Tablets!
Up untill now I have been using my mouse to draw in photoshop and illustrator, i am growing to the idea of buying a tablet.
I am looking to spend around £100 on a second hand one. Any suggestions as to which ones i should go for or avoid.
Are they much easier to draw with than a mouse?
Thanx
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Intuos 3
I don't know much about tablets, but this is the one I own, and I it works just fine for me.
--designer wannabe--
Intuos 2 A5?
I've been using an Intuos 2 A5 (around 6inch x 8inch tablet for the last few years with an eMac (17 inch screen) and it does just fine. I'm pretty sure you could find one for around £100 if you look hard enough.
The Intuos 2 doesn't have all the funky slider things on the side, but if you've never had them I'm pretty sure you won't miss them, just picking up a tablet will be a really useful step, as I have found.
Spencer E Holtaway
Graphic Designer
Read Afterglows lovely article about tablets..
Check Afterglows article about switching to a tablet..
http://creativebits.org/wacom_widescreen_tablet_review
Tablet Tricks
Tablets are wonderful -- Once you get used to it -- Which takes a while.
Don't give up after the first couple of tries. It's worth hanging in there. You'll soon forget why you ever bothered with a mouse.
The Wacom Intuos tablets are great, I got one (I3 A5) for free with my CS2 package - I nearly cried. But they're not cheap. If you can get one for around $100, go for it!
I remember 2 or so months ago there was a string about tablets. Some great advice came from there.
Tablets are good for wrist problems
I recently bought the cheapest Wacom Graphire 4 x6 to "try out this tablet stuff." It cost me around $100 (US) new. My reason was not only to draw in Photoshop and Illustrator, but also to do "general navigation." My wrists have been causing me tremendous pain from using a wireless mouse. I researched and found the the Wacom Tablet can actually help with that situation because it lets you point to things on the screen while keeping your hand sideways. This lessens pressure on the Carpal Tunnel in your wrist.
It's helped me a lot. The pen is so light and easy to use. It took about 3 days to get up to full speed at first. I started using it to surf the web. That was a good starting place. You can tap links, grab scroll bars, select text, drag folders, and hit any button on screen just like a mouse does.
The one suggestion is to get at least a 9 x 12 if you are interested in Navigation. I find the 4 x 6 is too small in some instances. When I drag a folder or select a long line of text, I run out of room on the tablet to keep dragging.
I've taught myself to use a mouse with both hands. So now my mouse is to the left of my keyboard and my tablet is to the right. You can go back and forth instantly between the two.