Mouse vs. tablet

[mearrin69]

Here's what my wonderful wife had waiting for my birthday (Saturday)! Couldn't use my old Intuos(1) anymore because my new computer lacks a serial port so I've been rolling with my Graphire for a while now. The Intuos4 medium is sheer beauty. Also, it came with some PS brushes, and my choice of PS Elements, Corel Painter Sketchpad, or Autodesk Sketchbook Express 2010. I went with the latter two and both are pretty cool.

I highly recommend this guy. The feel is very different and it comes with variety of nibs that I haven't had a chance to try out yet. Some say that the nibs wear out more quickly because of the surface of the pad. Can't comment on that until I use it a bit more. IMO, paying for more nibs is worth the improved feel.

Oh, yeah, she also got me CS4 but I suspect that eats into my Christmas budget Hopefully it'll arrive someday soon...eager to try out that 64-bit thing to see if it's any more efficient.
M

[Ascension]

When you're done with her can you send her my way so that she can buy me a cool new tablet? Kidding. Great stuff, you lucky guy.

[mearrin69]

Heh. Well, I've got to keep her at least until the box with PS4 arrives After that? We can negotiate. LOL.
M

N.B. I can joke about this here because I am absolutely *sure* that she does not come to these forums.

[Coyotemax]

I can confirm that the nibs appear to wear down quicker than one might expect them to on the Intuos4. I thought maybe it was just a manufacturing flaw or something, the first nib was noticeably worn after less than a week. I swapped them out to see, and the second one went as well (though a bit slower, I'm learning to use a much lighter touch now, heh).

I still haven't tried the other nibs yet.


[edit] Ok, just tested them. the grey ones that are suppose to feel like pencil don't really seem any different to me. perhaps if I overlayed some paper over the tablet. The black one with the white tip is nice though - has a very smooth light feel to it while drawing, lots of control over the pressure.

I fell in love with the light grey soft one with the spring in the nib. it's very responsive. I'll have to see about tracking down those ones as replacement nibs, hopefully they're not TOO expensive

[edit again] I take back what I said about the felt tip. After leaving it in and working with it for awhile, I did notice a subtle difference, enough that I won't be going back to the standard nibs again unless i have to And the nibs themselves are decently priced. the felt ones are $5 for a 5pack, same price as the standard nibs. The Stroke nibs (with the springs) are about twice that.

[mearrin69]

Cool. Thanks for the info on the nibs...was wondering about that. Will try out some of the other ones and order some replacements of the ones I like.

I had to turn up the pressure sensitivity because I was bearing down so hard to get a stroke. Reckon that'll make my nibs last a little longer at least.

Did yours have a mouse? I find using mine is sort of like painting with a stone for some reason. It just seems really heavy or "stuck" to the tablet or something. Maybe a sensitivity adjustment would help there too.

Finally, anyone tried out the other tools? That airbrush looks cool but I never use airbrush brushes in paint programs so I don't know if I even want to open that can of worms.
M

[Coyotemax]

I haven't tried any other pens, so yeah.

The mouse.. I don't really use it. I just use the pen now. I suppose i could turn up the sensitivity (I did notice it seems unwieldy) but what's the point if I'm using the pen for everything anyhow Typically I'm on the laptop when i'm using this, and because of my injury (yes, still having issues, it just flared up again, i think the second disc finally ruptured)) I'm laying on my back most of the time. I have the tablet on the bed next to me at about hip level where it's comfortable for me to reach with the pen, and to be honest I haven't been using the buttons on the pad much. I use the scroll thingy to zoom in and out on occasion but that's about it. I'm still using the key shortcuts from the laptop for the most part.

I will say that once I got used to the pen, I hated the mouse. It felt like I was working with a curling stone

Really, I found the best way to train yourself for the pen (besides the drawing), go to albinoblacksheep.com and head into the flash games section. there's a few that work really well with the pen.

By the way if you're using Firefox, there's a plugin you can get called Grab and Drag. I ***highly*** recommend it if you browse with your tablet Works with mice too, but it really shines with the pen.

[mearrin69]

The buttons are great (maybe not for your situation) and I've been able to mostly replace my "hand on the keyboard" working style with them. Think I'll change the display toggle/precision mode buttons to something I use more frequently.

I really like being able to change brush size with the ring control. Looking forward to CS4 as I think the rotate canvas setting works in it...doesn't seem to in CS2.
M

[Midgardsormr]

There is no rotate canvas in CS3 or earlier; it was introduced with CS4 and its OpenGL acceleration feature. Unfortunately, that particular feature has been one of the biggest sources of problems with CS4. An awful lot of users don't even have the option of rotating their canvas because their video cards slow things down instead of speeding them up.

Anyway, I, also, am very jealous—my (wife's) Intuos3 is terrific, and it's so well-made that I can't quite rationalize an upgrade.

[mearrin69]

Well, Intuos3 is a heck of a lot better than my Graphire or my ancient Intuos(no number) so I probably wouldn't have upgraded either.

Scary news about CS4. I'm hoping my card is good enough - GeForce 9600 GT. I think that's only one generation old so maybe it's got enough juice.
M

[Midgardsormr]

Don't worry, even without the acceleration, there's enough new stuff in CS4 to be worth the upgrade. And I'm not sure that video card power has much to do with it; I've got a top-of-the-line Radeon, 64-bit Photoshop, an i7 CPU, and 12GB of RAM, and I have trouble from time to time. I don't need the rotation feature or 3d painting for what I do, though, so I just turned OpenGL off.