Wacom Intuos thoughts:
interpolator
Thought I'd write a little bit about the Wacom Intuos, I am not a reviewer, just someone who hopes to write a little bit for those on the fence because as we all know, google only tends to bring up big-name sites that may or may not have been paid off 
feel free to leave questions and I'll respond & update the first post to answer them
Intuos 4 (S)
Product Rating: 5/5
Introducing the Intuos:
Mice are not designed for expressive input, they're precise but they lack the expressive and natural feel of a pen, you're never going to get organic flowing lines on one. That's why most of us in the industry use 'graphics tablets'.
Wacom are the Parker-pen of graphics tablets, they're incredibly well made, reliable and perform fantastically. I have been a long-time Wacom user, I originally bought the Graphire 2 about ten years ago and have scarecly used a mouse since.
For the last few years I've been using one of their entry-level products called the Bamboo Fun. I must have purchased it in 2009 or so. It's marketed toward those who have never used a tablet before but quite honestly, it's a fantastic bit of kit and I have used it on a number of professional projects that I've shipped. Without going too far off-topic here I'd like to say that my particular model of Bamboo (which has now been replaced with a newer revision which I've never tried) was fantastic (if you turned a blind eye to the terrible multitouch features).
So why the move to Intuos? Intuos is their professional line of tablets and the obvious selling point are the Express Buttons, Touch Wheel and generally higher specifications. My Bamboo had begun to wear out, I had been lugging it around with me day-to-day as I travelled and it had taken a fair few knocks, bumps and drops. The time was right to pick up a replacement. I intend to keep the Bamboo on for my travels but the Intuos is going to be my main workhorse.
Build:
The intuos came in a large black box, they'd definitely taken a few cues from Apple's school of packaging with their welcome messages and overall layout. Not quite cupertino-class but I am happy to see more manufacturers going with the 'less is more, beauty is important' way of thinking.
And beautiful is a good adjective for what we've got here. The tablet it's self is a solid slab of plastic. And don't worry too much about the fact that it is plastic, it doesn't creak in the slightest and has a real nice weight to it.
Along the left (or right, depending on how you set it up) of the slab there are is a row of buttons which can be customed to do any possible input you wish. I personally have them set up for Undo, Redo, Step Backward, Step Forward, Select All and finally Tablet Options. There is also a touch-sensitive wheel which I generally use for zooming in on my documents.
I opted for the small version of the device, I have used medium and large sized tablets in the past and found that my personal style (which is mainly very small strokes and scribbles) suited the smaller tablets far better than the larger ones.
The pen comes with eleven 'nibs', most of which have their own unique texture. These actually do make a noticable difference to how the pen feels against the tablet itself. So far, I've been using the felt one that recreates the feel of pencil-on-paper which is quite nice. If you do a lot of sketching, go for this one. If you are dealing with photography or doing a lot of flat colouring you might want to look at the smooth tip ones that glide without much friction. The nibs themselves are stored in what looks like a little futuristic inkwell which doubles up as a pen stand.
I must say I do miss the little ribbon attached to the old Bamboo that also held the pen when not in use, the difference being that the pen could be attached to the tablet for storage rather than in a separate inkwell.
Usage:
Installation is simple. Pop the disc in or download the latest drivers from the website and you're ready to go, no reboot required. Works fine on both Mac OS and Windows which is a given these days but nice to know for those of us that have to jump between both.
The extra levels of pressure over the Bamboo are noticable to me but probably arent a deal breaker if you're not doing any painting or drawing but if you're looking at an Intuos then I am sure you're more than a hobbyist user.
All of the Express Buttons work fine, I thought their click could have a been a bit clickier if that makes any sense but they're in no way bad. The Touch Wheel has a good level of sensitivity and doesn't jitter or glitch about.
The tablet itself can be used in either left or right handed mode and comes with two USB cables to choose from depending on how you like your cable management or tablet orientation.
One other benefit over the Bamboo line is that the pen has tilt sensitivity as well as pressure sensitivity although to be honest I have not really found a practical use for it, maybe it'd suite digital-calligraphers or something.
Final Word:
Go ahead and get the Intuos if you're looking for a high-end tablet, but rememeber all Wacom tablets are fairly high quality and buying an Intuos just because it's an 'expensive' option is just a waste of money, you'll only see the difference if you're a tablet veteran.
5/5
feel free to leave questions and I'll respond & update the first post to answer them
Intuos 4 (S)
Product Rating: 5/5
Introducing the Intuos:
Mice are not designed for expressive input, they're precise but they lack the expressive and natural feel of a pen, you're never going to get organic flowing lines on one. That's why most of us in the industry use 'graphics tablets'.
Wacom are the Parker-pen of graphics tablets, they're incredibly well made, reliable and perform fantastically. I have been a long-time Wacom user, I originally bought the Graphire 2 about ten years ago and have scarecly used a mouse since.
For the last few years I've been using one of their entry-level products called the Bamboo Fun. I must have purchased it in 2009 or so. It's marketed toward those who have never used a tablet before but quite honestly, it's a fantastic bit of kit and I have used it on a number of professional projects that I've shipped. Without going too far off-topic here I'd like to say that my particular model of Bamboo (which has now been replaced with a newer revision which I've never tried) was fantastic (if you turned a blind eye to the terrible multitouch features).
