Digital Prints

Digital Graphics Tablets
Once artists were able to set aside that cute but clunky mouse and replace it with a stylus that allowed
the hand and eye to move more naturally in creating lines and shapes, digital drawing and painting took
a huge leap forward.
It’s such a natural idea: a pressure-sensitive pen or stylus moves over an electronic tablet that records the
pen’s position and action. Just like writing with a pen on a piece of paper, only the pen never runs out of
ink, and the paper never moves. And though the stylus is like a mouse in sampling relative motion (pick
it up and position it somewhere else, and the on-screen cursor never moves), it can also record absolute
motion (move it to another spot on the tablet, and the cursor moves, too), and it can do things that a
simple mouse never dreamed of. Like being pressure-sensitive. Wacom’s Intuous (see Figure 8.1)
includes a batteryless, cordless pen with 1,024 levels of pressure-sensitivity. Push a little harder and the
brush size or the transparency of the stroke changes.
The key features to weigh and consider when shopping for a graphics tablet are:
1. Size: This is a personal preference. For many, a 4 × 5 or 6 × 8 tablet is all they need. Others feel
cramped with anything smaller than 9 × 12 inches. Larger tablets take up more desk real estate
but allow more 1:1 scaling between the monitor and the tablet.
2. Resolution: The more the better because resolution affects the control of the cursor on the monitor.
The working range is 1000–2540 dpi, sometimes stated as “lpi” or “lpmm” (lines per millimeter).
3. Pressure: The more pressure-sensitivity levels, the more natural and responsive the tablet will feel.
A tablet with 512 levels will do the job, but one with 1,024 levels is even better. “Pressuresensitivity
is important,” explains artist Martha Bradford, “because I try to make many of my
brushstrokes gestural, meaning that starting thin and light, getting thicker and darker, and then
finishing thin and light is the effect I’m after, and that comes from pressure-sensitivity.”
4. Pen Tilt: Pen tilt is a feature that lets the stylus angle change relative to the tablet. Tilt allows for a
more flexible and natural drawing style.
5. Compatibility: Almost all high-quality, image creating or editing software is pressure-sensitivecompatible,
but check just in case. You may not be able to use a pressure-sensitive tool with a
word-processor, for example.
6. If your hand-eye coordination isn’t great, consider one of the newer LCD tablets like Wacom’s
Cintiq interactive models. Instead of drawing on a tablet and watching the monitor, you draw
instead right on the monitor/tablet, which is a handy, albeit pricey option.
7. Keep in mind that graphics tablets are not just for painting or drawing. Some artists use them for
everything; the only mice they deal with are the ones in the attic.
Color Management
Most photographer-artists are incorporating some type of color management into their workflows.
Color management can take many forms: from simple—and free—onboard monitor
calibration, to stock or custom profiles, to specialized hardware and software packages costing
$5,000 and up. (For an in-depth overview of this important topic, see Chapter 4.)
Chapter 8 ■ Making a Great Inkjet Print 255