Technology Assessment

THE TABLET
And so the time has come for me to vent my frustration on the tablet I love so dearly and have used for the past two days (and the last five or more years, but silly numbers aside...).

I chose to evaluate a media tool I use on a daily basis, and decided on my small Wacom Graphire 4"x5" tablet. The level of works I normally create with a tablet (using another media tool, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0) between ten minutes and two hours resembles something of this nature:
(click for full size)
(click for full size)
Often times, I encounter no problems while drawing or using the tablet pen as a mouse while, say, my regular mouse is recharging.

I use my tablet whenever I draw, usually in the afternoons and evenings between 4:00PM and 1:00AM the following morning, but not every single day. For the past two days, I had used it once in the evening for about two hours and once in the morning for about an hour and a half.

Using a tablet requires good motor skills and a good visual connection between the control of one's hands and eyes. Because traditional drawing (besides blind contour art and other blind varieties) requires the artist to look at the surface on which they are drawing, the move from paper to tablet can be confusing and artists need time to adjust to the change.

Problem #1: Sensitivity, opacity. I believe that with age, and given the age of this model alone, the sensitivity of the pen to tablet has faded. Photoshop is usually wonderful at picking up on my pressures and applying them as opacities, but I've noticed recently it has not been performing as realistically as it once did.

Problem #2: Small brush adjusting button on the side of the pen. Because I hold my pens and pencils naturally low, I do the same with the tablet pen. I almost always hit the small grey button along the side of my pen while I am doing art, which then changes the type of brush, the opacity, and the overall effect of my movements. This is one of my biggest and only issues with the tablet, and most Wacom tablets.

Besides this, and my own laziness allowing the surface of the tablet to get dusty, I really have no issues with it. I love my tablet. :)