So today I'm going to talk about Wacom tablets and their advantages for
photographers undertaking post-production. Thanks to Squarespace
for sponsoring this video. I've got two new Wacom tablets here that
I'm about to unbox. One of them is the Intuos Pro Medium size and the other one
is the Intuos Pro Small size. Let's take a look at them...
So, what's in the boxes and which size is going to be best for you and why. Well
immediately on unpacking those, the first thing that I've seen is a device here
with each one of these, I'm not actually even sure what that is. Oh yes I am,
it's the pen holder that the pen simply goes into so let's unpack one of those.
Now normally, in these, inside yes, they have the extra nibs, spare nibs for the
pen. So that's weighted at the bottom that's
quite heavy that piece of metal and then there's a dial where you can rotate it
to unlock the base so you can access those nibs - put that back together again,
and that's the base holder for the pen. Pens got some protective wrapping around
it and that's your pen holder. So that's a new design compared to the old
design here. The other interesting thing that I've
just noticed, and this was actually the main reason I bought this Intuos
Medium. This is the Intuos Medium Pro here, this is also the Intuos Medium
Pro but look at the size difference, this is the older model and this is the newer
model and this is really important to me actually this size difference. Measure - so
my old Intuos Medium Pro was 38cm by 25 cm the new
one is 33.5cm by 22cm so it's considerably smaller. Now if you want to
compare the small size Wacom tablet with the medium one there you go can you see
the differences there that's the difference between the small and the
medium and the small one measures 26.7cm by 17cm
so consider smaller. So they are both considerably
more compact than their predecessors but with the same actual working area, that
is the area that you use to draw, retouch etc. That particular area
is the same size but it's the surrounding areas that they've reduced
in size and they've reduced the size area for these buttons as well so they
basically shrunk all that in which is really, really useful. So why is that
actually important to me that this one has the same working area as this one
but is it it's considerably smaller well I'll tell you why it's important to me I
have a 16 inch MacBook Pro and that 16 inch MacBook Pro just fits into my
lovely laptop bag along with my Sony headphones but this particular tablet
did not fit into this bag when I had, it will fit in it but it won't fit in it
when I've got my laptop in there and I do a lot of traveling overseas where I'm
giving presentations and lectures etc and I need my Wacom tablet with me. With
the new Wacom tablet, no problem at all fits in my bag really easily - that's the
medium-sized one. So some of you may be asking well why don't you just go for
the small tablet if you're concerned about the size for travel and that's a
very good question. So the reason I ordered the smaller one
as well is that one of the team here wants to learn retouching and she's
never used a tablet before and she and I both felt that the smaller one would be
adequate for her requirements based on her workstation setup. The medium size is
the one, as you know, that I use already. So why do I choose the medium other than
I'm used to a medium which is a good enough reason but why do I choose the
medium compared to using the small version. Well for my retouching, I
use a dual screen setup. I have a large 4K EIZO monitor on my office desk it's a
31 inch panoramic version monitor and I'm also using my 16 inch MacBook Pro as
a second screen alongside it and the way I like to work is to use both monitors
at the same time and as such, my tablet designates a mapped portion on
the left side of my tablet to the EIZO monitor and another mapped portion on
the right side of the tablet to my 16 inch screen. This means that I'm on my
current medium one, I have this area for my EIZO, this area for my 16 inch - they
join together in the middle and then this is kind of dead space down below
here but the actual area that I'm using that's mapped to EIZO here is
actually about the same size as the area on a small tablet so if I were to use a
small tablet, especially with the dual-screen setup, then I'd be reducing
this area this working area down to about this tiny working area and then
the second monitor there and then dead space down here so that wouldn't work
for me. Now my colleague, Ashley who's going to be using this one, she's only
working on a single screen setup so that's absolutely fine for her
requirements and actually in any requirement where you're using a single
screen I think this will probably be perfectly okay. Further to that with the
medium one, even if you were using it on a single screen, you can map a smaller
area of the tablet if you wish and then I prefer the versatility that if I wish
to map a smaller area of the tablet with a single screen that I've still got the
larger area of the tablet if I'm working with a dual screen so that's another
good reason why I prefer the larger tablet. Then you might ask, well
why don't you go with the largest tablet size because this is the medium we've
looked at the small but there is an actual bigger one as well and the
problem I find with the largest tablet is that the areas that you need to move
across the tablet with your hands the strokes are too large and too far. Often,
I'm zoomed in very close on an image and therefore it can require broader strokes
to retouch and retouch from one point to another. Now this would be amplified even
more to an uncomfortable degree on a bigger tablet. I have however used the
large Wacom Cintiq screen tablets in the past and whilst I enjoyed using it,
ultimately I ended up going back to my preference for a higher quality screen
and a separate tablet. Now I've often heard it said that it is mostly
illustrators and artists that prefer using the larger format tablets which
makes sense because based on the sort of strokes that they might apply that is
probably correct. So what use are these type of tablets
for you as photographers what would you use them for?
Well you can use them as a general replacement for a mouse and use them for
all of your pointing work and your desktop tasks on your computer but for
most photographers, we want to use them for retouching work and in particular
burning, dodging, coloration and airbrush style painting. Now these retouching
techniques are best applied with pressure sensitive application like a
real pen and with the angle of stroke and the ability to undertake the brush
application in a much more fluid way. Now one of the most useful techniques for
photographers is properly learning to burn and dodge but briefly let me
explain it is the main tool that photographers need to master to
more three-dimensionality in their images via luminosity and contrast
changes and it's not simply advisable trying to master those techniques with a
mouse. Now once you become familiar with using a tablet for this type of work
you'll never want to work any other way, in fact, you'll find that every
professional retoucher on the planet uses a tablet for work such as this. So
let's take a look at the pricing of these units and some others. Currently
B&H Photo the Intuos Pro Medium is retailing for about $300 and the Intuos
Pro Small is retailing for about $130. Now Wacom also do some more
basic tablets without all the fancy programmable buttons there on the side
and those tablets start for as low as around $60. Other options include using
an iPad with a sketch pen and an app but I've tried these in the past and they
always seem to be a bit laggy and they don't have that same intuitive feel of
using a proper tablet like these. So that explains some of the reasons for the
size differences and what the main purpose of a tablet is to photographers
in one of the following episodes I'm going to show you how to set one of
these up to your computer, how to personalize it and how to map specific
areas of the tablet to your screen and I'll also explain what all these buttons
are for and you'll get to watch Ashley getting to grips using one of these for
the first time. Thanks for watching . This video is brought to you by Squarespace...
From websites and online stores for marketing tools and analytics
Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and
run your business.
Head to Squarespace.com for a FREE trial and when you're ready to launch, go to
Squarespace.com/Karl to save 10% off your first purchase of a
website or domain.