Graphics Tablets

[Tomm]

Basically I've never used a graphics tablet but I'd be interested to try one. They seem to range in price from £20 to £200+, so are the cheap ones OK or just a waste of money?

I'd just be using it for Photoshop I think Mainly retouching as opposed to actually drawing original stuff.

[Dan Campbell]

I have a Wacom Volito2 the little cheapish one. They are excellent, I use mine in Photoshop for photo editing a fair bit as I find it nice using a pen for long periods rather than a mouse. Would be nicer if I could have got a bigger one but it's fine for my use. Also works well for iSketch.....

[Haz]

I have a cheap A6 one, it's a few years old, but it's great.

Definately go for Wacom though, nothing else compares.

[JonMack]

Yeah I've got a little Wacom A6 one and it does the job, £75 from PC World.

[Fish-Finger-er]

Yeah I've got a little Wacom A6 one and it does the job, £75 from PC World.

just seen a a6 wacom one for like £45 or summit new on ebay.

also been looking on there, at the trust ones,as never had any problem with the other trust stuff me/mother have had over the years, a4 graphics tablet set, complete with mouse+ all the pen gubbins, like £60 posted.

or also another make, which i hadnt heard of, doing one in 16:9, which would be handy for my widescreen laptop display, for like a similar price, but slightly smaller(like 10.5 x 8 or summit)

[poopipe]

the 50quid trust ones are apparently ok - thats coming from someone who's used to a wacom. I'm not convinced but I've only spent 5 minutes using it compared to about 6 or 7 years with my wacom

you don't get the tilt sensitivity on the trust ones but unless you're using painter you're not making proper use of it so it probably doesn't matter

[br3n]

I bought a second hand wacom a3 tablet (about £110 on ebay) to be honist... unless you want to do digital paintings you dont need them and a mouse is actually easier.

[Krisboats]

I bought a second hand wacom a3 tablet (about £110 on ebay) to be honist... unless you want to do digital paintings you dont need them and a mouse is actually easier.

Yeah, as much as i hate mac activist guys... he's right.

For thing like using clone tools and well generally 80% of the given tools a mouse is a little bit easier. Once you get used to them though you can use them for menu's and things quite happily, its just things like using different pressures and curved strokes where they come into their own.

What i didn't know before i bought it is they are pressure sensitive too, so get the airbrush/paintbrush out and you can start a brush stroke lightly, then press harder and curve it and ease the pressure off again and you get a nice gradually smooth line. Which when used in painting/retouching is fantastic as its impossible with a mouse.

I'm another wacom user

[Mark W]

f**k yeah 4 and a half year bump. That's how I do.

I'm interested in getting a graphics tablet as I do a fair bit of hand-drawn/written stuff, and it'd be cool to just input directly into my computer rather than f**king around scanning, editing and so on. I've seen a couple of reasonably priced Wacom tablets (generally around £80-90 or so) that seem decent, but I just wanted to check if anyone's got any experience with them? For example this one.

Also, for people used to doing stuff on paper/whatever, what's it like doing things directly to a tablet? Have they sort of mimmicked the resistance you get from using a pen/pencil on paper/card, or is it sort of... 'slippery', for want of a better word?

[Revolver]

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/wacom-ctl-470k-en-bamboo-pen-graphics-tablet-11466673-pdt.html?intcmpid=display~RR~~11466673

I have this one.

The texture is quite grippy, mimicking paper.

The technique to use them is different though, they lend themselves more to a style that uses one consistant line than multiple rough, sketched lines. That's more if you want to draw with it though. And that's not to say you can't use that style on it, it's just not as good at it.

The other thing is the scaling. You'll get used to it when you buy it.

[Mark W]

Yeah, I sort of thought it might be a bit weird. I tend to only f**k with A5 notepads though, so I guess it shouldn't reeeeeeeeally be much different in a sense? Just purely in terms of physical size...

[Revolver]

A5 is plenty big enough for a graphics tablet. The scaling thing is a little bit weird at first but it's not too hard to get used to it.

You can set it up to draw at 1:1 scale but the resolution of your screen and the zoom level on PS all muck with that.

If you don't need those extra features on the Bamboo Fun one, just go for the same one as me. If you're right handed they might be more useful, though.

[Haz]

For what it's worth, I'm rocking the same A6 Wacom tablet, no sweat.