A couple of questions about tablets.

[Ecc3ntrik]

Well I am a keen graphics designer, but I have never used a tablet - I might buy one, as some of the work around here is awesome, and i would like to do the same, plus as I already said I am into graphics. I have a few questions though.

 

1. Do you necessarily have to be a good drawer in real life, to be good on a tablet?

2. How do you use it exactly? Can you use a tablet in photoshop, or does it come with special software?

3. How big are they?

4. Are they easy to get started with? Like, could I just set it up and then draw away?

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Eccentric

[Wolf68k]

Not owning a tablet myself, but kinda wanting one as well, here is what I know...

Yes you can use it in Photoshop, as well as other programs of it's kind. That's why there is a pen pressure setting in the Brush Engine of Photoshop; the harder your press the more pronounced the brush will be.

There will be some getting use to I'm sure. If you use Photoshop now then you're already skilled at looking at the screen while your hand moves the mouse. And if you can draw on paper and skilled at that, then you're use to looking down at the paper and watching where your pen/pencil/whatever goes. With most tablets your hand will be doing the drawing while your eyes are look up at your monitor to see the out come. It can get confusing and take some time to learn, but then just getting use to the tablet in general I'm sure can take some time to learn.

The one tablet that I know does away with that learning curve is the Wacom Cintiq which starts at around $1000, but it's a monitor and tablet in one. The cheapest tablet in general listed at Wacom's site is the Bamboo for $80 but you can find it on Amazon for closer to $60.

 

 

There's no set size from what I've seen. They can be very small or very large and any where in between.

 

 

I don't think you necessarily have to be a good paper drawer to use one but I'm sure it helps. I think even those that are good at drawing on paper take a little getting use to with a tablet, more so with the pen pressure.

 

 

Bert Monroy uses a Cintig and in one of his shows, PixelPerfect, he showed some things about using a tablet, adjustments and what not, I just can't remember which one. If you want have a look and a great way to learn about Photoshop, or even learn things maybe you didn't know about, check it out http://revision3.com/pixelperfect/

There's currently 119 episodes and they are all worth watching. I finally learned how to use the Pen Tool because of him.

[Pico]

1. Do you necessarily have to be a good drawer in real life, to be good on a tablet?

2. How do you use it exactly? Can you use a tablet in photoshop, or does it come with special software?

3. How big are they?

4. Are they easy to get started with? Like, could I just set it up and then draw away?

1. Of course it helps. Tablets don't do miracles.

2. It works with any program, basically as a mouse. In photoshop (as Wolf said) it has pressure sensitivity which can be very helpful.

3. Depends. They vary from less than a foot to 2 feet even (Wacom has one with a 20" or so screen ON the tablet... amazing).

4. There's a learning curve getting used to it. The translation from the tablet in front of you to the screen is weird. It's definitely a big difference than using a mouse, you can get more fluid movements with the tablet/stylus.

 

Really, the best thing about tablets is the medium which you're "drawing" upon. Which is a digital image. That means you have the ability to completely erase things, use layers, different brush styles, any color, etc. But as I said, they're a bit hard to get used to and there is always that loss between the tablet and the screen.

However, as I also mentioned, Wacom has a tablet with a screen built in which is just awesome. I would LOVE to have one. I've got a Wacom Intuos4 (6x8" drawing area) and I haven't touched it in almost a year probably. I personally just don't find the benefits worth the awkwardness... it just seems to cause more work. If I had the one with the built in monitor... oh man, it'd be great. Of course I don't have $1,500-2,000 to blow on one

[navetsea]

1. drawing with it feels different, you can tape a paper on top of it to make it less slippery, but the coordination between your eyes and hand will need sometime to get used to (unless you use cintiq which is a flat screen).

 

2. wacom tablet might come with a bundled softwares (in lite version though) like Photoshop Elements, Painter Classic, and Lite version of Manga/ comic studio.

 

3. 6x8 is the best for me. smaller than that would hinder you in making details, and bigger size, would require too much hand movement.

 

4. usb port and a driver is required, doesn't need battery nor eletricity (if you use WACOM) other tablet manufacturer might need 1AAA battery inside the stylus

 

Photoshop won't translate the pen pressure that well, if you want to make full use of the pen pressure use Painter instead.

 

But then why you paint digitally if what you have to do or get or bothered with burden of manual painting, like if you use water color, and you use too much water then the drawing will bleed, and then you have to dry it or wait until it gets dry before adding new color, etc.

Painter 7 & up under Corel has become a real life sim of painting experience in PC, including the messiness of artist studio .

Personally I prefer Painter 6, or photoshop with some custom brushes.

Edited April 29, 2009 by navetsea