Now that graphics tablets have fallen in price, I've been pondering an A6 one for £35. A5 ones seem to cost much more and are out of my price range, but is an A6 one too small?
No an A6 tablet is not too small. My Wacom Graphire is perfect for me. Before I had the Wacom I had a A4 size tablet from Aldi. Apart from telling me that you get what you pay for (eg it was cr*p), it also made me realise that it was too big. All I will say is buy a decent one. Any from Wacom should do fine. I think the Graphire has been replaced by the Bamboo.
I've just bought (on Sunday) a Bamboo (the mid range £55 one). I find the A6 area just about right for photo-editing - much more and you'd be moving your arm much more to reach different areas. Probably fine if drawing etc, but not what I'd want for photos. Quality is very good and it works well - I think the cheaper one (Bamboo One) is the same but without the shortcut buttons on the tablet itself.
So it's more of a wrist thing than a big swirly artist thing? How do they actually work? Do you have to press a button on the pen, or is it all by touch?
Very briefly (it's rather late!) - By default the working area is mapped to your screen area and the contact point of the pen corresponds to a point on the screen. The cursor moves when the pen is within 5mm or so of the surface - when it's touched it acts as a single mouse click, touch twice for double click. There are then buttons for scrolling and right click, and shortcut buttons on the tablet itself. The range of movement is fairly small, and fairly similar to writing or sketching over a smallish area. Although slightly odd to start with, it becomes natural very quickly. The functions and buttons are all remapable, so can be changed if the defaults don't suit. Mine connects via USB and my normal wireless mouse remains active at the same time so I can switch between the two as required. Hope that helps, Ben
For fine detailed tracing around objects in a photograph using Abobe CS*, is the A6 tablet big enough? I thought an A5 or even an A4 might be easier to control in fine areas, but I suppose you can zoom the picture if needed. Would be interested to hear what you think on it.
If you're mouse pointer starts behaving oddly (i.e. will just move jerkily in one spot) when you try to use the mouse, check that the stylus for the tablet is on the cradle rather than sitting on the active surface of the tablet... Also, if your workstation is against a wall but there's a small gap, the stylus WILL jump through the gap at every opportunity. Apart from that, they're great - and (IMO) A6 is big enough.
I've not used mine for much fine work yet - I've only had it a week, so most of my time has been spent getting used to how it works, and performing simple PP. From the limited work I've done, I think A6 is probably big enough - certainly if zooming on the areas for tracing. I guess if you had a much bigger display, then a bigger tablet could be used, but I think the A6 one will be sufficient for most purposes. Cheers, Ben
I have a 20" LCD display, so I thought perhaps an A5 would be better. I will try to get out and look at some, if possible. Thanks. I am finding it difficult to control the selection with the lasso tool using a mouse, it just wants to go where I do not!!
