Digital Sidebar - New Toy

Yes, I know it’s AFC championship week, and I’m excited about that. However it’s also the first week of the 2011 Australian Open tennis championships and I’m kind of excited about that too (although much less so). Put this all together with the fact that earlier this week I just cracked open my new Intuous4 Wacom tablet, and this becomes one pretty cool week, (for being the most depressing time of the year that is).

To celebrate the start of the 2011 ATP season, here is an image I shot and manipulated.

Now about that Wacom tablet... Pressure sensitive drawing tablets have been around for a long time, but I’ve never really used one until now. I’ve seen the work people do with these things and I think the results are amazing. I just started to scratch the surface with my tablet and set up the preferences for it. I can already see myself gushing about the thing in future posts.

Mine (pictured below) is the smallest in the new line of Intuous tablets that Wacom makes. It connects to the computer via USB, and the cord is nice and long. Also, Wacom designed it for lefties and righties by putting ports on both sides and putting two different cords in the box. Ambidextrous you might say.

I can program the buttons and scroll wheel on the left side to do different tasks in different programs, though I’ll use it mostly for Photoshop.

The active area of the pad is automatically mapped to the dimensions of the computer monitor it’s hooked up to. This can be a bit tough to get used to because it’s totally different than using a mouse, but it’s a preference that can be changed. Haven’t decided yet weather I’ll do that or not. The holder that the pen sits in opens up to reveal a bunch of different nibs that can be used too.

So all in all, a real nice addition to the digital tool box.

Did you ever get the feeling that they’re aren’t enough hours in the day to work on cool stuff?

joe@joewinklerart.com

joewinklerart.com