Will I regret getting an Intuos 4 medium?

[tombest]

<p>I have just been cleared to purchase an Intuos 4 for Christmas. The local Best Buy has both the small and the medium and I was hoping for a little feedback about size before I made the purchase. I have a few concerns about them both and don't know if any of them are justified. Here goes...</p>

<p>I like the idea of the lighted command keys telling me which tool is controlled by each one on the Intuos 4 medium.<br>

I am concerned about the pad size of the small when using the included mouse since it uses the pad of the Intuos as its base.<br>

Since I am buying the tablet for photo editing is the medium <em>too</em> big?<br>

Will I be using the pad directly in front of the monitor? I have my mouse and mouse pad to the right of an 'L' shaped desk and am currently able to rest my right arm/elbow on the desk as I use my mouse. There is only about 16" of space between my monitor and and the front edge of my desk so placing the new tablet in front will put me very close to the monitor.<br>

If I position the Intuos to the right on my desk where my mouse currently lives I will have to reach over to manipulate the keys and wheel. Problem?</p>

<p>I really only want to buy this one time and think I would prefer the medium size even though it is $150 more but am worried that it will be difficult to work with because of space constraints.</p>

<p>I know there are other posts regarding Wacom tablets and size but today is my day. Thanks for any input you can offer.</p>

 

[howard_m]

<p>my experience w/ the Intuos3 is that I got the medium and if I had to do it again, I would have gotten the small. photo editing is about small wrist movements, not big elbow/arm movements so in the end, I scaled the medium to use only 1/4 of it's area. I have a Logitech MX500 mouse w/ lots of buttons that are all programmed so I dont use the Intuos mouse at all but again, pick your poison, you can change the scaling & acceleration of the mouse to use the smaller area. I use the tablet to the right of the keyboard but some people move the keyboard to the left so it's all sort of in the middle (I dont like that because I touchtype and multi-task and need the keyboard in front of me. it's all got to be comfortable. Definitely find out about the BB exchange policy but honestly, I think the small will work well for you.</p>

[sheldonnalos]

<p>I use the Intuos 4 small tablet. Plenty of buttons and the pad area is more than large enough. Like Howard, I draw using small wrist movements so I prefer not to have to move my whole arm around to navigate the screen.</p>

<p>You can actually control a large screen area from a surprisingly small touch pad area. I run a double screen setup, so my 24" main monitor is actually mapped to an area about 2x3" in size on the tablet. The full width of the tablet is mapped to both screens, and only uses the top half due to the aspect ratio.</p>

<p>I'd say go for the small.</p>

[WJT]

<p>Hi Tom. I have probably about the same space restraints as you, maybe even less, on my L-shaped desk. I use the standard mouse and keyboard most of the time for everyday computing and have my Medium Intuos 4 positioned off to the right of my mouse pad (I'm right handed). I can still use use the tablet in this position for photo editing. The USB cord on the Intuos is really pretty long, so if I have a lot of heavy editing to do I can simply lift the tablet up and put it in my lap as I sit in front of the monitor. I do not think that this is really necessary, and I use the tablet off to the right a lot, but I can move it to my lap whenever I want without any problems whatsoever. It is a very comfortable setup.</p>

<p>I do not know if the specials are still offered, but when I purchased my Intuos 4 I was able to get a fabulous discount on Photoshop CS5. It's well worth checking on this. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you!</p>

[irusan]

<p>I, like Howard, have the Intous3 that is 6×8. It was about a $60 upcharge from the small 4×6.<br>

Now, I am a fairly big guy and found the 4×6 just a bit too small for really finite movement. If you're a smaller person, it may be fine (in fact, it may be preferable - just like in Howard's case). I was able to use the large 9×12 for a while and hated it. Way too big and my elbow and shoulder got sore from all the movement.<br>

I know that it doesn't sound like a big difference between the small and medium but the other thing about the 6×8 is that, for the small extra price, I doubled the work surface. 4×6 is 24 square inches and 6×8 is 48 square inches.<br>

But, as for regretting the purchase? Never! Took me a couple of days of using the tablet regularly to get used to it but now I find that using a mouse is like painting with a brick!<br>

What I did was I made a small table (JPG), brought it into Photoshop and did a series of exercises.<br>

Here's the table (feel free to save it and use it yourself!):<br>

<img src="http://www.domaschuk.com/MiscImages/WacomPractice.jpg" alt="" width="881" height="588" /></p>

<p>Here are the exercises (and feel free to make up your own):</p>

<ol>

<li>Draw a circle inside each box</li>

<li>Draw an "X" inside each box</li>

<li>Alternate between drawing an "X" and a circle in each box</li>

<li>Draw a circle with an "X" inside each box (keep the "X" entirely inside the circle</li>