So why the move to Intuos? Intuos is their professional line of tablets and the obvious selling point are the Express Buttons, Touch Wheel and generally higher specifications. My Bamboo had begun to wear out, I had been lugging it around with me day-to-day as I travelled and it had taken a fair few knocks, bumps and drops. The time was right to pick up a replacement. I intend to keep the Bamboo on for my travels but the Intuos is going to be my main workhorse.
Build:
The intuos came in a large black box, they'd definitely taken a few cues from Apple's school of packaging with their welcome messages and overall layout. Not quite cupertino-class but I am happy to see more manufacturers going with the 'less is more, beauty is important' way of thinking.
And beautiful is a good adjective for what we've got here. The tablet it's self is a solid slab of plastic. And don't worry too much about the fact that it is plastic, it doesn't creak in the slightest and has a real nice weight to it.
Along the left (or right, depending on how you set it up) of the slab there are is a row of buttons which can be customed to do any possible input you wish. I personally have them set up for Undo, Redo, Step Backward, Step Forward, Select All and finally Tablet Options. There is also a touch-sensitive wheel which I generally use for zooming in on my documents.
I opted for the small version of the device, I have used medium and large sized tablets in the past and found that my personal style (which is mainly very small strokes and scribbles) suited the smaller tablets far better than the larger ones.
The pen comes with eleven 'nibs', most of which have their own unique texture. These actually do make a noticable difference to how the pen feels against the tablet itself. So far, I've been using the felt one that recreates the feel of pencil-on-paper which is quite nice. If you do a lot of sketching, go for this one. If you are dealing with photography or doing a lot of flat colouring you might want to look at the smooth tip ones that glide without much friction. The nibs themselves are stored in what looks like a little futuristic inkwell which doubles up as a pen stand.
I must say I do miss the little ribbon attached to the old Bamboo that also held the pen when not in use, the difference being that the pen could be attached to the tablet for storage rather than in a separate inkwell.
Usage:
Installation is simple. Pop the disc in or download the latest drivers from the website and you're ready to go, no reboot required. Works fine on both Mac OS and Windows which is a given these days but nice to know for those of us that have to jump between both.
The extra levels of pressure over the Bamboo are noticable to me but probably arent a deal breaker if you're not doing any painting or drawing but if you're looking at an Intuos then I am sure you're more than a hobbyist user.
All of the Express Buttons work fine, I thought their click could have a been a bit clickier if that makes any sense but they're in no way bad. The Touch Wheel has a good level of sensitivity and doesn't jitter or glitch about.
The tablet itself can be used in either left or right handed mode and comes with two USB cables to choose from depending on how you like your cable management or tablet orientation.
One other benefit over the Bamboo line is that the pen has tilt sensitivity as well as pressure sensitivity although to be honest I have not really found a practical use for it, maybe it'd suite digital-calligraphers or something.
Final Word:
Go ahead and get the Intuos if you're looking for a high-end tablet, but rememeber all Wacom tablets are fairly high quality and buying an Intuos just because it's an 'expensive' option is just a waste of money, you'll only see the difference if you're a tablet veteran.
5/5
Replies
Also, when drawing, since Im right handed, my hand would keep touching the right express quick slide bar, which would randomly zoom or scroll the page i was on. Very frusterating. Then I learned how to disable that touch bar.
You're preaching to the choir!
ericdigital: yeah i know haha. It's more for anyone who stumbles on it via google or something as well as our newer members
I have the main button (the bottom, closest to the tip) double click, and the second one right click.
I find the double click the most useful thing, since i think it starts as a single click, which is annoying because you can just tap for a click.
I honestly couldn't put the tablet buttons to use. There simply aren't enough on the tablet to hotkey everything to it, so I was still using my keyboard only now it was more inefficient because I was going back and forth between my tablet and keyboard for different hotkeys. Eventually I just went back to binding all my hotkeys to the keyboard so that I could just leave my left hand on my desk... The only buttons I use are the ones on the pen.
AFAIK only photoshop supports Pen Tilt and it is nice for making things like pallete knife brushes but that's about it. It's useless for any workhorse brush and the fact that you can only put it to use in photoshop makes it pretty shitty in my opinion.
What's this problem? I've been using Zbrush under Windows 7 for years with my Intous 3 without issue...
Pixologic is right though that's not a ZBrush problem, occasionally the tablet service just fails to load and won't work in any app. ZBrush spits out errors while photoshop simply disables all tablet brush options as it assumes you dont have a tablet.
re: was it worth upgrading from bamboo?: It's definitely not a world-changing jump but it's a replacement for me so take that into account but yeah, this tablet is a lot nicer- the surface is a dream to work with and I am doing subtle things with the pen that I didn't really do on the Bamboo, i guess its the resolution.
on an off topic: does anyone else have a boost in productivity after a hardware upgrade? I've been on it like machine today.
I have the two buttons set to [ and ] and the eraser button set to right-click.
perfect for painting