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Wacom Intuos 2From Wacom Technologies,
Co Review by Gary Coyne For a long time, Wacom tablets have been the default input device for artists, graphic professionals, and even those with RSI (repetitive stress injury). There have been competitors, but superb engineering by Wacom has consistently kept it in the forefront of technology and in user's hands. Tested for this review was the 6 x 8 inch tablet. Wacom makes the Intuos 2 from 4 X 5 inches to 12 X 18 inches. (Wacom also makes an economy tablet called the Graphire 2 (also 4 X 5) but with half the levels of pressure sensitivity of the Intuos 2 line (512 vs. 1024). The 6 x 8 here refers to the inner (light grey) region of the tablet ,as the full size of the unit is 10 x 13 inches. The tablet is 1/2 inch thick. As shown in the photo below, the tablet is just about the same size as a Titanium Powerbook.
For those of you who may not know, the Wacom (pronounced whack-um) tablet lets you use a special pen as a mouse. It uses an electronic signal to know where the pen is on the tablet. When using the pen, the width of the working area on the tablet corresponds to the width of your screen. This is "absolute positioning." That is, when you place the pen on the left side of the tablet, the cursor will appear on the left side of the screen. Same goes for top, bottom and right. It takes a few minutes to get used to placing the cursor directly where you want it to appear as opposed to moving the cursor where you want it to appear, but like most things in life, you soon adapt. When using the mouse, the positioning is more like what one is already used to with a standard mouse. That is, "relative positioning"--one can pick up the mouse and place it elsewhere on the tablet and the cursor position doesn't move while the mouse is in the air. The tablet knows whether you are using the mouse or the pen and adapts automatically. When using the tablet with absolute positioning, the width of the tablet corresponds to the width of your screen. It is better to have a wider tablet with a wider screen, but I found using the 6 X 8 with my 20 inch monitor very comfortable. The other "power" of using a pen and tablet is that you can vary the pressure AND angle of your pen just like in real life. The image below shows two different aspects of using a pen. The middle brown image shows my turning the angle of the pen while not moving the tip in any direction. Sort of like taking a putty knife and rotating it in place. The outer images in blue were simply applying an increasing amount of pressure as I drew CCW around the brown object. In both blue items, I had the same settings and same brush, except on the right image I applied a greater amount of increasing pressure than I did on the left image.
Note, the images above were done with Painter. The same varying-image shape can be done with any bitmapped or vector image program that supports working with the Wacom tablet. For example, below is an example of a simple scribble using the brush selector from Adobe Illustrator (observe the vector guide line (blue) within the black line). If the program does not support the Wacom table, you simply get a line with no variation in thickness.
As mentioned, these have been around for some time. My previous Wacom tablet is about 15 years old and is just a tad smaller. Aside from improving the technology, Wacom has improved the design as well. However, some things are still there. As with the earlier tablet, there is a plastic liftup sheet that one can place photos or other flat items underneath for sketching. Aside from the improved tablet design, for the Intuos 2, Wacom improved the shape of the pen and added a mouse.
To demonstrate how things change, I've placed my old pen in the above photograph. Fortunately Wacom followed industry changes in pen design and have appropriately added these changes to their pens. They are thicker and have a "comfort fit" region where one holds onto the pen. The mouse uses the same technology as the pen, so there are no wires between either of them and the tablet, and no batteries to install or replace. The mouse is a two button with a scroll wheel. From the software one can program the buttons and wheel to your choice of actions. The pen has one long rocker-button that can also be programed to any mouse action. For clicking and double-clicking, one can either set the top and bottom parts of this button to these settings and/or tap and double-tap the pen to the tablet. There are a variety of programming options such as double-clicking and/or Command clicking to obtain Contextual menus. For programs that support the eraser, the pen has an end that acts as an eraser and removes material from your (bitmapped) drawings. Aside from adding a mouse, the other main "new" item on the Intuos 2 tablet is the top row of commands across the top of the working area. Specifically, there is New, Open, Close, Print, Exit, Cut, Copy, Paste, Undo, Delete, Back, Forward, Mode (pen, mouse), and Pressure (soft, medium, and firm). All these can be fine tuned in the Wacom Control Panel (shown below with the Tip Feel window). On an esthetic level, I found the size of the font used for these commands to be too small for my "older" eyes. With the buttons, either the selection is a specific option related to the tablet (Mode or Pressure), or a standard Apple control operation (Save, Open, Close, etc.). The bad thing is that the specific Wacom selections, such as pen pressure, cannot be fine tuned from the Tip Feel in the preferences. Thus, when you select Pressure-firm, you get maximum firmness, and when you select Pressure-soft it's maximum softness. The reason why this is not good is that on my tablet, maximum soft left the tablet useless. I had to use the mouse to regain control. Also, if your preference for "medium" is just to the left or right of the middle of the Tip Feel, when you press Pressure- medium, you've lost your "fine-tuned" preference.
As seen from the screen shot above, Wacom does have drivers for OS X. However, this is best obtained from the Wacom web site as the CD that comes with the Tablet has an OS 9 installer. However, if you want to check out the Wacom tutorial (part of the Installer program), you will have to load up Classic as there is no other way to run through the tutorial. Sadly, the tutorial has other problems in that the text doesn't always fit on its page (see below). But in reality, there isn't all that much information in the tutorial, so to miss it is not that big a loss.
One can hope that a carbonized tutorial will soon be released with a repair of the technical glitches seen on the above screen shot. I would also recommend that the tutorial be placed as a separate item on the CD as opposed to linking it to an installer program. My only complaint with this Tablet is that it requires more power for functioning than can be supplied from the keyboard's USB plug. As this is a power issue, I'm not sure there is anything that Wacom can do about the problem. You can plug the tablet into either the main USB slot from your computer or into a powered USB adapter. I suppose to reach the back of a Mac tower, they've added an extra two feet to the USB cable (from the length of the original ADB cable) for a total of eight feet. That eight feet means you can easily plug the tablet into a tower or your Powerbook/iBook, kick your feet up on your desk (or couch), and be an artist. In short, the Wacom tablets are an excellent piece of quality equipment. I, for one, am willing to excuse the late implementation of OS X on the CD since Wacom Technologies, like many other companies, have been waiting for Apple to supply a consistent OS. Otherwise, the Wacom Control Panel is otherwise excellent. (Be forewarned, the pdf manual identifies accessing the Control Panel via the System Preferences--it is a separate program located in your Applications folder.) With the addition of the mouse, the full Wacom package is excellent for anyone who wants the power of artistic expression via a pen instead of a mouse along with a programmable cordless mouse. Wacom also has other "tools" for their tablets that include an airbrush, a 4d mouse, and a new "weighted" pen made of stainless steel. Check out their web site for these other gadgets.
Applelinks Rating
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