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The Wacom Intuos 4 tablets can really be a time saver if you use Photoshop, Capture NX, or just about any piece of software you use for your digital editing. These tablets come in small, medium and large as well with a couple of others that have a display built into them. Most of the tablets use USB, and there are a couple that use Blue-tooth so that you can place the tablet on your lap about 33 feet away.

I mentioned that the tablet can be a time saver, the software that comes with the device has a Radial Menu that will allow you to customize any function in Photoshop or Capture NX to be launched from the Wacom tablet. All you need to do is go into your editing software and look up the shortcut keys, and if there is no shortcut key, in Photoshop you can create one and the same thing applies to Capture NX as well. With a click of a button launch the Radial Menu and select what you setup from there like curves, healing brushes, saturation, masks, filters and even scripts and action can be launched. You can even setup the Wacom Tablet keys on the unit itself to make it easier for you.

The size of the unit small, medium or large depends on your needs and the cost of the unit itself. I had purchased the smaller version and was very happy with it, but a buddy called me up and asked if I wanted to purchase one from a friend who had bought the medium one and it was too large for his needs, brand new never used. Long story is that I swapped mine out for his and a bit of cash, and got home and it turned out that it was the wireless one so I really got a great deal. Now having both units, the smaller one does not have the lights on the top of the device so you sort of have to remember what button is what, and there are 4 keys on the top and 4 keys on the bottom. The medium seen above is the USB medium size one and the wireless is the same as the picture. Let me point out that both the smaller and medium do the same thing, there is just more buttons and the lights come on the medium size, other than that they both do the same thing from here on end for your digital editing. Oh yes the tablet works for both left and right handed people

Here is why it is good to have a device like this if you do a lot of editing of your images. One you are using a pen rather than a mouse in Photoshop which feels more natural to move around the tablet and your section areas of your image, two the radial menu can help speed up the items in Photoshop with simple clicks.

And the last thing is that the tablets pen is pressure sensitive allowing you to control the saturation, sharpness etc... Press the pen lightly will add a small amount of saturation or sharpening, press it harder and you get full saturation and or sharpening to the image, and as you can see that there is much more control here over using a mouse. I know Photoshop allows the use of this technology but not sure if Capture NX does at all have not tried it in that software but meaning to setup the tablet with it.

One very last thing you should know and that is that some people have no issues using the tablet while others seem to struggle with it but give it a week really force yourself to use it. I did not have any problems with it at all and I had mine since last October and this was the best investment I made and now I cannot be with out it. If you have any questions in regards to the Wacom tablet leave me a message, also Glen and Don have one as well so you can leave them a message as well. To learn more on how to use the tablet goto Google and do a search and I found YouTube is a good place to learn from as well.

Hope you enjoyed this BLOG.