I'm looking for a Wacom drawing tablet. Has anyone got experience using one of these? 

I'm looking for one of the Intuos tablet/pen combos. My last go at anything Wacom was a crappy tablet about 8 years ago, and it wasn't very sensitive and didn't react to pen pressure. From what I've read this seems to have improved, but I don't want to shell out an amount to realise they're as crappy as they were 8 years ago. :C

 

I have a Wacom drawing tablet from off the arc - not sure where the other one went. It's an ET-0405-U. Haven't used it for ages, might have a play now. I seem to remember a similar experience to yours: pen not very accurate or sensitive.

I lost the pen to my wacom about a year ago. This was actually a *replacement pen*, and they don't make 'em for my 4x5 'graphire' tablet (the cheapest model, really, and the last compatible with an old mac),  anymore. Tablet (with pen): ~$100. Replacement pen: $70.

I was thinking about tossing it when I found the pen last week, in its little pen stand, at home on my table, buried under 2 feet of rubbish. So now I can use it again.

I found the tablet to be most useful as a mouse substitute. I use the pen left-handed, mouse right, and I sometimes get carpal tunnel problems from the mouse especially after binge gaming.

It's also great for making bezier paths, and for spotting photo scans with the clone tool in photoshop (and I suppose, GIMP, though haven't tried it yet). For drawing it's ok, better than a mouse certainly, but not so great. The pressure thing works, sort of, and I might get better at it with a lot of practice. I reckon the intuous line to be considerably better for artsy stuffs, though I've never tried one.

Cheers guys.

That just reaffirms my memories of using them that long ago.

I'm reading good things about the Intuos range and the one I've got my eye on on eBay has a bundled wireless receiver too, which'd be a boon.

Hmm. I wonder if I can use my Samsung Note as a drawing tablet for my computer.

vnc?

I just downloaded Virtual Tablet. Works with the S-Pen of the Note. Can even do pressure sensitivity but not sure which programs on the PC yet. Not Photoshop :(

Cool. Any lag?

Not lag but it's a bit jumpy. Might try it with a Bluetooth dongle instead.

Couldn't get Bluetooth to connect. It's fun to play with but not really usable. Misses the odd bit of lines and jumps around a bit. Only program I could get the pressure sensitivity to work with was SketchBook.

Found one of the Intuos range on eBay for £25, it should be here by Thursday. :)

Did it arrive? Is it any good?

Nope, it didn't arrive. :C

I feckin' hate this when it happens (not that eBay are at fault here, in fact they're pretty good at sorting this shit out), you check out someone's profile/feedback ratings and all looks hunkydory, then your item never shows up. I appreciate that there's going to be mitigating circumstances sometimes, but for someone to just go silent and not respond to any messages when they're selling something and have taken your money is a little galling.

Still, I've opened a case with eBay and just have to wait a week or so for the seller to get back in contact, and if nothing comes back I'll get the cost refunded.

I'll start looking for another once the money's refunded, I don't want to order another now 'cos we'll be away for 2 weeks, and don't want to deal with the vagaries of the local sorting office when no-one's in to receive it.

 

I hate that. I ordered some stuff from Malaysia, never turned up. Contacted seller, they said they'd resend it. I fell for it, never turned up and the time to dispute on eBay expired :(

I'm sure I've got a 99p packaged stuck at Heathrow from months back. I think I chased it twice then just didn't bother wasting my time.

I found another ebayer who was selling the same Intuos tablet for ~£35 but had negative feedback on his one and only item as a seller, which seemed suspicious, so I passed on that one. I've been checking his feedback, just to confirm my apprehensions and though the person who did win the tablet hasn't posted anything, another item he's sold hasn't turned up. Dodged a bullet there.

I found a more reputable dude and got a tablet from him and I've been having a play over the last few days. It's nice. The pressure sensitivity works really well, I'm just getting used to the way the pen works with the cursor, using absolute positioning.

It's a pretty cool device. I have mine mapped to a 1080p + 21" CRT dual display ( used primarily as a mouse substitute) so as you can imagine it's a total distortion of the 4x5 tablet area. I found absolute positioning to be too annoying with having to constantly reposition the pen for different parts of the display. It's really, really good for the pen tool and stamp in Adobe CS and gimp. Not so much for bitmap drawing tools IME.

Not tried the pen and clone stamp as yet, but I'll give that a go tonight maybe.

I've been using it for shading in Photoshop so far and the pressure sensor works nicely for that.

Best analogy I can think of for the graphire is an eraser on a big chalkboard, whereas a mouse is more like a cement block on an ice rink.  I've only used the pressure sensitivity effectively on really big, soft-edge brushes (100-300 px), to selectively burn/dodge, where edge precision is (obviously) unnecessary, but you want to control the intensity depending on area. Otherwise I keep it turned off.