Wacom Tablet Info

Everything You Allways Wanted to Know About Wacom Tablets

I have put this little page together to answer questions people may have regarding the selection and use of Wacom Graphic Tablets. I did this because of what I see all the time in various forums dedicated to digital art, Users new to the digital art scene will Inevitably ask, “Should I get a tablet?” What Model? What size tablet is best? What software works best with tablets? I will try and clear-up some of the confusion regarding these questions.

First a little about myself, I come from a traditional background in art and graphics where pens, pencils and brushes are the norm, I started doing this before computers. At that time I did a lot of technical type illustration work and my own personal style of painting is tight and precise in nature.

I first put my hand on a computer in 1991 with the aim of using it as a tool for illustration and graphic design it was apparent digital was going to be big, but I soon discovered it had some limitations when it came to creating any kind of meaningful art, One of these was THE MOUSE. Sure you could set type and choose fonts and draw crude shapes but drawing was out of the question, drawing with a mouse was like drawing with a bar of soap.

For technical illustrations you would think the computers ability to create perfect lines, squares and circles would be just the ticket. Unfortunately it became obvious even for that sort of tight technical images that any good traditional illustrator could create better looking art with pen and paper, not only that the traditional illustrator could also do it faster then trying to do the same thing using an illustration program like Adobe Illustrator. These programs only allow you to created a line of one thickness and you soon become aware of how important it was to be able to vary line weight. With a traditional pencil it was so simple to do, just press harder or softer to get the line you wanted. Character of line was very important in expressing what parts of an image was important and what was not. Sometimes a line need to be thick bold and black and at other times thin weak and sketchy.
The first tablet I bought was a small 4×5 Wacom I got for my old PC, since then I have owned or used just about every model and size Wacom made. There are other makers of tablets but in my experience Wacoms have proven to be the best so they will be the only maker I will deal with here.

Just let me say right off I consider the pressure sensitive Graphics Tablets to be the single biggest advancement for the creation of art on the computer ever devised, BAR NONE. Well except for the LCD tablets, but I will get to that latter. Without my Wacoms my computer would just be a device for surfing the internet setting type, and sending emails, With the Wacom it becomes a box of paints, a nice sharp #2 pencil, or an airbrush.

Do YOU need a Tablet?
There are some out there who have come to the digital art realm from the digital side and not so much from the art side. They see digital art as just having the right equipment, the right program and the right set of plug-ins. They will see a digital painting and note the artist used Painter and a Wacom and think, “if I get a Wacom and a copy of Painter I can do the same thing.” I think those sort of people will be deeply disappointed in the results, they don’t realize the art they saw may have been created in a very traditional manner only in this instance the artist used digital tools. A graphic tablet is really quite a dumb tool it can’t do anything automatically, it can’t help you draw if you can not draw in the first place, to that end a graphic tablet will either be a godsend or useless piece of expensive equipment.

So the question “Do I need a tablet” is very dependent on how you work. A tablet will be more beneficial to an artist who want to bring traditional drawing skill into the digital realm then to a photographer doing some simple retouching work. The graphic programs you use will also have a big effect on your decision, Corel Painter with its abundance of natural media tools is made for the Tablet. Photoshop also make great use of the pressure sensitive nature of the Wacoms and is aimed more towards the photo retoucher then the illustrative artist.

What Model?
Wacom Graphire? 1 – 4? Wacom Intuos, Intuos2? Intuos3? Bamboo? Decisions, Decisions. Well not that much, in fact Wacom got the design right the first time, Basically all the Bamboo and Graphire lines are the same, old or new, styling may have changed over the years and the Bamboo has some handy buttons, sizes have been added but this has little to do with how the tablet works and feels in use. The less expensive Bamboo and Graphire models are limited to 512 levels of pressure sensitivity to the Intuos Lines 1024 levels, it take a very precise hand to tell the difference. A majority of people will find the lower price Wacom lines perfectly adequate. The Intuos line does come in larger sizes and the pens do support such things as tilt and bearing, Pen ID is also supported in the Intuos line, this allows different pens to remember settings and brushes.

