It’s just as well that it arrived after 2014, otherwise I wouldn’t have packed for conf! The lovely folks at BCC Computers in Geelong put one on backorder (apparently they’re really popular, they kept chasing for me, which was great) and within a couple of weeks I had the device in my hot little hands. The Bamboo range wasn’t function enough for what I wanted, so opted for the mid-range Intuos Pro model, the PTH-651. In determining which model to buy, Wacom was really the only choice – they are the undisputed market leader in this space. As a hobbyist graphic designer and photographer, it was an area I was keen to develop skills in. I wish that were true, because it would be amazing.As a present to myself for getting a high distinction while studying my IT Masters, I decided to get a reasonable graphics tablet. It is an indispensable tool I use every day.ĭisclaimer: We aren’t being paid by Wacom to write this. Having the Intuos Pro at my disposal gives me the ability to do fully illustrated storyboards and spreads, and to quickly add illustrated elements to my other design work. I also use the Intuos Pro for photo editing, such as removing excess dirt and wear from this photo of a baking pan we’re using on a client website. I also frequently use the Intuos Pro for masking objects in photos for a variety of deliverables. I used the Intuos Pro to create more than a dozen storyboard illustrations for The Futures Company, on the topic of financial services geared towards millennials.
It all comes down to your level of comfort with using it. I know quite a few web designers who use the Intuos Pro as their primary design interface tool. The Intuos Pro isn’t limited to photo editors.
However, many professionals in those industries have moved on to higher end models like the Wacom Cintiq, a fully interactive touchscreen display. In my unscientific opinion, they are most commonly associated with animators, photo editors, digital painters, and special effects artists. I eventually get vicious muscle cramps in my hand if I try to get away with that, so I mix it up with a mouse. The Intuos Pro works with the familiar gestural features of a trackpad or touchscreen that make it possible to use for everything. There are other brave souls that only use the tablet. Some people choose to only use a tablet to draw or paint with, and use a mouse for everything else. I primarily stick with one pen tip and don’t bother with the touch shortcuts, and I still get great results with it. Further complicating things (or not, depending on your perspective), the Intuos Pro has programmable touch shortcuts that you can set depending on the application that you’re using. The long answer is you need to have an understanding of how to manage things like brush and stroke settings, which - combined with the variety of changeable pen tips included - give you a lot of different results with what you’re creating. It also comes with a wireless receiver, which will allow you to use it without the USB cord after you charge it and install the drivers. The short answer is that it is a plug-and-play device with built-in drivers, so all you have to do to use it is plug the USB cable into your computer, fire up an application like Photoshop or Illustrator (which come with built-in support), and you’re up and running. There is a short answer and a long answer here. My thesis animation is a style of animation referred to as rotoscope, which required almost 3,000 individual drawings to create. Like a lot of professional creatives, the Intuos Pro has been an integral part of my creative toolbox since all the way back in art school, when I used an older model to produce my thesis animation. There are many brands and varieties of pen tablets, but the Wacom Intuos Pro is the most typical kind you’ll find in a professional setting. Wacom’s Intuos Pro is a pen tablet that works with various software applications to digitally interpret the process of drawing or painting. In this installment, we discuss the Wacom Intuos Pro pen tablet. We’ve previously written about Soliloquy and Cycle2 sliders, the Pingdom Website Speed Test, Sprout Social, Chrome Developer Tools, Free Stock Photos, Google Webmaster Tools and Font Awesome, Glyphicons, and Dashicons.
This is the eighth in an irregular series of blog posts about the tools we use to design, develop and maintain websites and the digital products we create.