It comes down to comfort. If you work hours and hours on retouching, the larger the surface area the more comfort you get. Bamboo has a very small active area for your pen.
For photographic use, there's effectively no functional difference between the lines.
The differentiating features and specifications really only come into play for illustration and painting. If the Bamboo pen is comfortable enough and you find one of the available sizes suits you, go crazy.
I have the mid-size Intuos4. When I bought it I thought the buttons would be useful, but in practice I seldom use them. Also at the time I bought it I thought bigger would be better, but I find that even the 5"x9" active area requires a LOT of hand, wrist, and arm movement. I wish I had bought the small size!
colinm wrote:
For photographic use, there's effectively no functional difference between the lines.
The differentiating features and specifications really only come into play for illustration and painting. If the Bamboo pen is comfortable enough and you find one of the available sizes suits you, go crazy.
Yes to this,
I have the mid-size Intuos4. When I bought it I thought the buttons would be useful, but in practice I seldom use them. Also at the time I bought it I thought bigger would be better, but I find that even the 5"x9" active area requires a LOT of hand, wrist, and arm movement. I wish I had bought the small size!
And to this. The larger sizes are undeniably useful for the larger elbow- and arm movements of painting, but IMO not so much when doing the pencil-like movements of retouching. And I find using keyboard shortcuts still so much quicker than pulling open menus with the pen that I find the smaller tablet more easily managed while keeping the keyboard handy.l
I have an old Graphire (not sure which generation) that I find to be perfectly functional. I bought the smaller size because I wasn't sure if I would keep it or upgrade.
I bought a bamboo... tried it for a day... returned it got an intuos small. The big issue I had with the bamboo was the pen design. Very uncomfortable and hard to know "where" to grip it (it's basically a giant sharpie without any ridges/marks)
The Intuos has a smoother pen feel, along with tilt sensitivity and a smoother pressure curve. As someone who does more illustration than photography, I find the differences to be worth the extra cost, but a Bamboo is certainly a serviceable option for most photo-retouching work.
I ended up going for the Intuos because I wanted the wireless model and thought the extra buttons would come in handy. The programmability of the buttons is very nice and I made myself a custom layout for Lightroom that basically frees myself from the keyboard (nice when paired w/the wireless function). As far as the pen functionality goes though, yes the bamboo is functionally the same as the Intuos for photo editing
A note about the tablet size, I kind of agree with the sentiment that for photo editing the small works just fine because of the motions involved, but I also run dual displays so the medium size is not a problem since the larger area also covers two screens comfortably. I can easily switch between displays with a single button press as well, if I want a larger mapping area. I'm actually impressed at how well the system handles dual displays.
I agree with some of the posters here that the small COULD have been an option. I don't like the travel I have to do on SOME operations like menus, tools etc.. But I DO like the room I have when doing the actual retouch actions on the image.
I wouldn't like a small area when dodging & burning sweeps or highlighting etc...
The programmable labels on the 4 line are great. I can change up the buttons for PS or Lightroom respectfully and SEE the difference.
I'll not need another tablet after this purchase the MED 4 does anything and everything I'll ever need to do.
I bought a XP-Pen DECO 02 tablet a few months ago for less than $100.00 from their offical store.
I use it mainly for painting in Gimp but... I found a free program named Krita that seems like it was made specifically for painting. So I may start using Krita when I texture the model that I'm working on right now.
Anyway... I use my DECO 02 Graphic tablet for texturing 3D models, creating matte paintings and set extensions. I used my tablet a lot for rotoscoping masks back in the old Visionlab days, it's way faster than using a mouse, btw and it's definitely super fast in HF2U.
If I can figure out how to navigate in Blenders 3D space with my tablet, "never tried before" I know for sure that it'll speed up modelling and everything else too. Just need to figure out how to zoom with the pen, you zoom in and out with the middle mouse button.
William Wilson wrote:
I use the buttons all the time on my Medium Intuos 4 seldom do I reach for the keyboard during my workflow
I get confused by Wacom naming system Is the 'Medium Intuos 4' what they are now calling the 'Intuos Pro M'? Is the 'Pro' a newer model?
There isn't a small called 'Intuos Pro' - the only small version is from a previous generation.
And then there is the simple 'Wacom Intuos' line (not 'Pro') which has a different form factor with some buttons along the top and not the side.
And a question for the thread (not aimed at the person I am quoting):
Given the current choices in the Pro line, would you opt for the 'small' to get more compact work surface (6.2x3.9") but with lower pen pressure levels (2048) and an older generation of the pad? Or, go for the 'medium' with a less compact work area (8.8x5.8") but 8192 pressure levels and newer technology?
I have an older Wacom model with a bit less than 6x9" active area (medium?). That is the best size compromise IME for home PS use. Some years ago I traveled with a small pen tablet for a laptop.
Is the 'Medium Intuos 4' what they are now calling the 'Intuos Pro M'? Is the 'Pro' a newer model?