Which wacom tablet

[Hope209]

I've been getting really bad wrist pains in the past couple months from a mouse and have decided to try a tablet.
The 4x6 looks plenty big, but since I'm a lefty I'm wondering if it'll bother me that the buttons are on the left (I could flip the whole thing, but the padding is only on the bottom, right) What's the point of the buttons on the wacom tablets anyway? Aren't you able to do all clicking with the pen? Thanks!

[orange]

I'm using an A4 size intuos 2 (so no buttons on the tablet, just on the pen). I've used pretty much all the sizes from A6 to A2 and I like the A4 best.

You can use the pen for clicking etc.

[dingo]

Originally Posted by Hope209

I've been getting really bad wrist pains in the past couple months from a mouse and have decided to try a tablet.
The 4x6 looks plenty big, but since I'm a lefty I'm wondering if it'll bother me that the buttons are on the left (I could flip the whole thing, but the padding is only on the bottom, right) What's the point of the buttons on the wacom tablets anyway? Aren't you able to do all clicking with the pen? Thanks!

The buttons are assignable hotkeys and a zoom/scroll bar. I never use them.

Since you're a southpaw, look into the graphire line or the older intuos2's. Neither of those have the side controls, iirc. The graphire line has half the range of pressure sensitivity of the intuos (intuos3, at least), and no pen-tilt.. but if you just want to use it as one would use a mouse, I doubt the extras would be useful to you. Also, I think the graphire has only a year warranty, vs 2 years for the intuos. But, the graphires are much less expensive.

As far as size goes, if you want to minimize wrist movement, get the a6 or a5. I use an a5 for photoshop, but map only a small block of it to the entire screen.. smaller than the a6 size.

[Hope209]

Thanks for the input, guys. Two last questions though. What is pen tilt? Also, I don't want to use the whole tablet screen for editing, is it possible to select just a certain portion of the screen (ie bottom left or bottom right)?

[orange]

Originally Posted by Hope209

Thanks for the input, guys. Two last questions though. What is pen tilt? Also, I don't want to use the whole tablet screen for editing, is it possible to select just a certain portion of the screen (ie bottom left or bottom right)?

yes, you have total control over what area of the tablet controls what part of the screen.

things like pen-tilt and pressure sensitivity are useful in photoshop - you can assign pressure or pen tilt to thickness of line etc. If you are just gonna use it for a DAW then don't worry about it.

si