Wacom Intuos3 6X8 Pen Tablet

I spend about 10 hours a day working in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and other design related programs including 3D Studio Max. I've been using a Wacom tablet for about six years now, and I love it. It would be impossible for me to create the designs and illustrations that I do without my Wacom. As an artist and designer, I used traditional mediums for years, and then spent another couple of years trying to figure out how to use a mouse in a way that would permit me to create quality images and designs on the computer quickly and in a way that resembled traditional methods. The Wacom tablet has been my solution and the solution of dozens of my colleagues. I use the old Intuos at home, and I use the Intuos 3 at work. The new Intuos features a USB connection that permits hot-swappable, on-the-go design. Also, the new Intuos pens are much more comfortable to hold that the old plastic pens because of the rubber coated grip. The tip on the pen seem much more "springy" and responsive. The pressure sensitivity is amazing and allows me the complete control over the virtual medium that I am handling (airbrush, pencil, ink, paint, etc). Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash are all designed to work with the pressure sensitive pens, and the level of control is amazing. Photoshop's new custom brush palette, combined with the Wacom tablet, permit me to create custom brushes to simulate the appearance of color pencil, pastels, and chalk in such a realistic manner that it's difficult to discern what is real and what is digital. Both of the tablets I own have the 6x8 drawing surface, which I find to be an adequate size for me to accomplish all of my design-work and illustrations. It also is a convenient size to fit into my laptop bag (outer dimensions are about 10"x13"). I absolutely love my Wacom, and I'm ashamed that I didn't place a review for this superior product before now. Several of my coworkers and friends have purchased less expensive versions from competitors, but have regretted the purchase and have switched to Wacom. I was helping a coworker select a Wacom tablet for her desk this morning (as a replacement for another brand) when I decided to write this review for the Wacom tablet. Bottom line for the Wacom 6x8: convenient size, excellent pressure sensitivity, durable construction, excellent value for the price. I would consider this a must-have for any serious digital illustrator or designer.

My wife recently purchased an Intuos 3 6x8 for me as a gift, and I honestly can't imagine how I ever worked without one of these before.

I've been a comic artist and part-time graphic designer for years in the traditional media realm, and have longed to make the jump to digital media for some time. Anyone who has tried (like I have) to create original art in Photoshop, Painter, Illustrator, etc. all know how difficult it can be working with a mouse due to the lack of precise control. The Wacom tablet gives me the precision control I need to really create what I want to, and additional things like the eraser on the grip pen and the hot keys on the tablet itsself only make it easier to do this. The tablet itself is not near as bulky as I expected, and is actually quite light without seeming cheap or flimsy at all. It is aesthetically pleasing, having a clean, slick look that I don't think many of the other tablet offerings have. Working with it at my desk or in my lap is also easy and quite natural. In terms of size, I think the 6x8 allows for excellent control without being too small to work with or too large and overly expensive. Converting over to using a tablet does take getting used to, but experienced artists will feel at home in no time due to the similarity between a traditional pen & paper (or brush and canvas) and the Wacom tablet & grip pen. I am still getting used to the Intuos myself, but it hasn't been a difficult ordeal in the least and has been more pleasure than pain.

The documentation that physically comes in the box with the tablet is spartan, mainly just installation instructions and discount ads for third-party vendors. In addition to the driver disk, Wacom also includes a disk of demos and products like Corel Painter and Nik Multimedia Filters, which is pretty cool.

The only real drawback of this beautiful product is the price tag. $300 is definitely a lot to spend, especially if you have a limited budget to work with. But with this product, you definitely get what you pay for and I can say that in my case this was some of the best money spent on computer parts/accessories. For a hobbyist, this may be just an expensive toy; but for the professional (or aspiring one), this is an absolute must-have piece of equipment. Once you give in and make the purchase, like me you'll wonder how you ever worked without it and you'll certainly be glad you did.

**Update: I recently got together with two friends, both of which are up and coming digital designers like myself. Both of them tried out my Wacom and were so impressed that they each ordered their own the same day! The only difference being that one ordered the 'widescreen' version of my Intuos. This should speak volumes for a product that upon initial interaction they too would take the plunge and purchase one.***

Overall a great product. I thought I should mention something to anyone who may encounter the same problems I did. Firstly, do not use the driver version that ships with the tablet, go to Wacom.com and get the latest version. The version that shipped with mine left huge 'dead areas' in my tablet where it could not detect the pen (EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING) and caused occasional system hangs.

Even with the latest software, cccasionally when using Photoshop the tablet seems to lose its ability to detect pressure variation, this is resolved by restarting Photoshop, but it seems a problem that would be easily fixed in the software.

A simple pen test function would be nice to have in the configuration program (where you could paint in a little box and test pressure and sensitivity). The Graphire series had this feature and I wish it was built in to the Intuos software.

Quality of the product makes up for the few software flaws/inconveniences.

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