Fred Weiss
02-19-2006, 12:13 PM
I bought my first digitizing tablet in 1984 and loved it's accuracy. It had a 20" x 20" working area and you taped your artwork on top of it then entered your vector control points. Then, like most of us from that era, I drifted into scanning, hand tracing with a mouse and/or autotracing.
Last night I got to thinking about how unnatural a lot of that is with a mouse and decided to look into current tablets to see what they cost and what might be of benefit. I had pretty much settled into a Wacom Intuos 9 x 12 (http://www.wacom.com/productinfo/9x12.cfm) (street price around $375) when I clicked on the Cintiq 21UX link (http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index_21UX.cfm) (street price around $2,500).
On surface it seems like the ultimate tablet. Load a picture in your favorite application and start digitizing right on the monitor. Not only highly accurate but, presumably, much quicker and more intuitive than working with a pen and tablet on your desk or lap and coordinating with what you see on your monitor.
I'm not anxious to spend that kind of money but I do have a need to streamline that set of chores for clipart development and am trying to appraise the cost to benefit ratio.
Tell me what you think.
Last night I got to thinking about how unnatural a lot of that is with a mouse and decided to look into current tablets to see what they cost and what might be of benefit. I had pretty much settled into a Wacom Intuos 9 x 12 (http://www.wacom.com/productinfo/9x12.cfm) (street price around $375) when I clicked on the Cintiq 21UX link (http://www.wacom.com/lcdtablets/index_21UX.cfm) (street price around $2,500).
On surface it seems like the ultimate tablet. Load a picture in your favorite application and start digitizing right on the monitor. Not only highly accurate but, presumably, much quicker and more intuitive than working with a pen and tablet on your desk or lap and coordinating with what you see on your monitor.
I'm not anxious to spend that kind of money but I do have a need to streamline that set of chores for clipart development and am trying to appraise the cost to benefit ratio.
Tell me what you think.