I have found there is NO perceptible difference between the older original Intuos tablets and the new Intuos3 tablets, the pens themselves have changed over the years and some artist prefer one over the other just for the feel in their hands but the actual drawing feel and sensitivity is identical. So don’t pass up a good deal on an older Intuos 1 or 2 feeling you need to have the latest and greatest Intuos3 tablet, you will find the older tablets still have a good deal of life in them and I have never seen one go bad from age alone. With that said the new Intuos3 does have some nice features like the programmable on tablet ExpressKeys and Touch Strips and the latest Intuos3 does support the new 6D pen (more later). It’s up to you to decide if these features are something you need or not. Very Good deals on older tablets can be found on Ebay and a 5 year old Intuos1 is better then no tablet at all.

NOTE: I have yet to try the new Intuos4, which is said to have greater pressure sensitivity.

What to look for and what to avoid
Wacom has made tablets for many years and some of the older tablet will not be compatible with newer systems. Basically anything with a USB connection will most likely work for you. That is the Graphire line and most of the Intuos line. I would avoid any tablet with a serial connection, these can work on some older PC systems but the serial connection is something being quickly replaced by USB.

On the back of each tablet you will find a sticker. Located on that sticker will be the serial number and model number for that tablet. The model number is generally a code that begins with 2 or 3 letters followed by a hyphen then 3 or 4 numbers. This may be followed by more letters or numbers. To determine which model tablet you have, match the first part of the model number with the model numbers listed bellow.

• CT:  PenPartner
  I have no experience with these
• CTE:  Graphire4/Graphire3/Graphire Bluetooth
  The cheaper Wacoms, come in two sizes 4×5 or 6×6
• DFT:  DTF-510 15” LCD Tablets,
  I have no experience with these
• DTI:  DTI-520 LCD Tablets
  I have no experience with these
• DTU:  DTU-710 17” LCD Tablets
  I have no experience with these
• DTZ:  Cintiq 21UX – 21” LCD Tablet,
  Big Expensive, but the ultimate in on screen drawing. 1024 of pressure, tilt and bearing support.
• ETA:  Graphire2
  The cheaper Wacoms, come in two sizes 4×5 or 6×6
• ET: Graphire
  The cheaper Wacoms, come in two sizes 4×5 or 6×6
• GD: Intuos
  The original Intuos, Avoid ADB and Serial tablets but USB works great 1024 pressure, tilt and bearing support. Great deal when you find them.
• KT: ArtPad
  Avoid, has no USB and pens only work with the KT model
• PL: Cintiq 15X/Cintiq 18SX/PL Series -
  LCD Tablets have no experience with these
• PTU: Partner -
  I have no experience with these
• PTZ: Intuos3 -
  Newest Intuos line
• SD: SD Series -
  Avoid, has no USB and pens only work with the SD model
• UD: ArtZ/ArtZ II/UD Series -
  Avoid, has no USB and pens only work with the UD model
• XD: Intuos2 -
  The second Intuos, most were USB, these work great , have 1024 pressure, tilt and bearing support. Some did come with serial connections but none came with ADB as far as I know. Nice grip pen. Very Good deal, great way to save money over buying newest tablets. Size 4×5 to 12×18.

