Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Do yourself a favour and throw that mouse in the garbage...at any time the mouse can pick up some grit from your desk, and the next time you use the mouse on the tablet the grit causes a scratch on the tablet.

I say this because I had this happen...the scratch made using the stylus useless because when I use the stylus it would hit that rut and cause a distortion in the image.

I started out with the 4x6.

probably a dumb question, i have a wacom and just hooked it up on my mac and its running dual screen.. anyone know how to lock the tablet only maping on one screen? thanks

Did you install the Wacom software?

^ yes i did....

ah, nvm i found it

Bringing an old post back to life!

My work just got me a Bamboo Fun to use for ergonomic purposes, and I took it home to play with and LOVE IT. I am considering getting one for myself. Just one question, how much better is the Intuos4 compared to the Bamboo Fun? Do you really notice a difference in terms of sensitivity?

BTW, SIG Electronics sells the Intuos4 Medium for $449.99, while FS sells it for $100 more. Awesome price match opportunity for anyone looking to buy.

If you're not doing pro retouching (meaning a lot of it) then just get some cheap alternative to Wacoms, Wacom is standard and expensive, there are other brands that make similar products but cheaper. I used to work a little on a $50 version A4 sized tablet, some unknown brand, it worked perfectly well. Wacoms with their price are more suited to ones who need extensive retouching

But did your cheapie include the bundled software? OK, some of it isn't that useful, but certainly Corel Painter (which came with my Wacom Graphire) is certainly worth it for photographers who want to be more creative (there are quite a few photographers who use both Photoshop and Painter).

FutureShop has several Bamboo packages, some might different software, some have mouse only and some only have pen only.

Wacom's go on sale once in a while either at Dell or Futureshop, buy small one and once you get used to it you will most likely love it, I don't retouch anything with a mouse anymore.

No software included, but I assume if you're looking at buying a tablet, you already own some software for photo retouching

Bamboo has a rough surface and I only use it at work because it's free. In my home studio I use an intuos 3 and there is a much more fluent pen to surface glide. You can go heavy without that scratchy feel of the bamboo's surface.

Plus the larger sizes of the intuos are nice.

I was very hesitant to get one and I got it while a go and make a HUGE difference I can't see myself without it. I use the Intuos 6x11

Thanks, Magic. That was really informative. I find that I don't particularly like the scratchy surface of the Bamboo Fun, so I was very glad to see that the Intuos is smoother.

On a side note, I brought the Bamboo Fun home and let my mom play with it (she's an artist), and she loves it.

Is there any difference between the Bamboo and Bamboo fun besides the software bundle? Do they both work the same?

After the Aperture 3 upgrade, I bought a Bamboo for the new nondestructive brush feature. But I have trouble using pen near the edges of an image.

Unlike a mouse, where I can always work on the center of the track/mouse pad, the Bamboo physically maps the screen to the pad which makes it harder to work on the image edges in a full screen mode.

Is there a way to re-configure this behavior? Are there other tricks/tips?

Thanks
Ramesh

sorry if this is too obvious, but i was considering one too for photo editing. How does it keep track of your cursor when youre not pressing against the pad?

A mouse, you can see the cursor move over a button, etc. and then click on it but do you have to drag the pen lightly across the pad to move the cursor over?

No, the pad is sensitive enough that when you bring the pen tip close to a 1 or 2 cm over the pad, then cursor jumps to the corresponding location on the screen

I have the Bamboo Fun Pen and Touch so it basically acts a massive version of my Macbook Pro trackpad as you can use most of the same gestures on it. There are many different setting options and you do not have to have it set to be so the cursor jumps to where ever you have the pen over the pad. It can be used just like a mouse would be to glide across the screen and that is how i use it.

I use it as a replacement to my mouse about 60% of the time... so basically any time i am at home i am using it

At around $200 for it i think it was one of the best investments to my setup yet other then getting the mac and getting rid of my old pc's It makes all of my every day task more intuitive and comfortable, and i am one to be lazy/relaxed while doing all of my work so it proves that it truly works if you want to relax while working and just get pleasure out of making your photos or anything else you may be working on look better.

If you want to pick up and slide like using a regular mouse you can set to "Mouse Mode" instead of the default "Pen Mode" which makes the co-ordinates absolute.

I was also going to suggest switching the pad to "mouse mode"...this is my preferred method of using my Wacom Graphire tablets. What "mouse mode" means you are still using the stylus, but like a mouse when you run out of desk (or mousepad) space you pick up the stylus when you reach the end of the tablet boundary, pick up the stylus so the pad doesn't pick up it's signal, move the pen to the other side of the boundary, and continue moving the stylus in the direction you were going.




The tablet enables the stylus with a low range radio signal...just above the tablet surface the tablet tracks where the stylus is...any higher and the stylus is out of range of the tablet.

Didn't know about the "mouse mode" vs "pen mode". Will try once I get home today.

Thanks Seren Dipity, mikefellh

Ramesh

thanks for the answers. Sounds like i am closer to deciding to getting a tablet

Small one is perfect.

I love my tablet, it takes some getting used to but after a while I would never go back to mouse for retouching.

With that said if one is to adjust a photo for levels and stuff, or some minor other adjustment, I don't think the tablet is needed.

Hi, this may be of interest for those thinking about a tablet, seems like a great deal. I ordered one.

http://www.outdoorphotogear.com/store/n ... t-kit.html

DG

I am rather confused about the problem with Aperture 3?



If you find that the tablet is just too big, why don't you just re-map the screen to a smaller part of the tablet if you are falling off the tablet, or if it's the reverse, you can re-map the tablet to work with just a part of the screen.

I am assuming that the software for the mac is just as extensive as that for the PC.

Matt,

It wasn't the problem with Aperture 3, I just bought the Bamboo tablet to take advantage of Aperture 3 brushes.

I just didn't know about the "pen mode" vs "mouse mode" setting for bamboo. Once I switched to "mouse mode", I am good.