old Bamboo) also has the radial menu and per program settings. But the pro version has wireless out of the box, which I like. Maybe I'll get a Pro medium then. Typical, somehow I always decide for the most expensive stuff.

 

[Toermalijn]

Hi There,

I have a 27" iMac

Use an Intuos Pro Medium, find it is just the right size

IMHO,

For a smaller screen the Intuos Pro Small would be just right

FWIW,

I am finding the features of the Intous Pro very handy indeed

Like setting the pen and tablet up for different programs has made editing a whole lot faster and easier

Lastly, the Radial Menu options make the Intuos Pro choice a "no brainer"

And, go the wireless!

....Gary

Basically it doesn't matter since the tablet and it's working space is related to the screen, if you chose that option.

You can use a small tablet on a big screen and an A3 tablet on a small screen likewise. No problem at all. I use wacom tablets for years now and used with various size monitors without any problems at all.

Furthermore, the resolution of all the pro tablets is the same.

What they mean is that you have more room to move with a large tablet as it takes longer to hit the edge of the monitor with a large tablet vs a smaller one.

 

[GDB]

One thing no one really has touched on so far...the WACOM tablets last forever. Mine small Intous is ancient but still works despite scratched and gouges in the tablet surface. The pen still has the original stylus. However, I did wear out my mouse a couple of years ago and quickly got a new one. Once you get used to the tablet, you'll never go back to the old tethered mouse or hard to control wireless mouse.

Cheers,

Gary

 

[guermantes]

So, I finally got the medium sized pro version. It's great and I love it. Will need getting used to but after an afternoon with it I am already feeling a lot more comfortable. I am not yet as fast as with the mouse (i.e. moving from one corner of the screen to another to click a button or something) but I trust what people say and hope it is correct. Some moves already feel so much more flowing than with a mouse. Will be hard getting anything else done tomorrow apart from toying, customizing and getting used to.

 

[Stuart001]

You'll love it. I have used an Intuos 3 for about three years and just can't use a mouse any more. I use it for everything.

I use a 2 screen setup--a laptop and a calibrated monitor, and the table splits lengthwise. Even though the actual space on the tablet is out-of-proportion (it is higher than it is wide because each screen gets half) it takes no time at all to get it all right.

They are the best thing for all photo work, and the pen is pressure and angle sensitive when you are using brushes.

Have fun!

 

[Mark3M]

Not all that bullet-proof. If the pen falls onto a hard floor on either of its ends, the mechanism will break. Or, a three year old can do the same damage.

Wacom stopped putting mice in their tablets because they were having too many returns for broken mice.

 

[Toermalijn]

Not all that bullet-proof. If the pen falls onto a hard floor on either of its ends, the mechanism will break. Or, a three year old can do the same damage.

Wacom stopped putting mice in their tablets because they were having too many returns for broken mice.

They probably stopped adding a mouse to the package because no-one liked the wacom mice. I always used a 3rd party mouse next to the tablet. I still have a few wacom mice but never used them.

 

[fly1]

So, I finally got the medium sized pro version. It's great and I love it. Will need getting used to but after an afternoon with it I am already feeling a lot more comfortable. I am not yet as fast as with the mouse (i.e. moving from one corner of the screen to another to click a button or something) but I trust what people say and hope it is correct. Some moves already feel so much more flowing than with a mouse. Will be hard getting anything else done tomorrow apart from toying, customizing and getting used to.

Great news, have fun,

When your more familiar with it have a play around with the settings for the pen and radial menu

Also, I downloaded the manual in pdf, was very handy for a good reference

....Gary

 

[graybalanced]

Not all that bullet-proof. If the pen falls onto a hard floor on either of its ends, the mechanism will break. Or, a three year old can do the same damage.

Wacom stopped putting mice in their tablets because they were having too many returns for broken mice.

They probably stopped adding a mouse to the package because no-one liked the wacom mice. I always used a 3rd party mouse next to the tablet. I still have a few wacom mice but never used them.

I think this is the right answer. The Wacom mice are not really any more fragile than most regular mice, since the buttons are the same and there is no optical sensor to break or obscure. I would therefore find it hard to believe that Wacom was getting more returns for broken mice than for mashed stylus tips.

But even though I keep a Wacom mouse next to the tablet, I hate to have to use it and only grab it when some software just doesn't work well with a stylus. I have several types of mice and without a doubt the least favorite is the Wacom mouse that came with the tablet.