-
I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...
Thinking about adding a Wacom (or similar)
- Thread starter cwade440
- Start date
There will be zero problems interfacing with Flexi. A tablet is simply a glorified mouse with a built in touch screen so to speak. The Wacom drivers will make it work with any drawing program. That said, if you can try one before you buy I would strongly suggest doing so. I bought a Wacom thinking it would speed things up, especially tracing. Well I just never got comfortable with it. Maybe I didn't spend the time to get used to it, but I was consistently faster and more accurate with a mouse. Maybe if I had spent 100 hours practicing I might have fallen in love with it but I didn't and ended up selling it. If you can get the hang of the pen instead of a mouse, it has nice features like several programmable buttons, some on the pen, others on the tablet, that you can assign to various tools.
This is what I've always been told. Spend more time with it. I have an older model that I keep trying to teach myself to use. Every resource/tutorial/individual I reach out to says that you just need to spend time with it. Its akin to driving on the other side of the road. Or learning to drive manual. Or coding in a particular language. Once you force your brain to adjust, the hand/eye coordination gets easier. I've met guys that use the tablet/pen for way more complex applications than Flexi. And these guys fly through work like hackers in movies. I do use it to doodle a bit here and there for more "artistic stuff", but for the life of me, I can not get productive enough with it for the work flow to make sense. It usually turns into, "Ok. Let me stop playing and really get some work done..."
Also, I found it problematic to use it at work then switch when I get to the home office or vice versa. I even considered carrying it around so I was always practicing. Fortunately, my common sense got the better of me and I focused on the workflow that paid bills. Good ol' mouse and key board. Hopefully OP, you mileage will be better than mine.
letterman7
New Member
I bought a smaller, older tablet to try as well with Corel. So far, I've hooked it up and gotten to the point that I can't get past the mark where the tablet picks up the pen 1/2" from the surface (and yes, I've tried adjusting the parameters of the tablet... didn't help). So it sits on the shelf for the moment. Might try to make a pvc "pad" to go over top the tablet to make up the "correct" zero point for the pen.
I have had Wacom tablets on two of my computers for probably 5-6 years now. I was really hoping they would help to hand vectorizing faster among other things. But the fact is I still cannot vectorize faster with the tablet than just with the mouse. The only thing I find that works better with the tablet is actual freehand drawing of flowing, curving shapes. To me, using the pen as a replacement for the mouse is just too cumbersome. I think it has to do with the way the right and left mouse buttons work on the pen. It's just not a comfortable, sure movement to me. Oh, and the tablet was good for creating a signature to use in adobe reader to sign documents.
Johnny Best
Active Member
I love mine and as other post says it works with all programs. I did not have that much of a learning curve, but I also never liked the mouse thing. I also like to use the touch pad on my laptop for designing. The Wacom is great for Illustrator and Photoshop.
I have a wacom but don't use it as much as my mouse for day to day things. It's really better for drawing etc. at least for me. The newer ones (mine is old) are pressure sensitive and supposedly much more "natural". You can press harder and get a thicker line etc.
The best advice I've heard is to give your mouse to a friend for a week and force yourself to use the pen/tablet instead. While I didn't go that far, I did use it exclusively for a weekend and that helped.
The best advice I've heard is to give your mouse to a friend for a week and force yourself to use the pen/tablet instead. While I didn't go that far, I did use it exclusively for a weekend and that helped.
The Vector Doctor
Chief Bezier Manipulator
I will never go back to a mouse. I also tried a friends' tablet many years ago. Hated it at first but gave it a 2nd try later after having sore hands from using a mouse all day. After getting acccustomed to it I am glad I switched. The click and drag of a mouse is much slower than simply tapping on the drawing surface with a pen.. IMO. I trace logos all day long. I am much quicker and efficient compared to when I used a mouse. I have had my tablet for over 10 years now. Same Wacom. It is very reliable
Fred Weiss
Merchant Member
I have an XP-Pen Artist22E, nearly new, that I've been thinking of selling. Same reason as others have stated ... I'm just got too many hours using a mouse.
It's supposed to do that? you treat "off pad" as moving the cursor, and "on pad" as having the left mouse button down, ya dig?
I'm left handed but mouse with my right. Having a tablet to my left is great!
There's plenty of tasks that a mouse is more suited to, i only use the tablet when i need a "hand drawn" feel in artwork, tracing logos etc is usually better done geometrically, of course it all depends on the artwork.
