There is a large price difference between the Intuos and Bamboo. What are the practical differences in terms of photo retouching? I will never use the thing to draw.
I use the cheapest Bamboo since I don't draw, and feel very happy with its size and weight. For what I do in retouching, it's more than enough. The only beef is a clear plastic cover has to be placed over it; otherwise, you have to keep buying those expensive nibs.
The main difference between the Intuos and Bamboo has to do with the interactive buttons and dial that comes with the higher priced models. That alone make it worth the price differential in my opinion - it definitely speeds your workflow when you don't have to bounce between the tablet and keypad.
The one variable that doesn't seem to make much difference in my book has been tablet size. In fact, the larger the tablet, the more landscape you have to cover with your stylus. Ugh~
I have an Intuos 4, Medium size and that's plenty big for me. Honestly, I don't have a clue what people do with the large ones.
dlabrecque wrote:
Honestly, I don't have a clue what people do with the large ones.
digital artists normally need to use larger surface for elbow/shoulder movements when they draw/paint. For image retouching, larger size is not a bless unless you specify a much smaller surface area by remapping. I use the cheapest Bamboo, and even with that small size, I needed to remap it down to only 1/4 of its entire area for my retouching preference.
+1 and it's a pain to try to have a keyboard & big tablet and whatever else all in easy ergonomic reach. I will often put the small tab. on my lap. Try that w/ a med or large
I tried the cheaper Bamboo yesterday - one of my students draws with one - it wasn't very intuitive to use, but I'm sure I could get used to it. The frustrating thing was having to go back and forth to the keyboard to select brush size, etc. Do the more expensive ones make it possible to do those key commands on the pad? Also, I'm curious as to what remapping to 1/4 the size accomplishes when using LR or PS to retouch. Mshi - could you elaborate on that please?
blutch wrote:
The frustrating thing was having to go back and forth to the keyboard to select brush size, etc. Do the more expensive ones make it possible to do those key commands on the pad? Also, I'm curious as to what remapping to 1/4 the size accomplishes when using LR or PS to retouch. Mshi - could you elaborate on that please?
Thanks to all.
B
No, you don't have to go back to keyboard to choose different brush size. You can program those two buttons on the pen for brush size, for example, the lower one for smaller size by mapping it to [ key, and the upper one to bigger size to ] key. I prefer smaller work area for faster workflow. It's a person thing. You can do so with the included Wacom software called Bamboo Preferences on Windows since I don't use any Apple products and have no idea what is the equivalent on Apple.
blutch wrote:
Cool.. thanks. what about things like enlarging the photo, moving from one type of brush to another? Can you program the buttons on the tablet itself?
B
using keyboard short cuts are much faster than pressing buttons on higher end wacoms.
blutch wrote:
Thank you for being so helpful! I appreciate people in this forum so much.
B
Forgot to mention there is another way to change brush size/hardness on the fly if you use CS5 and later. That's to use the same Bamboo Preferences to program one of the buttons as Mouse Right Click. Now when you are in Brush tool, while pressing/holding down both ALT key on the keyboard and the right mouse clip button on the pen, you can swipe the pen up/down for hardness, left/right for size. By default, the brush tip size preview window will come up to show you precisely the deal in red. If you don't like the color, you can change it to whatever you fancy under Brush Preview under Cursors in Preferences. One last thing, "Very Round Brush hardness based on HUD vertical movement" must be checked under General in Preferences.
good idea, heads-up that depending on operating system and OpenGL implementation, that may not work correctly (known bug in CS5 and/or OS X (version?))
I have a medium Wacom Intuos5 with the wireless option running under 10.8.3. In general I like it and find the more I use it the more valuable it becomes. I do have two problems: (1) periodically the key and ring stop responding to input and (2) I've never been able to get the touch gestures to work. Wacom's support isn't exactly stunning so I'm still working on why this happens.
The gesture thing is no problem but having the tablet unresponsive is a pain as I have to turn it off and on (and occasionally exit LR or PS) to restore functionality. Still, it has become an invaluable tool.
The Intuous line is a good middle point between the limited value of the bamboos and the very spendy Cintiqs. Only real issue is shuffling keyboard and tablet around, but use a virtual keyboard helps.
I recently bought a factory-refurbished small Intuos4, which is essentially the same as the Intuos5 minus touch capabilities. Looked brand new to me and only cost $120 shipped.
If you're just doing photo retouching the small size is all you need IMO. For drawing etc. go for the larger sizes.
