First a little about myself, I come from a traditional background in art and graphics where pens, pencils and brushes are the norm, I started doing this before computers. I first put my hand on a computer in 1991 with the aim of using it as a tool for illustration and graphic design it was apparent digital was going to be big, but I soon discovered it had some limitations when it came to creating any kind of meaningful art, One of these was THE MOUSE. Sure you could set type and choose fonts and draw crude shapes but drawing was out of the question, drawing with a mouse was like drawing with a bar of soap.

Just let me say right off I consider the pressure sensitive Graphics Tablets to be the single biggest advancement for the creation of art on the computer ever devised, BAR NONE. Without my Wacoms my computer would just be a device for surfing the internet setting type, and sending emails, With the Wacom it becomes a box of paints, a nice sharp #2 pencil, a brush full of paint or an airbrush.

Do YOU need a Tablet?

First off a graphic tablet is really quite a dumb tool it can’t do anything automatically, it can’t help you draw if you can not draw in the first place, to that end a graphic tablet will either be a godsend or useless piece of expensive equipment. A tablet will be more beneficial to an artist who want to bring traditional drawing skill into the digital realm then to a photographer doing some simple retouching work. The graphic programs you use will also have a big effect on your decision, Corel Painter with its abundance of natural media tools is made for the Tablet. Photoshop also make great use of the pressure sensitive nature of the Wacoms and is aimed more towards the photo retoucher then the illustrative artist.

What Model?

Wacom Graphire? 1 - 4? Wacom Intuos? 1? 2? 3? Decisions, Decisions, Well not that much, in fact Wacom got the design right the first time, Basically all the Graphire line are the same, old or new, styling may have changed over the years and sizes have been added but this has little to do with how the tablet works and feels in use. The less expensive Graphire models are limited to 512 levels of pressure sensitivity to the Intuos Lines 1024 levels, it take a very precise hand to tell the difference. A majority of people will find the Graphire line perfectly adequate. The Intuos line does come in larger sizes and the pens do support such things as tilt and bearing, Pen ID is also supported in the Intuos line, this allows different pens to remember settings and brushes.

I have found there is NO perceptible difference between the older original Intuos tablets and the new Intuos3 tablets, the pens themselves have changed over the years and some artist prefer one over the other just for the feel in their hands but the actual drawing feel and sensitivity is identical. Don’t pass up a good deal on an older Intuos 1 or 2 feeling you need to have the latest and greatest Intuos3 tablet, you will find the older tablets still have a good deal of life in them and I have never seen one go bad from age alone. With that said the new Intuos3 does have some nice features like the programmable on tablet ExpressKeys and Touch Strips and the latest Intuos3 does support the new 6D pen (more later). It’s up to you to decide if these features are something you need or not. Very Good deals on older tablets can be found on Ebay and a 5 year old Intuos1 is better then no tablet at all.

What to look for and what to avoid

Wacom has made tablets for many years and some of the older tablet will not be compatible with newer systems. Basically anything with a USB connection will most likely work for you. That is the Graphire line and most of the Intuos line. I would avoid any tablet with a serial connection, these can work on some older PC systems but the serial connection is something being quickly replaced by USB.

SPECIAL NOTE: There are many tablets out there with the Apple Macintosh ADB connection. These tablets were very popular with professional designers and artist and so were a staple of many Macintosh equipped studios. When Apple abandoned ADB for the more common USB these tablets were left high and dry. The final blow was when Apple scraped the OS9 operating system for OSX and Wacom stopped writing drivers for the ADB tablets.


ADB tablets WILL NOT work with anything but older Macs with an ADB connection and even then it must run he old OS9 operating system. ADB to USB adapters will also not work be it PCs or Macs, Avoid any ADB tablets.

I would only buy an ADB tablet IF the pen comes with it, All Intuos1 pens work with any intuos1 tablet be it ADB, Serial or USB so buying an ADB tablet with pen can be a good way to replace a lost pen.

Size Does Matter, to an Extent.

