Bamboo

So you are an artist, a photographer, a designer, a cartoonist, or just about anyone with a creative touch.

Or even if you’re not, Wacom can probably turn you into one. Sez what???

It’s faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap through images with a single hand, it’s not a bird or a plane. It’s a Wacom Tablet dude!

So what are tablets?

With the ongoing craze with the Apple iPad it is easy fall for the wrong assumption that the multi-purpose e-readers are all we mean with tablets. But the Wacom “Pen Tablet” is actually a slightly different peripheral with very special purposes.

It is more like the trackpad in most advanced laptops now, but operated with a pen or the tip of your fingers (except for the Bamboo Touch which is operated by fingers only). What it does is it allows you to navigate through your desktop by moving the pen over an interactive pad, the tablet, and touching the pen’s tipon the pad is equivalent to clicking with the mouse. Your desktop has a one-to-one representation on the tablet. But it is much more than that.

Besides navigation, the pen and tablet function like a pen and paper in the physical world. Think of the pen as a pencil and the tablet as your canvas. So the moment you touch the tip of the pen on the tablet, every stroke is registered on your electronic canvas. The beauty is, unlike in the real world,you can always undo any mistake that you make with a click of a button.

Working with an imaging software, Adobe Photoshop being the most popular among them, the pen can also function as a brush, a knife, a stamp pad and everything inside your toolbox. Invert the pen and the broader tip on the other end can function as an eraser, just like in a real-life pencil.

Another feature it has similar to real-life is that the pressure you apply to the pen controls your brush stroke intensity. What it simply means is that when you press the pen harderon the tablet you get a darker impression and when you press it lightly you get a fainter stroke registering on your canvas. Now isn’t that cool?

A large number of photographers are now Wacom users. Using the tablet with Photoshop's dodge, burn, blur, and sharpen tools, the photographer is rewarded with the artistic freedom similar to working in a photographic darkroom.

Using the dodge tool,one can bring out details hidden in the shadows of a photograph by applying the right pen pressure. Tracing the edge of an image has never been more precise by using the pen with the lasso tool.Having full control of the pen’s intensity, the healing brush provesmore effective than when controlled with a mouse.

Wacom tablets come in different models and sizes depending on one’s needs and budget. The entry-level Bamboo line has four models, from 4x6 to 5x7 inches (active area) with varying pressure levels from 512 to 1,024 (the higher the number the more sensitive is the surface). The Intuos line is more suited to the professional or those who have used tablets before and want to upgrade to a better, more responsive unit. The Intuos4, now on its fourth generation as the name implies, boasts of a 2,048 pressure level and comes in 4 sizes - 4x6, 6x9, 9x13 and 12x19 inches (active area).

The granddaddy of the Wacom family and certainly not just a pen tablet but also an interactive display all by itself is the Cintiq.

Coming in 12 or 21-inch models, the Cintiq combines the advantages of a wide-format LCD monitor and Wacom’s pen technology to give you the flexibility to work directly on screen.

For purposes of discussion there areother tablets in the market, but a quick Google will not give you other names, you have to do a deeper search to find the other brands. That is because Wacom enjoys an 86% market share around the world (even higher in Japan, its land of origin).

This market leadership has allowed Wacom to give more emphasis on R&D, constantly improving on their technology. Think of it is as like NASA being able to do more research on new rocket technology because they are the dominant player in the industry. This has allowed Wacom to keep on improving on their technology, like improving and adding new features to the Intuos, first introduced in 1998.

So say goodbye to the old saying that everything is a mouse-click away. With Wacom’s interactive pen tablets, everything is at the tip of your pen (or fingers). For more details, visit www.ynzal.com.