There are certain pieces of equipment that I use on a daily basis, and without them I am not sure how I would get any work done. My Wacom tablet is very high up on that list. I have been using a Wacom tablet for more than 12 years. When I first got one, it was strictly for working in Photoshop doing prep work for comic book colorists. Using a tablet made the selection process that much easier and, more importantly, much faster.
Using a pen made editing photographs that much easier and it felt much more natural than using a mouse.
As time went by, I upgraded to new tablets as they came out, usually selling my older ones. Then Wacom came out with the Intuos 5, a touch enabled tablet that allowed me to stop using a mouse all together. I took a while for me to get used to using the tablet and not reach for a mouse, but I think it was worth it. I no longer have to switch between the touch input and using a pen, I can just shift my grip and switch between touch and pen input in no time at all.
I have three different Wacom tablets right now. My main work machine is an Apple MacBook Pro connected to an External monitor. To this machine I have connected the Intuos Pro Special Edition which I picked up in Las Vegas at Photoshop World. This was a small upgrade to the older Intuos 5 Touch, but those improvements are really good. The surface feels better and seems to be more responsive especially to touch input and the buttons have been improved.
I have a second computer on my desk, it’s a Mac mini attached to an older Apple monitor. This machine is used mainly for backups and doing work when the laptop is busy with something else. Attached to this machine is an older Intuos 5 Touch. This was my main tablet until I got the new SE version. I also have an older Intuos 4 small tablet. This older tablet doesn’t have touch capability but is nice and small, it fits into my laptop beg for those times I don’t want to take the medium on the road.
I have been using a pen and tablet for so long now, that I feel totally lost without one when editing an image. The reason for this is that a lot of the editing I do in Photoshop is really simple dodge and durn type stuff. The pen, with its pressure sensitive capability makes this so much easier. For more about Wacom, check out the Wacom website. http://www.wacom.com/us/en
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