I don't think using them as a 'mouse replacement' is the right way to think about them, especially when most people are running multiple screens these days, they're a "drawing tool".
There's plenty of tasks that a mouse is more suited to, i only use the tablet when i need a "hand drawn" feel in artwork, tracing logos etc is usually better done geometrically, of course it all depends on the artwork.
I don't think using them as a 'mouse replacement' is the right way to think about them, especially when most people are running multiple screens these days, they're a "drawing tool".
Johnny Best
Active Member
It's suppose to pick up the curser about a 1/2" off the tablet. Just keep moving the tip down to the surface and then it will move to where you want it. Putting a pvc pad over top will not work because the tablet pad is what is sensitive to the pen and the pvc pad will block that.
Some people have circles for learning curves.
letterman7
New Member
Ah... I'll have to mess with it some more. My learning circle is somewhat obtuse...
The Vector Doctor
Chief Bezier Manipulator
Yeah you hover over the surface to move the cursor and touching the tip/nib to the surface is the same as clicking the mouse button.
letterman7
New Member
It was always in 'draw' mode, so even when I was 'hovering' it was making a mark. I'll have to look at it again and see if there is something I missed setting it up...
The first tablet I purchased was 2003 Wacom Graphire3 , 4x5 pen mouse and tablet, came bundled with Photoshop Elements 2.0, Corel Painter Essentials 2, and Nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 GE. I still have the box with everything in it. It was a great bargain, bought it on Ebay I think, probably spent about $45.00 for it. It was so long ago. Unfortunately, I found the drawing area to be too small to comfortably do much sketching with it. I am accustomed to drawing all over the drawing pad, paper or the wall, lol. So 4x5 drawing area was so constraining for me. Truthfully, I got very frustrated with it. Still though, I consider it a bargain because I used the Photoshop Elements 2.0 program for many projects! In fact, we are still using it today on a new Windows 10 Computer and it works perfectly! I do have a newer/Full version of Photoshop installed on the computer I do most of my artwork on.
Fast forward a few years and I am on my 2nd Wacom, it's a Wacom bamboo CTL471. It's not huge either, the drawing area is a more reasonable size for what I do, and I'm trying to use it when I think of it. I have had it for about 4 years now and I want to be more disciplined about using it. As always though, I need more space! Didn't pay too much for this one either, I think about $50 or close. I pull it out every now and then.
What tablet exactly do you all have? Do you find it too small, too big? Can you sketch freely on it or does the drawing space seem confined? I do trust opinions here, have seen the great work that you all do!
Fast forward a few years and I am on my 2nd Wacom, it's a Wacom bamboo CTL471. It's not huge either, the drawing area is a more reasonable size for what I do, and I'm trying to use it when I think of it. I have had it for about 4 years now and I want to be more disciplined about using it. As always though, I need more space! Didn't pay too much for this one either, I think about $50 or close. I pull it out every now and then.
What tablet exactly do you all have? Do you find it too small, too big? Can you sketch freely on it or does the drawing space seem confined? I do trust opinions here, have seen the great work that you all do!
WildWestDesigns
Active Member
I'm a huge fan of Wacom products.
I have the Cintiq Companion (tablet that runs Win 8.1 (the only Windows on bare metal that I have anymore), an Intuos 3 Large (doesn't see much use anymore), a Cintiq 12WX, Cintiq 21UX and a Cintiq 27QHD.
The Companion and the 12WX are fine for traveling with (the Companion moreso then the 12WX), but for desktop use, 21" on up. My main office rig where I do most of my designing, I have the 27QHD along with 2 27" Viewsonics.
I prefer the Cintiqs to the tablets, I like to see exactly where I'm doing the drawing/sketching etc. It feels more traditional to me. Now, if you've done everything with a mouse, it may honestly be better to just stick with that method. I've known a couple of people that just couldn't quite get the hang of using a stylus, no matter how long they tried.
This is all just my experience, other's mileage may vary.
Johnny Best
Active Member
I use the Wacom Intuos small pen tablet, think it is like a 4x6 area. Just line up your screen area with the tablet. Tried a larger tablet but did not like how I had to "swoop" more to get long runs. Went back to a smaller one with bluetooth which fits my needs better. I work on a laptop so have not use a mouse in 20 years and can put the tablet on my lap and use it.
I cannot understand how people can use a mouse after getting use to a Wacom tablet.
I cannot understand how people can use a mouse after getting use to a Wacom tablet.