<li>Write your initials inside each box</li>

<li>Draw a square inside each box and try to use up the entire box without hitting the edge</li>

<li>Draw a square inside each box and fill it with a dark color. Then use the eraser end to write your initials.</li>

</ol>

<p>Hope this helps - it's all about getting used to making fine movements with the pen.</p>

<p>Rob</p>

[tombest]

<p>Thanks for the feedback. I am right-handed like you Walter but one thing I forgot to mention is that I have a pull-out tray under the desktop with the keyboard on it so I don't have to use the keyboard on the actual desktop making my whole space on the desk's top available. <br>

Sounds like the small is the favorite here but never having used one before, I am still concerned about running out of space. I am forever running my mouse off the top of the mouse pad in the middle of a selection and thought that the medium's mouse-pad sized surface area would be required. FYI, I use a 24", 16 X 9 monitor. The lighted readout of the medium tablet isn't an issue?</p>

[tombest]

<p>One last note... my wife is renewing her love of drawing and painting and has expressed an interest in using my tablet to do some sketching with. I am assuming this might skew the direction of the purchase towards the medium. <br>

Also, Rob, thanks for the great idea for the grid practice. I plan to use your idea to practice with once I make my decision.</p>

[brian_ellis19]

<p>"I am forever running my mouse off the top of the mouse pad in the middle of a selection and thought that the medium's mouse-pad sized surface area would be required."<br>

Unless the Intuos 4 is constructed differently than the 3 I have you'll find this even more irritating with the Intuos. With mine, I can't tell by feel alone when I run out of working space on the pad. The mouse just goes off onto the inactive area surrounding the active pad without any change in how it feels. Then something stops working and you wonder why until you look over at the Intuos and see you've run out of active pad surface without realizing it. At least with a normal mouse pad you know when you've gone off the edge. <br>

Maybe this wouldn't be a problem (and it really isn't a problem, just an irritant) if the Intuos was directly below the monitor so you could see what was going on but mine is off to the right of my monitor where I can't see it except out of the corner of my eye.</p>

[sheldonnalos]

<p>Tom, you mention running out of mouse pad as being an issue that you are considering when looking at which size Intuos to get. I thought I might explain the fundamental difference between a pen tablet and a mouse in case you weren't familiar with the concept.</p>

<p>First, let me point out that I don't use the Intuos mouse, only the pen. I kept my current wireless mouse for when I'm doing day to day tasks, and use the only time I'm using the tablet is with the pen. I think this is how most people use an Intuos, since their mouse isn't really the best. I'd recommend that you think of the Intuos as a "pen only" device and keep your current mouse.</p>

<p>Anyway, to explain the Intuos pen tablet....... the pen and tablet combo work in an "absolute position" based layout. This means that when you place your pen on a specific point on the tablet, it will always be on the exact same place on the screen. For example, if you lift up your pen and put it in the upper right corner of the tablet area, the mouse cursor will appear in the upper right corner. If you lift up your pen and put it in the lower left corner of the tablet, the mouse appears in the lower left. With the pen, you never have to do the action of "lift, move the mouse over, resume moving the mouse" that is so common when you run out of mousepad with a traditional mouse.</p>

<p>Since the tablet area now represents a sort of "virtual" monitor laid down flat, you need to define what specific part of that tablet is "active" for the pen in relation to the monitor. You can control the aspect ratio, you can force the tablet to use the entire area, or you can specify some smaller area of the tablet and effectively discard the rest.</p>

<p>This means that the choice of a small vs medium tablet is really more of a question of "Do I want to move my pen 6 inches left to right to move my cursor across the width of the screen, or do I want to move pen 9 inches left to right to move my cursor across the screen?". Your purchase decision of the small vs. medium is very much like choosing your mouse cursor speed sensitivity. Of course, you can always change the settings to make the medium tablet act like the small tablet, but then you've wasted money and desk space.</p>

<p>For reference, I have a dual screen setup with a 24" widescreen next to a 20" monitor. I have my Intuos4 Small tablet set up so that the 6" width of the tablet represents the full width of BOTH the monitors. This means that when I move my pen the 6" from the left edge to the right edge, my mouse cursor moves a full 40" + inches (3520 pixels) across the screen. I find that I work faster and more efficiently when I don't have to move my whole arm to navigate around the screen and can primarily use wrist movements. You can see why I'm recommending the small for you, since effectively I'm only using a 2x3" area to drive my main 24" monitor.</p>

[bkkstudios]

<p>A slightly different question. </p>

<p>Aside from comfort, I thought accuracy would come in to play. For example, ff u use a large tablet, wouldn't you're accuracy be increased?</p>

<p>I was actually thinking of large size, as I have no desk space issues.</p>

[sheldonnalos]

