Wacom Pad Product Test
I bought a Wacom pad at the advice of a friend so that I no longer have to go through the trouble of trying to take a non-blurry photo of my hand-drawings in order to digitize it (I don’t have a scanner). What I draw now, using the Wacom pen, goes right onto the computer. Although it was the cheapest one I could find, it seems to work really well.
I struggled at first because I have an exterior monitor plugged it, so the pad was giving me a ratio of 1:1 vertically but 1:2 horizontally, which means if I drew a square on the Wacom, it would draw a rectangle on the screen. Once I unplugged the monitor, it worked much better. I’m sure there’s a setting that allows you to work comfortably with an external monitor, I just haven’t found it yet.
One reason I hesitated with getting a Wacom was that my Photoshop is so old that it doesn’t support installation of any pressure-sensitive brushes. The big benefit of using a Wacom over a mouse is that the Wacom is pressure sensitive so you can make thicker lines by pushing harder, just like you can with a real brush pen. However, even this cheap ($70) Wacom comes with a lite version of a drawing program that has all the tools you need, from brush pens to a really useful pencil tool. It has layers, just like Photoshop, and an import tool in case you want to import an image to trace. You can export your images as the expected formats: JPEG, PNG, etc.
I realized after I bought it that this model also comes in Touch, which is where it responds to your touch if you want to zoom in or rotate, but that’s okay. This one is fine and works simultaneously with my mouse. It’s operated by USB, but it has a slot for a wireless connection that is sold separately. It also comes with three extra pen nibs. They come in different sizes. This one’s active surface area is about 8" x 5", which is really all I need.
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