Size Does Matter, to an Extent.
When someone decides for the first time they do want a tablet the next big question becomes, What Size? Wacoms at the present come in anything from the small 4×5 Graphire models to the huge 12×19 Intuos3 model. To a big degree the size you will like will depend on how you work and the equipment you use. Some like the portability of the 4x5s or 6x8s especially if they have a laptop computer and it does take less hand movement to navigate on a small tablet. I can tell you from experience the larger tablets ARE more accurate especially if you tend to be obsessive about smooth precise line work and brush strokes. The lines of resolution per square inch of tablet is the same no matter the size of the tablet so larger tablet have more resolution but it is spread over a larger work area. The shakiness of your hand will not be an issue with a larger tablet, whereas too many cups of coffee and a 4×5 will make it awfully hard to draw a nice clean line. To a photographer doing retouching this will not be too much of an issue, to an artist doing precise hand drawn art it can be a problem. Think of it as drawing a picture on a 2”x2” piece of paper is going to be harder then drawing on a bigger piece.
Another advantage of the larger tablet is that they can be sectioned off into a number of small areas so a 12×18 tablet could have a 6×8 area next to a 4×5 area and still be put into full tablet mode if needed. My own personal preference is that the 6×8 is the minimum useful size and the 12×18 is almost over kill, the 9×12 tablets for me are just right. But that is just me. I have found the square format 12×12 tablets also a little odd to use, computer screens are not square and when the square work area of the tablet is mapped to the screen it is not proportional, this causes a situation where what your hand tells you what you are drawing is not what appears on screen. IE, I could draw a circle on the tablet but the image on screen would be a oval. To get the 12×12 to feel right I found I had to remap the tablets work area to match the screen which came out to 12×9 with the rest of the tablet going unused.

Wide Format Screens
More and more computer monitors are no longer using the standard 4×3 format screens in favor of Wide Format screens. Wacom has come out with a series of wide format tablets designed to match the proportions of the new wide screen monitors. Whereas the old 4×3 proportioned tablets can be use with wide screens the disproportional ratio can fell a little odd when drawing. Draw a circle and your fingers tell you they are creating perfect circles but the image on screen will be oval. To get over this you must tell the tablet to force proportion to the screen which means some of the tablet goes unused. If you have one of these wide screens the 4×6 and 6×11 will proportion better the 4×5 and 6×8 tablets.
Many tablet come with a clear overlay designed with the intension of be used to trace images placed under them, this technique has proven to be near impossible to do right and the newer Intuos3 tablet now don’t even have the overlay because of this. Now a days scanners are cheap and work much better for inputting hand drawn images.

One disadvantage of the big Wacoms is they will take up a lot of desk space, I never found it to be that big an issue, I use to just cover mine with a piece of cardboard and look at it like a big mouse pad, flip the cardboard up when I draw and down when I use the mouse.

Many say tablets are more accurate then a mouse, I have never seen this, any good optical mouse is just as accurate. Speaking of mice, most Wacoms now come with a mouse designed to be used with the tablet, I have never found these mice to be all that useful, they ONLY work on the tablet and most have to be lifted too far off the tablet surface when you need to reposition the mouse. Any good optical mouse works much better and since the tablet works very well with your old mouse attached I see no reason to discard your old mouse, its personal preference.

Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI)
Many tout tablets as a cure for RSI. Luckily I do not suffer from this so I can’t say directly if a tablet will help you in this regard, many say it works, some say they are more tiring to use. When I did traditional illustrations using a technical pen my hands became tired from holding the pen for hours. So I can see where this is not just a computer based problem. Holding the Wacom pen for long periods can also become tiring so I don’t see a tablet as a replacement for the mouse but it can be a nice alternative and that alone could help with RSI.

Using a Tablet
I always thought the actual use of a tablet would be obvious but on occasion I have found someone who has some rather odd expectations of what a graphic tablet can do. This is especially if the person thinks a tablet as a mouse replacement. Nearly always you will use the tablet in tablet mode and not mouse mode. By that I mean the X and Y coordinates of you computer screen correspond exaactly to the X, Y coordinates of the tablets drawing area. Put you pen at the top left corner of the tablet and the cursor on screen will jump to the top left corner of your computer screen, bottom right will correspond to bottom right on screen, middle will be middle etc.

When move the tip of the pen towards the tablet you will see the cursor move when the tip is about 1/4 inch from touching the tablets work area, the pen does not have to touch the tablet for you to navigate around the screen but you do need to press the tip to the tablet to click on objects, this is essentially like clicking the button on a mouse. The biggest and most important difference here is that the tip of the pen can sense how much pressure is being supplied to it , Current Wacom Intuos have 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity and this seems adequate all uses. This is where the magic happens. Many graphics programs can use the pressure signal to mimic the natural look of traditional art media, lines can vary in thickness, airbrushes can spray more or less paint or both. A program like Painter will even use the feature to do things like vary the amount of texture laid down with its chalk variant or to allow more or less smudging and mixing of paint with Painters oils brushes. Light years ahead of the “on-off” nature of a mouse.