<p>Increased precision is required from a smaller tablet. I've got pretty good hand eye motor coordination so I don't find it to be an issue. I have the tablet buttons set up to be able to rapidly zoom in/out in Photoshop, so for image editing you can have as much or as little precision as needed just by controlling the zoom level. It's primarily for things like adjusting sliders or clicking small buttons that the tablet size has an impact. </p>

[irusan]

<p>I should add that I absolutely LOVE the mouse that came with my tablet - it's the best paperweight I have!<br>

As a mouse, it's useless.<br>

I actually use my pen and tablet as my mouse as well as for every application - I haven't had a mouse attached to my computer since I bought my Wacom tablet.</p>

[tombest]

<p>So... I received an Intuos4 <em>Medium</em> for Christmas. Everything is much clearer now that I have one in my possession and have had a chance to test it. Learning curve? Check! Mouse a good paperweight? Check. On to the more serious stuff. </p>

<p>This is going to be an awesome tool once I have some time under my belt with it. I will keep the medium but everything you have said concerning the small being big enough is true. Wrist movements are better than arm and I have been trying to map the surface to the size and location that will be useful but haven't mastered the relocation part. It seems that I will have to leave the mapped area in the upper left corner because I can't get it to move south past the mid line. I do like the lighted Express Keys and think that if Wacom built a small with lighted keys it would be a hot seller. I have the room for the medium and since my wife has expressed an interest in it as a drawing tool, it's the right size for us. </p>

<p>Initial testing with selections and dodge and burn techniques makes me think the pen is part magic. As one of you wrote, 'using a mouse to do selections is like trying to paint with a brick.' I get it now.</p>

<p>Thanks for the help and feedback. It's nice to be a part of a community where help like this is available.</p>

[sheldonnalos]

<p>Congrats! Sounds like Santa was good to you. :-)</p>

[silverdae]

<p>One other thing to note- I use the medium tablet, but I do not put it on my desk; it rests on my lap. I have very bad wrist issues in my left hand (I'm left handed) and this is by far the most comfortable position for me to work for 8 hours a day. My tablet lays on my lap, my right hand/arm rests on my desk and controls the photoshop shortcut keys on the keyboard. I never got into using the tablet shortcut keys (even though I did set them up). I learned on earlier tablet models, so I didn't take to both hands being on the tablet. It worked out though, as you can change the orientation to suit a lefty- no more accidentally scrolling with my knuckles. </p>

<p>Keep the lap idea in mind, especially if you don't have a lot of room between your eyes and the monitor with the traditional set-up. </p>

[tombest]

<p>There has already been quite a learning curve to adjust to the tablet and since I have room to leave it on the desktop, I will do so for now. The first night I used it I had writer's cramp so I get the 'put it in a comfortable place' recommendation. I am having a little trouble getting it to behave like I think it should but maybe that's just part of the newbie's learning curve. I have tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to re-map the surface to a manageable size for editing but the settings don't actually seem to take. I have tried to map the live area to about a quarter of it's surface but I find that I still have to move the pen almost to the right edge to get to the right edge of the screen. Could use a little advice or suggestion there. Thanks</p>

[silverdae]

<p>I've found that mapping the screen to the whole tablet (not a section of it) made it more intuitive. I would stick with that. Also, there is a huge learning curve, so don't feel bad. You regular old mouse works by relative position, where as the tablet works by absolute position. The old mouse could be picked up and repositioned without your cursor moving. If you pick up the pen on the tablet and set it back down, say in the left corner, you cursor will move to the left corner. It takes a bit, but you'll get used to it. Part of the appeal of the tablet to me is that you have more range of motion while editing. The repetitive fatigue doesn't take over as quickly if I'm moving around more. </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>but I find that I still have to move the pen almost to the right edge to get to the right edge of the screen</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is the most common way to use the tablet. The whole tablet will match the whole screen, and the right side of the screen will correspond to the right side of the tablet. There are other ways to set it up, but I think you'll be better served by mapping the whole screen to the whole tablet (should be the default when you set it up). </p>

<p>Hang in there- it takes time and effort, but it is well worth the investment, I promise. You'll get to a point where you know the feel of your tablet, and can place your pen down exactly where you want your cursor to be. It will become natural to you just as the mouse did. </p>

[howard_m]

<p>"You regular old mouse works by relative position, where as the tablet works by absolute position"</p>

<p>You can easily set the software driver to run the tablet in EITHER absolute or relative position.</p>

[silverdae]

<p>Yes Howard, my mistake. You can set up the tablet either way. My experience has been to use the tablet in absolute positioning, and for me that is the most logical and intuitive choice. Others I've known that use a tablet also use a tablet mapped for the entire screen and in absolute position, but I suppose it is really up to the user how they want to use it. </p>