When someone decides for the first time they do want a tablet the next question becomes, What Size? Wacoms at the present come in anything from the small 4x5 Graphire models to the huge 12x19 Intuos3 model. To a big degree the size you will like will depend on how you work and the equipment you use. Some like the portability of the 4x5s or 6x8s especially if they have a laptop computer and it does take less hand movement to navigate on a small tablet. I can tell you from experience the larger tablets ARE more accurate especially if you tend to be obsessive about smooth precise line work and brush strokes. The lines of resolution per square inch of tablet is the same no matter the size of the tablet so larger tablet have more resolution but it is spread over a larger work area. The shakiness of your hand will not be an issue with a larger tablet, whereas too many cups of coffee and a 4x5 will make it awfully hard to draw a nice clean line. To a photographer doing retouching this will not be too much of an issue, to an artist doing precise hand drawn art it can be a problem. Think of it as drawing a picture on a 2”x2” piece of paper is going to be harder then drawing on a bigger piece.

Another advantage of the larger tablet is that they can be sectioned off into a number of small areas so a 12x18 tablet could have a 6x8 area next to a 4x5 area and still be put into full tablet mode if needed. My own personal preference is that the 6x8 is the minimum useful size and the 12x18 is almost over kill, the 9x12 tablets for me are just right. But that is just me. I have found the square format 12x12 tablets also a little odd to use, computer screens are not square and when the square work area of the tablet is mapped to the screen it is not proportional, this causes a situation where what your hand tells you what you are drawing is not what appears on screen. IE, I could draw a circle on the tablet but the image on screen would be a oval. To get the 12x12 to feel right I found I had to remap the tablets work area to match the screen which came out to 12x9 with the rest of the tablet going unused.

You should also know Wacom has come out with a series of wide format tablets designed to match the proportions of the new wide screen monitors. There are one sizes 6x11, something to consider if you have this type of monitor.

Many tablet come with a clear overlay designed with the intension of be used to trace images placed under them, this technique has proven to be near impossible to do right and the newer Intuos3 tablet now don’t even have the overlay because of this. Now a days scanners are cheap and work much better for inputting hand drawn images.

Many say tablets are more accurate then a mouse, I have never seen this, any good optical mouse is just as accurate. Speaking of mice, most Wacoms now come with a mouse designed to be used with the tablet, I have never found these mice to be all that useful, they ONLY work on the tablet and most have to be lifted too far off the tablet surface when you need to reposition the mouse. Any good optical mouse works much better and since the tablet works very well with your old mouse attached I see no reason to discard your old mouse, its personal preference.

Using a Tablet

I always thought the actual use of a tablet would be obvious but on occasion I have found someone who has some rather odd expectations of what a graphic tablet can do. This is especially if the person thinks a tablet as a mouse replacement. Nearly always you will use the tablet in tablet mode and not mouse mode. By that I mean the X and Y coordinates of you computer screen correspond exaactly to the X, Y coordinates of the tablets drawing area. Put you pen at the top left corner of the tablet and the cursor on screen will jump to the top left corner of your computer screen, bottom right will correspond to bottom right on screen, middle will be middle etc.

When move the tip of the pen towards the tablet you will see the cursor move when the tip is about 1/4 inch from touching the tablets work area, the pen does not have to touch the tablet for you to navigate around the screen but you do need to press the tip to the tablet to click on objects, this is essentially like clicking the button on a mouse. The biggest and most important difference here is that the tip of the pen can sense how much pressure is being supplied to it , Current Wacom Intuos have 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity and this seems adequate all uses. This is where the magic happens. Many graphics programs can use the pressure signal to mimic the natural look of traditional art media, lines can vary in thickness, airbrushes can spray more or less paint or both. A program like Painter will even use the feature to do things like vary the amount of texture laid down with its chalk variant or to allow more or less smudging and mixing of paint with Painters oils brushes. Light years ahead of the “on-off” nature of a mouse.

Hope This Helps.... David F. Kyte