Photographers speak about developing a personal style, but often instead of exploring new boundaries, they are likely to get stuck using the same tools, the same filters and the same presets – time after time. One way to really up the ante on your photography is to try using a tablet for editing. I just did that with the Wacom Intuos Pro, and I must say, it’s a whole new way of working.
First of all, there’s no denying it – if you’ve used a mouse all your life – there’s some unlearning to do. A pen is infinitely more normal, but after pushing a mouse across your screen for decades, it’ll take you a couple days (weeks) to get used to the experience. Once you do, you are going to notice a serious speed advantage.
Wacom Intuos Pro tablet
This tablet is made for flexibility and offers so many controls you’ll never get with a mouse. With eight Express keys, a four-position touch selector and hundreds of ‘soft’ settings, you can assign presets to do anything from changing your cursor size to typing your favorite phrase to launching Photoshop actions. In addition, the pen enables you to set brush size and opacity with various pressure applied.
In addition, you can work with a USB cable or Bluetooth on this latest model. By the way, the Pro is available in small (older model only), medium and large sizes. I’m using the medium size tablet and I love it. It’s almost the exact size of my Lenovo Yoga 900 laptop, so, the two nest perfectly in my backpack while I’m traveling.
At my office, I use two monitors and on the road, I work with just a single screen on my laptop. The Intuos Pro immediately accommodates both ways of working by letting me program one of the Express Keys to toggle from dual monitors, to the left screen only, to the right screen only and then back to dual screens.
With the latest Pro Pen 2, there are no more of those tiny batteries so often required in the last generation of tablet pens. No batteries to wear out – this pen just keeps working. Not sure how they do that, but it’s fine with me.
Program specific talents
Not only does the tablet have multiple keys and selectors, you can customize each of them depending on the program you are working in. When working in Photoshop, I’ve set up the round touch selector to fly up and down through multiple layers of my composites. In Premiere, however, I can run my finger around the touch selector to scrub back and forth in the timeline while I edit my video clips. In Word, I can use the various Express Keys to type commonly used phrases or email signatures. It’s almost like having a separate tablet for each program.
A giant touchpad
In addition to being able to use the pen, you can also turn on “touch” capabilities of the tablet, making it like a giant touchpad. I can then zoom in on a photo I’m editingc, just like I’m used to doing on my iPhone with a pinching gesture. If I plant two fingers on the tablet, then spin them, the photo will spin as well. This makes it easier to work on certain parts of the photo, just as though I were drawing on paper.
There’s so much more
Whether you are interested in finer control of your adjustment brushes in Lightroom or you are interested in novelty brushes in Photoshop, there’s no end to the additional fun a tablet offers. Once you’ve gotten used to the new way to edit, you’ll be hard-pressed to try and work with a mouse again.
Check out the whole Wacom line here: http://wacom.com/start
Disclosure: Wacom sent me an Intuos Pro tablet to test for this review. All opinions, however, are strictly our own.