My New Toy: A Wacom

I received a mysterious package yesterday from Amazon.co.uk. What could possibly be inside? Must be my new toy! *insert evil laugh*

Amazon.co.uk is probably my favouritest online vendor in the UK. I've bought so many of my electronics & gadgets from Amazon. So far I've been satisfied with their reliability. I ordered this product on Friday night, and received this package on the Monday. Not bad, considering it was a weekend. Also, I got this for £10 less than most places I visited on the internet.

Step 1: Opening Amazon's package. Yup, it's a Wacom Volito2 Graphics Tablet. A graphics tablet, to put it simply, replaces the computer mouse with a pen-like interface. Its primely used in photo-manipulation applications like GIMP and Photoshop (among many others) for better brush and cursor control.

Having said that, the graphics tablet could also completely replace the mouse for control of your computer too. Imagine being able to use gestures in web browsers like Opera and Firefox with a pen interface!

Consider this: using a mouse planes of movements are limited due to the mouse's size and shape. With a pen interface though, one is able to have finer control utilising small muscles of the fingers, and more freedom of movement in the wrist (that's the theory anyway).

The small-ish box, with a professional looking design outside.
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I chose Wacom because it's the most famous (Japanese) brand used and recommended by many Photoshop and GIMP professionals. Also, I am very attracted to the technology: The Wacom pen, although wireless, requires no batteries. It uses a technology called "resonance coupling" which means that the tablet provides power to the pen through electromagnetic resonance (how cool!).

The pen, now visible, and the all-important User Manual.

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Using a graphics tablet is slightly different than using a mouse and does require some getting used to. The dimensions of the tablet corresponds to the dimensions of the computer screen, so placing the pen over the top left corner of the tablet will immediately place the screen cursor right at the top left corner too.

Also, movement of the cursor on-screen is achieved by hovering the pen 3-5 mm over the tablet surface. A tap on the tablet with the pen would be equivalent to a left click of the mouse.

The cute little pen and tablet
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I bought the Volito 2, as it is the entry-level (meaning: the cheapest) model. The entry-level model only offers an A6 surface area to work on and the pen does not have an eraser function (unlike the Graphire model, with which one could invert the pen to use as an eraser) . At first I was concerned by the very small working surface - less than an A4 paper!

In practice though, the A6 working area is MORE THAN ENOUGH. In fact, because you are controlling a pen, pointing the pen from one side to the other takes a lot of travel which means very high sensitivity, crucial in fine GIMP and Photoshop projects.

The Volito 2 Pen
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The pen is very lightweight (comparable to a normal Parker pen) and is wireless. The tip is pressure sensitive up able to detect 512 degrees of pressure. Applications like GIMP and Photoshop Elements 3.0 (both of which I currently use) are able to utilise this pressure sensitivity. Coarseness and thickness of a brush strokes and depth of colour correspond to the pressure applied on the pen tip. This functionality works in GIMP and Photoshop right out of the box after a speedy 5 minute installation of the drivers.

Notice the pen has 2 buttons. The functions of these buttons are customisable using the driver software. The default functions of these buttons are: a "right click" and a "double click". I immediately changed the "double click" to a "middle click"

The Tablet
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The tablet connects to the PC via a USB cable. No external power source is needed and the tablet worked fine on my PC connected via a USB hub.

All-in-all, using the Wacom Volito 2 is an absolute pleasure in GIMP and Photoshop. The fine control of brush strokes is DEFINITELY and noticeably improved. The control of brush strokes feel much more natural using the pen than a mouse. Also, being able to use the pressure sensitivity feature makes using the brushes in GIMP almost exactly like using a real brush. The control is so good, that drawing and writing with the tablet is almost like drawing and writing on paper. The accuracy and sensitivity is better than my Pocket PC PDA, I think.

How easy is it to get a hang of? It is quite instinctive that Sarah (my almost-3 year old) became adept with just a few minutes of playing with the pen and tablet. However, thanks to the tutorial given right after installation, most users would find little difficulty in adjusting to using the tablet, in my opinion.

If you couldn't yet tell, I am absolutely enthusiastic about this Wacom Volito 2 graphics tablet, and I feel that if you are serious about GIMP or Photoshop and would like to take it to the next level; having a graphics tablet would almost definitely be an improvement over a mouse. It costs £27 from amazon.co.uk, with free delivery. It comes with ArtRage - an art software.

PS
My new banner was made using GIMP and the Volito 2 graphics tablet.

Other reviews:
Review 1: 3D Velocity.com
Review 2: Photography Reviews