We held our breath, looked down at the water 249 feet below and jumped!
Yes, we took the plunge! We bought a INTUOS Intelligent Graphics Tablet System Special Edition ( size 6" x 8" working surface )
The 249 feet mentioned above is $249.00 after a $30 mail in rebate. We ordered it from shopharmony.com.
The entire tablet is 13 inches wide by 10 inches tall...(it is the same size as our monitor screen...the glass part is 16" diagonal. ) The working surface is the same size as my mouse pad.
The tablet plugs in my USB port, and the computer does not have to boot up with the tablet plugged in. ( Unlike my digital camera download USB connection where I have to turn the computer off, plug in the camera and turn the computer back on: what a pain! )
My regular mouse still works! Im glad because it still has some value, not much, but some!
Unlike a mouse, you can hold this tablet in your lap, and touch the tablet with a "pen" that has a plastic tip. In fact the pen only has to be 1" away from the tablet and things start happening on the monitor!
Unlike a mouse, you do not need to drag your pen over the surface of the tablet. You simply set your pen down on the tablet where you want to "tap" ( click ) For example, if you want to go up to the top left corner of your screen to click on "File", all you have to do is set the pen down on the top left hand corner of the tablet and the cursor will instantly move to that position. No more slamming the mouse down to make it function when the ball gets jammed!
The 6" x 8" is perfect for me. I find it very comfortable to hold it in my lap directly in front of the keyboard. The Mouse is sitting off to the right hand side where it always sits, and I use it when I can't figure out how to do the same mouse function with the tablet...like right clicking...and a few other things.
Whatever is on your monitor is the exact working surface of your tablet. If you open a new program, the table instantly conforms to the new size...you don't even know it happend!
Don't buy one of these....buy two!
If you do any photo retouching, or create airbrush effcts in lettering, you need this tablet. For example, When you are using the airbrush tool in your photopainting program, if you push down on the pen lightly a light stream of "paint" will flow, but if you press down on the pen harder, a bigger and bigger blob of paint will come out. Very easy to control this.
Well, I've said enough....sorry to put you through this long boring explaination...I'm just sooooooo excited!
Some of you are very curious about these tablets and have held back from buying one.
Again, if you don't do design work, photo retouching or digital airbrushing....then don't get this tablet.
If you own a Gerber Edge and print product pictures and arty graphics, then you will need to use digital photo retouching programs like Corel PhotoPaint and this Wacom Tablet will come in very useful!
------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Stop in and visit a while! 309-828-7110 signman@davesworld.net Raptorman or Draper_Dave on mIRC chat
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
My only experience with those tablets was Mike Jackson had one and I could do script on the tablet and it came out rather clean on screen. I found it great for calligraphy. It simplified the process of lettering on paper with sho card brushes and scanning. Dave, why don't you come visit and bring your tablet with you. I'd like to try it.
------------------ The SignShop Mendocino, California "Where the Redwoods meet the Surf"
Oh, for the faith of a spider! He begins his web without any thread.
Posts: 6718 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Here is a little test of how much better the tablet and pen work better than a mouse
These are really low resolution pictures so bear with me.
Both of these examples were made in Corel9 PhotoPaint. 1. was made with the Wacom 2. was made with the mouse enjoy:
The screen resolution in Corel was set to 8" x 8" at 40 dpi These look pretty fuzzy on the internet because I resampled them to a low res .jpg file just to show you how smooth the drawing tablet works.
In the top screen, you can see the swirl starting out small and getting bigger. That is because I touch the pad lightly with the pen then increase pressure (push down harder) as I draw.
Notice in the second example, I can't even begin to do that with the mouse and I can't get smooth swirls.
Both screens were identicle....what a difference.
This is where you would use a Wacom Tablet: This was an original photograph that was made into a digital airbrush painting using Corel Photopaint.
I have an article coming out in the April Issue of Sign Builder Illustrated that shows and explains the step by step process of this artwork. Enjoy! ------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Stop in and visit a while! 309-828-7110 signman@davesworld.net Raptorman or Draper_Dave on mIRC chat
[This message has been edited by Dave Draper (edited February 06, 2001).]
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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See, I told you all the Intuos tablest kick butt!
Dave, just wait til you get into the custom menus and all the other stuff that tablet can do for you! Talk about slick.. you can assign Photoshop Actions to any of the menu spaces along the top of the tablet and a single tap runs the Action... or macro.. or whatever you have assigned to the menu space.
Check out the PenTools PhotoShop plug-in software that came with the tablet too.. the tools in that software can sense the angle of the pen in relation to the tablet, and it changes the spray or brush patterns just as it would be affected in real life!
------------------ Mike Pipes -----trapped in a box with a computer and a slice of cheese-----
Posts: 145 | From: Lake Havasu City, AZ | Registered: Dec 2000
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Hey Dave, I have been using a 16"x12" Aristo Tablet for the past 8 years in conjunction with the Signus Sign System I have. It uses a 5 button mouse with magnified cross hairs. Each button has double click functions so you end up using it like a typewriter for menus/sub menus etc. Exceptionaly fast and accurate.
