I’ve been so excited lately about my new toy that I sort of forgot to update anything. Recently, when faced with the task of creating storyboards for a client, I went out and purchased a Wacom Intuos4 Tablet. Originally I thought that the best program to use would be Illustrator (seems to make sense by namesake anyway) and so I spent 2 full days on Lynda.com doing the CS4 tutorials for Illustrator. First, it was a monumental task to take on learning a ‘new’ program as deep as Illustrator with a deadline pending. Second, after spending 2 days learning and another day ‘giving it a shot’ I went back to Photoshop and, WOW!, what a good move. The Intuos4 is a creative FACTORY when paired with PS. I’ve never been a great freehand artist but the convenience of the pair provided me with a great method to help me overcome my shortcomings. As you can see I’m still not a stellar freehand artist - but I am able to produce storyboards that are ‘good enough’. Among the features that I love the most: The stroke adjustment to the pen pressure is AMAZING. The sensitivity of the pen is also really impressive. I can have a stroke that is preset for 25 points and when I just barely wipe it over the surface I will see the stroke lay down as a 5 point line. Also, the ‘short cut’ keys provided on the side panel of the tablet make life easy. Even left to their default settings I can quickly access the features that I need to speed up the project. Any time you can save 10 seconds (100 times)… it is a big deal.
