Da Vinci says I LIKE (Wacom Graphire Blueberry)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Wacom Graphire Blueberry
Date:	15/02/04 (481 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dead easy

Disadvantages: The right click

I maintain a number of websites as a bit of an obsession, and load up many photos and graphics as part of the deal. Inevitably with scanning in photos there always tend to be flaws to correct and improvements to make, and I've written here before about using Adobe Photoshop to do so. The problem, however, with retouching photos is that there's an awful lot of mouse work involved which is time consuming, makes your hand and wrist ache and is at best a little clumsy and difficult to control when you're trying to make very tiny adjustments.

All the best advice I read and heard indicated that the best solution to these problems was to dump the rodent and get a graphics tablet instead. I was extremely sceptical at first but in the end got so annoyed with the clumsiness and inefficiency of a mouse and so curious about the idea of using a pen instead that I decided to take the plunge and buy myself a tablet and see how it worked.

All the advice seemed to point to one supplier as well, which was Wacom who provide a whole range of such products and I decided to check out their Graphire package. Now I got myself a Graphire 2 set from PC World which retailed at about 70 notes, although the V2 package now seems to have largely been replaced by the upgraded Graphire 3. A quick search on the Amazon website offers the following as a reasonable indicative price guide for various parts of the whole Wacom range -

Wacom Intuos 2 A6 USB Tablet £149.99
Intuous 2 A4 regular tablet & pen and 4D mouse USB £399.99
Wacom Graphire A6 with Painter Classic USB £69.99
Wacom Intuous 2 A5 USB Tablet £249.99
Wacom Intuous 2 A6 serial tablet £134.99

If you visit http://www.wacom-europe.com/uk/products/gra
phire2/index.asp you can get details on the Graphire 2, although they now indicate that you can no longer buy the product online ... ah well...

As always when you buy a new toy, a goodly part of the entire enjoyment of the process is gazing lovingly at your new goodies, sat naked and new in its virgin packaging and so it was with my new graphic artist kit, and I noticed that a cordless mouse also came as part of the package, but one which only works on the tablet itself.

The deal is this. You get a little bluey grey graphics tablet about seven inches by seven inches which you can either stick on the desk in front of your PC or hold on your lap. It's connected via a USB connection to your PC with a lead of getting on for 2 metres, so it really depends which USB socket you connect it to as to how far away you can work, but certainly in this wireless world it's not perfect, but it means that you're not really bound to your keyboard. There's an oblong shape on the tablet which is equivalent to your PC screen and you have a pen which you use as a mouse, moving it across the oblong shape just as you would with a mouse. There's also a transparent plastic sheet on top of the tablet which peels back so that you can put a picture underneath it and then trace over it to create a pic.

I have to say that it's an extremely strange sensation at first getting used to this kit because it just doesn't feel natural, but if you stick at it then you will quickly master it and in the end the action is much more natural than using one of the standard clunky old mice. However, right clicking (which I do tend to use quite a lot) can only be achieved by particularly unnatural manipulation of a little rocker switch on the side of the pen tool. Still, that's a small price to pay for the advantages that the pen gives you for graphical work
.

I tend to swap between mouse and pen quite regularly for different tasks, and that suits me perfectly, although you can do most thinks you can do with a mouse with the pen. It's easy to work with both at the same time, although you need to make sure that you don't forget and leave the pen resting on your tablet as then your normal mouse won't work.

For artistic work, and especially with Photoshop, the graphics pen and tablet is wonderful because you can be significantly more accurate and detailed and the control is wonderfully enhanced. I love it and found it a major improvement for correcting and modifying photos.

You also need to recognise that you can use the pen as a mouse for all functions as well, not just graphics work and you can quickly become very adept with it, although I tend to stick to the mouse for most other work. There are also, as you get with many modern mice, a variety of customisable features you get with the pen and you can program in a variety of labour saving tools and tricks, although that all felt a bit over the top for me. I switch between work and home PC's and also use a laptop and the problem would be that I would get used to working one way with a PC at home and then struggle when I go in to work without a pen. It's the same with the scroll wheel on a mouse - my home mouse has a wheel but my work one doesn't and you can get quite irritated when your standard habits don't work all the time. Bugger...

Setting up the Graphire is surprisingly easy and quick and I experienced no problems at all.

You just plug it in via the USB connector, run the software and literally that's it, you're up and running with no hold ups. You can go in for all the fancy customisation if you want and there are plenty of bells and whistles available, but I just didn't ne
ed them - I wanted a tool that would allow me to improve my efficiency and effectiveness at improving photos and I got exactly that. I'm highly delighted with the Graphire 2 and would recommend it. It also has the distinct advantage over a mouse that RSI definitely becomes a thing of the past. At one stage I started to suffer terribly with pains in my hands such that I had to give up using a mouse for a while, swapping over to a laptop for a lot of the time. You get none of those issues with a tablet and pen. So there you are, the Graphire 2 is even good for your health, what else could you want?

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