Wacom

Ten Essential Low-Tech (and Cheap!) Tools for Cartoonists & Illustrators

| George Coghill

Still using that pencil you found in the couch and an old dictionary as a drawing board? Don’t feel like the biggest computer wiz when it comes to graphics software? There are plenty of inexpensive tools out there that will boost your productivity and enjoyment level when drawing, sketching or just doodling. And you don’t have to spend a ton of money to expand your tool kit in ways that are sure to make your life much easier, giving you more time to draw.

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Great Wacom Tablet Scrolling Software For Mac OS X: Smart Scroll X

| George Coghill

Smart Scroll X iconIn some previous posts, I rambled on about the ability to scroll, one-handed, using the Wacom software, and a shareware alternative, Smart Scroll X. I also touched on this a bit in my Wacom Intuos graphics tablets review.
I am very pleased to report that the developer of Smart Scroll X has worked out the issues with Camino and NetNewsWire. The newly introduced scrolling feature in the Wacom tablet driver software is very cool, and should be more than sufficient for most users. Smart Scroll X fills a gap that the more nerdy of us may appreciate. And I think this is the proper situation for a shareware app – to extend functionality. Continue reading →

Wacom Tablet: Scroll Click

| George Coghill

Wacom Intuos3 6X11 Pen Tablet

Wacom has just updated their graphics tablet driver software for Macintosh and the release notes PDF tells us that a new feature has been introduced, “Scroll Click” (my nickname for it). This is an awesome new feature that allows the user to set a pen button to the “scroll click”, and then when pressing that button, you can drag the pen on the tablet to activate scrolling. In addition to this being very cool, it’s a feature that I suggested to the tech & PR departments a few weeks ago, I can’t help but assume this was implemented due to that request. I was initially given a not-so-encouraging response, basically because the Intuos line of tablets has the Touch Strips srcoll/zoom hardware touch-sensitive areas. Of course, their other tablets do not have these.

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Wacom Intuos3 Graphics Tablet Review for Cartoonists & Illustrators

| George Coghill

***Update: See my review of the Wacom Intuos4 graphics tablet ***

I have been holding off on writing up a review of the Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablet until I had a chance to work with them for some time and really get a feel for real-world usage, particularly for cartoonists & illustrators. Oddly enough I had a hard time finding an in-depth review specifically geared towards artists that draw. There were some big questions that needed to be answered, most importantly that of how the Wacom tablets worked with Adobe Illustrator.

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