My two cent, based on my 15 years experience with Wacom tablets. I am a digi scrap designer, so I use my pen tablet all day long, everyday. As I said, I
do have a mouse, kept (somewhere safe, I
think) for those rare instances when computer issues force a reboot and the pen isn't recognized by my operating system.
In case you're not quite sure how they work
When you install a tablet, its software is set up so that it's surface is mapped to your screen — meaning for example, that when you move the pen to the upper left of your screen, if you look at the tablet, your hand will be in the upper left. You can think of the tablet itself as an electronic mousepad. You move the pen (like you would a mouse on a mousepad) but the pen is much more precise especially if you do lots of detail work such as "extractions" — isolating objects from their backgrounds, detail photo editing, brush work, and/or drawing and sketching.
In my opinion,
two important things to consider are (1)
how you want to use the device and (2)
how much room you have in your work area. Whether you use PC or Mac doesn't matter and the Wacom tablets work with laptops. I see that some Wacom devices are now supporting Chromebooks, but as far as I know, Wacom tablets don't work with iPads or other brands of tablets, although I see they sell a Pen that does. Also, the tablets can be used whether you’re right or left handed - you can choose either set up.
My first Pen/Tablet was a Wacom Bamboo Fun — there may have been others on the market, but Wacom was the only brand getting any press in those days. The Bamboo Fun and the other "Bamboo" products were retired several years ago and what they now call the Bamboo is a different animal altogether. The Fun had a small worksurface footprint — maybe 6 inches of useable surface and a pen with a toggle botton that could be programed (easy to do with the built in driver software) for things like right click, double click, etc. It was perfect beginner tablet for me because it was inexpensive, had a little bit of customization (the buttons on the pen) and did not take up much room on my desk.
Wacom has several product lines: "computers" and "pen displays" in addition to their pen tablets. When you look at their website, you'll see the differences. If you want to use the pen tablet for
general scrapbooking (not for acutally draw on a computer or a screen), it's the
pen tablet products you'll want.
Right now there are three products in the pen tablet cateory: One by Wacom, which is the lowest level — see below — and the Intuos and the Intuos Pro. The main differences are the size of the tablet, whether or not they are bluetooth capable, the number of customizable buttons and the pen sensitivity levels. All of the products come with pressure sensitive pens (meaning for instance that the stroke you make with the pen will change depending on how much pressure you apply to nib as you move your hand (useful for some brushes in Photoshop/Elements than can respond to pressure). The amount of sensitivty the pen can handle may depend on the product you buy. The pen "nibs" are replaceable. All pens come with several and depending on how much you use the pen, you may need to replace them every so often because they wear down, although not quickly. I always have a spare set of nibs on hand.
The current Wacom tablet most similar to what I started with is called
One by Wacom — the smaller one is on sale right now for just under $60 directly from Wacom — normally just under $70. Don't get this product confused with the Wacom One Drawing Tablet with Screen, which is completely different (and crazy that they called it almost the same thing) and much more expensive.
The One by Wacom would be my suggestion for someone just starting out because if it turns out you don't like working with it, you haven't made a huge investment. I think for most scrappers, this model — either size — is more than acceptable. If you decide you really love it, you can always get something with more features.
Because of my design work, I now use the Intuos Pro M(edium). The pen has mutliple programming options of which I take
full advantage and all the tablet buttons are programmed for a
bazillion functions for Photoshop (Save As, Save for Web, Save as Brush, Image Size and ton's of actions, to name just a few). I don't know what I would do without it.
How much space you have in your work area will be a big factor in which size tablet you buy because
where you end up placing the table is as important as how big the tablet surface is. As you can see from my picture, I have a very narrow computer table/desk but 27" monitor. I tried several configurations before I ended up with my keyboard on the left, my tablet directly in front of my screen and the pen (mine comes with a holder) to the right. Because of this I have the "touch" feature turn off - that's what allows you to use gestures on the table itself to navigate a web page for instance — none of which I need to do. The Wacom site has pictures of people with the tablet on the right and the keyboard in front of the monitor and even some with both the keyboard and the tablet in front of the monitor. There is no right or wrong way — it's whatever setup works best for you.
A couple of final things:
All of Wacom's products come bundled with other software — sometimes just trial versions. I don't use any of it, but maybe you will find some of it useful.
Wacom products never go on really big sales, so there's no reason to "wait and see." You can also buy them on Amazon, at least here in the States, and that is what I have done in the past because I'm a Prime Member and am too impatient for anything slower than 2-day delivery.
I hope this helps you
@rraustin — I'm happy to answer any other questions you might have.
View attachment 364180