The Intuos line of Wacoms can also sense things like pen tilt and bearing. Hold the pen perpendicular to the tablet or tilt the pen forwards or backward or from side to side and certain brushes will react to this input. Some by spraying paint in the direction the pen points, others by changing brush rotation, size, opacity and countless other attributes.

Small Example of the effect of tilt a bearing inputs with the Wacom Pen and the airbrush in Corel Painter.The center stroke is holding the pen straight up and down to the tablet, Tilting the pen right to left causes the traditional airbrush spray pattern you see on either side, Pointing the pen up or down (bearing) causes the spray pattern you see on top and bottom.

One of the little cool feature you will find on the Wacoms is the eraser, it is such a natural thing to do, turn the pen over and erase, I find myself swiping my hand across the tablet to brush away eraser crumbs after using it.

With the Intuos3 line Wacom introduced the new 6D pen. This pen not only supported the usual pressure, tilt and bearing of the other pen but also has the unique ability to sense rotation! I was pleasantly surprised how well the pen worked once set up properly. I found I could set up a set of brushes in Painter that had the feel of using a flat paint brush, the thickness or thinness of the stroke being varied by rotating the pen in my fingers.

Corel Painter by far seems to have the greatest number of tablet useful brushes and myriad ways of modifying the brushes character in response to how you use the tablet. It is kind of a daunting task to set up brushes to work the way you like, but once you have done so you will find great enjoyment from their use.

LCD Tablets
There only one drawback to using a tablet over actual pen on paper and that is the obvious, with a tablet you draw in one spot but have to look at another spot, the screen to see what you are doing. It is something you can get use to but there is still that disconnect between hand and eye. Well Wacom has a fix for that but it is not cheap, A combination LCD display and tablet.

I recently bit the bullet so to speak and bought a 21” Wacom Cintiq LCD Tablet and it is quite a device. Older version of this technology by Wacom were small with bad viewing angles inherent to many LCD screens, lacking in the full 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity of the standard tablets and very expensive to boot. The new Cintiqs while not cheap are reasonable for what there can do and have good color display and viewing angles, the 21” has all the drawing sensitivity of the latest tablets as well. Only drawback to these devices are the weight, 35lbs is not something you want to hold in your lap for too long but a nicely designed stand does allow the screen to be adjusted to a comfortable drawing angle and it also allows the screen to be rotated easily for a natural drawing experience. As a side benefit I found I am now using some old tools I have not used in years, with the image now being right there where the pens is used has allowed me to use things like a ruler, circle templates and French curves to aim in my drawings, a very natural way to interact with an image. For me this tool has become indispensable.

Tablet PCs
I would be remised if I did not make some observations on the Tablet PC. This unique style of machine is basically a Wacom LCD display tablet and a standard laptop computer. You would have thought that something like this would be marketed to digital artists and be made by Apple, but NO it is a PC product and aimed a the business community.
I acquired an Toshiba M200 Tablet PC with the idea of it being a portable sketch pad. It does have a 12.1″ Polysilicon SXGA+ Display with a resolution up to 1400 x 1050 and is fairly decent when viewed under the right lighting conditions. The glass overlay does cause some reflection problems but is necessary due to the on screen pen input. Pressure sensitivity is not up to the levels of a Wacom but surprisingly useful. My thinking is the newer Tablet PCs with improved displays have great potential, especially I am thinking of the Slate Models that come without an attached keyboard or CD drives, these are smaller thinner and much lighter. And of course if Apple made one…. Imagine a large iPhone device with touch screen, but would change to a pressure sensitive pen tablet for art use.

I hope this help with any question you may have,

David F Kyte

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