HERE"S A TIP: Tablets tend to get dirty. I cover mine with application tape. I used the regular Hi Tack tape to start with, but now use the clear "reusable" type tape (you can even get this with a grid pattern). The mouse slides better as mine doesn't have a roller ball underneath. When the pad gets dirty, pull it off the tape and renew ... it even makes a handly scribble pad
------------------ Bushie aka Jon Butterworth Jonsigns old signwriters never retire ... they just fade into the background! Toowoomba,Queensland Australia.
Posts: 4014 | From: Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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Dave you shouldnt have to reboot to have the USB recognize your camera. What brand do you have? I just plug mine in anytime and it works. Id love a tablet but cant justify the money right now.
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Dave, excuse my ignorance but my thinking was that tablets were what folks used to use to digitizing logos etc before scanners came down in price and up in quality. How do they compare with on-screen digitizing and transfering of paper designs to computer?
------------------ Gray Hodge celtman@ireland.com Cam River Signs Somerset, Tasmania, Down Under
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How much difference is there between the new Intuos tablets and my GSP Graphix Design Station? I have what was a GDS 2 which ran on my old Apple 2 computer kept above the office here for historic purposes. The tablet is now connected to the Pc via com1 and I use it quite often for digitizing its a crosshair mouse type with the 4 buttons 1,2,8, & 4, it was made in 86 for Gerber by Numonics, it has a plug on the back for a pen but I have never had a pen for it.
Just wondered what the advantages are I digitize stuff I can't scan direct into my Gerber software.
Its a 20" tablet anyone else use one....I have also looked abit at Wacoms stuff.
------------------ Henry Barker #1924 akaKaftan SignCraft AB Stockholm, Sweden. A little bit of England in a corner of Stockholm www.signcraft.se info@signcraft.se
[This message has been edited by Henry Barker (edited February 07, 2001).]
Posts: 1552 | From: Stockholm, Sweden | Registered: Nov 1998
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I don't think of the Wacom as a digitizing tablet, although it does have an optional cross hair mouse attachment for more $$$ as well as a 4D cordless mouse and a tool that looks just like a real airbrush.
I think of the Wacom as a canvas. The pace you paint pictures, except the painting appears on the monitor. Corel Painter would be a program you would most likey use to digitally "paint" a fine art painting with a Wacom tablet.
To use it for a digitizer, hmmmm, Im not sure how that works.
I have not digitized the old fashion way in years (with the cross hair mouse). My method is to scan the drawing, then tweak the nodes or redraw the object on screen over the top of the scanned object. Works for me! I do this with customers business cards all the time. I bump up the scale in the scanning software so the artwork comes into Omega as a .bmp file "24 inces tall x whatever. Then I just click the pen tool and draw over the top of the bitmap. Then I delete the .bmp and I can go right to the plotter with the graphic.
The "6 x "8 size would be pretty hard to digitize on, that is just a bit smaller than a mouse pad. If you want to spend $2000 - $3000 they make a really big tablet.
------------------ Draper The Signmaker Bloomington Illinois USA Stop in and visit a while! 309-828-7110 signman@davesworld.net Raptorman or Draper_Dave on mIRC chat
Posts: 2883 | From: Bloomington Illinois USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
Dave, welcome to the world of graphics tablets. I bought my first Wacom tablet when I got my first computer about six years ago. I had read great things about them in computer magazines. I never went through the frustration of dragging a "brick" across a mouse pad. The 'pen' feels so natural in your hand so you shouldn't get carpal tunnel syndrome...and it's extremely accurate. It's great in Photoshop for tracing around an image. I even use it for freehand drawing occasionally. I highly recommend it for any graphic artist. Have fun!!
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Vectorizing artwork with a tablet is still quicker than using a mouse once you get used to the tablet.
You just take the pen and tap wherever you want to place a node, the motion is just so much more natural than using a mouse.
The nicest thing about using a tablet is the fact that it doesnt jump around the screen on ya, nor does it have a ball that gets hung up in the middle of trying to do detailed work.
The accuracy is amazing.. The Intuos line of Wacom tablets have a resolution of 2540 lines per inch which equates to ultra-smooth movement on screen.. imagine splitting a milimeter into 100 segments, and that's the accuracy of the tablet.
The only thing I dont like about the tablet is that my dad uses my computer from time to time (while Im visiting him) and sometimes he walks off with the pen, mistaking it for a real one, then procedes to lose it. In the past two months he's spent $200 to replace tablet pens.
------------------ Mike Pipes -----trapped in a box with a computer and a slice of cheese-----
Posts: 145 | From: Lake Havasu City, AZ | Registered: Dec 2000
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