how useful is the wacom tablet ?

thanks everyone for your comments. I will buy the new intutous 5 tablet.

You will definitely love having a tablet.
It is incredibly useful for retouching work..

I won't even touch my mouse when I have a project due. There is nothing better than a wacom!

I have one and hardly use it, not because it's not a great device it's just I'm so accustomed to using a mouse. I think if I forced myself to use it for a solid week or so I'd probably be more comfortable with it and ask myself why I didn't do this sooner. A buddy of mine has one and swears by it but he also said it takes a little getting used to but once you do it’s awesome.

I read there was a learning curve using a tablet especially if you're used to the mouse. I definitely went through a curve, but I gotta say a tablet makes touchups faster and easier. Especially when you set up your buttons on the tablet (I have a Intuos 4 medium). Much 'finer' control with a pen than a mouse. For example, eyes.

how do the no-name tablets stack up to wacom for most common editing tasks? i see some inexpensive ones on amazon (about $40)

ie
http://www.amazon.com …TF8&qid=1330984​426&sr=8-1

ekinnyc wrote in post #14029741
how do the no-name tablets stack up to wacom for most common editing tasks? i see some inexpensive ones on amazon (about $40)

ie
http://www.amazon.com …TF8&qid=1330984​426&sr=8-1

They tend to suck. Pressure sensitivity is poor, the tablet in general is slow and I've found if you accidentally have your off hand on the pad it renders the stylus nonfunctional or very erratic. I would stick with the Wacom tablets and the Intuos3 is a great tablet for the price. The bamboos aren't bad either.

Technical question:

When you're touching up photos with them, say skin retouching (just painting over areas), do you use the pressure sensitivity or constant pressure setting? When I tried using the pen pressure setting I found that it made it splotchy (A.K.A. I was inadvertently pushing to hard in certain places) but it seemed almost impossible to keep smooth pressure while going through strokes. So I thought it might be better to use constant pressure setting.

What do you guys think or what do you do more specifically?

Thanks

tfitz wrote in post #14117057
Technical question:

When you're touching up photos with them, say skin retouching (just painting over areas), do you use the pressure sensitivity or constant pressure setting? When I tried using the pen pressure setting I found that it made it splotchy (A.K.A. I was inadvertently pushing to hard in certain places) but it seemed almost impossible to keep smooth pressure while going through strokes. So I thought it might be better to use constant pressure setting.

What do you guys think or what do you do more specifically?

Thanks

I use pressure sensitivity to do either opacity/flow, or brush size depending on what i am doing

I never use pressure sensitivity.

There is a YouTube tutorial by an artist -- don't have time to find and link to it -- who explains why he doesn't use pressure sensitivity either.

Mainly, he prefers to use the Wacom pen as he uses his real art brushes: build up color with repeated strokes of the loaded brush, or adjusting opacity, rather than by increasing pressure.

I can imagine you would have the problems you describe, on skin (or anything, really). Try turning off pressure sensitivity and see how that works for you.

Good luck!

Pressure sensitivity on my old Graphire was not so great so turning it off might have helped though I always had it on. But on my new Intos-4 the sensitivity feature is fantastic. Much like a real brush. Turning it off makes working much more difficult as I would constantly have to re-size the brush.

Anyone have any experience with a small, verses medium, verses large Wacom tablet?

Pi_314 wrote in post #14118907
Anyone have any experience with a small, verses medium, verses large Wacom tablet?

Yup.. First bought the large. Returned it almost immediately and downsized to the medium. It was perfect for me. My daughter has the small and this is a close second so my preference is Med, Sm,..... (then a distant) Lg.

But it comes down to how you like to interface with the device. The sm and med devices it's more in your wrist. With a flick of the wrist, you can go from edge to edge. It requires a bit better hand/eye coordination as small moves of the hand = large moves on the screen but assuming you have average hand/eye, it takes maybe a day or tow to get comfortable.

With the large and ex large, the movement is in the elbow as the surface area is significantly larger. It works well but it just a different action.

I almost like to use the analog that with the sm/med it's like sketching on a pad and the lrg is like painting on canvas.

Echo63 wrote in post #14023689
An example of how good they are

Go to your computer, take a bit of paper and a pen.
Sign your name on the bit of paper
Now open a new file in photoshop, (or paint if you dont have PS) and sign your name using the mouse.
See the difference ?

Which is more precise ?

I use a smaller intuos 3 most of the time - a smaller graphire4 is used when i go away
You dont need a big tablet (in fact unless you are drawing from your shoulder, a big tablet will be a pain)

Also try the "mouse mode" and "tablet mode"
I found i liked mouse mode at first, then didnt look back after switching to tablet mode (it changes how the pen interacts withthe tablet)

While I clearly see the metaphor, it's not quite that simple. When you write with pen/paper you usually look down while you write. I certainly agree that the tablet+stylus can be more precise, there is a learning curve associated with using one while looking at the screen. Oddly, so many people are accustomed to doing it with a mouse that it wouldn't seem like there would be any issue converting to a tablet, but I ran into the issue when I got a Graphire tablet ~5 yrs ago.

wookiee2cu wrote in post #14028591
I have one and hardly use it, not because it's not a great device it's just I'm so accustomed to using a mouse. I think if I forced myself to use it for a solid week or so I'd probably be more comfortable with it and ask myself why I didn't do this sooner. A buddy of mine has one and swears by it but he also said it takes a little getting used to but once you do it’s awesome.

I think this is part of the learning curve I mentioned above. I actually got the Graphire tablet to supplement designing graphics for logos (vinyl graphics). My first issue was the fact that I am not artistically inclined, so I can't draw well... secondly I had a hard time making the transition of drawing on a tablet while looking at the monitor, and being accurate at doing so. I ended up selling the Graphire about 2 years ago now.

Having said that, while I wasn't successful using a tablet for design work, I am interested in getting another Wacom tablet and trying it for retouching purposes.

I use the pressure sensitivity for brush size a lot. Once you get used to it, it will save you so much time.

I use pressure sensitivity for brush size. Even then, I still make major changes of the size of the brush with the bracket keys and just use pressure sensitivity for finer on-the-fly changes.