Drawing Tablets

Precise Results Courtesy to a Drawing Tablet

The drawing tablet display is pressure-sensitive, so you can adjust the line thickness, fullness, opacity etc. when drawing. This means you can edit minor details with nothing but a stylus and don’t have to manually set these parameters in the editor interface, which complicates and slows down your work when using a mouse. Natural and intuitive virtual brush strokes are useful not only for writing and drawing, but also for graphic retouching or creating a complex mask. More advanced drawing tablet also detect the stylus tilt, giving the user even more control over their strokes.

Drawing Tablet or Mouse?

With good hand and eye coordination, drawing tablets allow for much finer control than a conventional computer mouse. Operating the tablet, however, requires a little practice, and its placement on your desk is also very important if you want to prevent back or shoulder pain that may develop over long use. If needed, you can control your tablet with your fingers and use it like a laptop touchpad as well.

While the mouse works relative to the cursor – i.e. to move it on the screen, we must first locate the cursor and then move the mouse accordingly - the active area of the drawing tablet always matches the screen exactly. Thus, a point on the tablet screen corresponds to a specific point on the computer screen.

The stylus of the graphics tablet wears out eventually, so the tips have to be replaceable. Most styluses also tend to include programmable buttons, usually around the area of thumb and index finger.

How Large Should My Tablet Be?

If you only do some photo editing, a drawing tablet with a screen size of about 15×10cm will do just fine. Larger tablets are used by drafting engineers and graphic artists who also use two monitors for work. The advantage of larger drawing tablets is also the number of control buttons along the edges. When buying a tablet, also consider the size of your desk and the area where you will be using it, as the tablet—along with the keyboard—can take up a lot of space.