Home > Consumer Reviews > Wacom Graphire 4 X 5 USB Tablet with Cordless Mouse & Pen (Blueberry)

Wacom's Graphire consists of a pen with a selection rocker, an active surface on which you draw, and a two-button wheel-mouse. The mouse works okay, but I find my normal track-ball mouse more manageable because of the poor quality glide action of the Wacom's mouse on the tablet's surface. Perhaps this could be overcome by bonding a thin layer of some velvety type material to the mouse's base, but it hardly seems worthwhile unless you really need to. What you buy this guy for is the pen.

For a lot of graphics work a mouse is perfectly adequate, but there are many occasions where the pen gives you much finer control along difficult edges and in tight corners.

First time users should consider the following points with regard to Photoshop:

1: The selection rocker on the pen's body replicates the left and right buttons on the mouse. I set mine with the rocker down for the left button and back for the right button. It seems more logical to me that way, as opposed to the default's reverse. These settings are available ( in windows ) via Settings > Control Panel > Wacom Tablet. All the other defaults are okay, so leave them be.

2: Load an image and select a brush. Now use the mouse to draw a line. A line will appear of uniform thickness. The pen, on the other hand, will seem to draw little more than a scratch. Don't panic, but press the pen's tip down harder, and try again. This time a better result should be seen. What is happening is that the pen is pressure-sensitive and, like using a normal pen on paper, the harder you lean the heavier the line. Only more dramatically so.

3: To avoid unnecessary wear on the pen's nib, pick a brush much larger than you need and let the pen's pressure sensitivity control the thickness of the result. There's a huge amount of control with the pen's default settings. On the other hand, if you want the pen to mimic the mouse, make the following change:

4: In Photoshop LE 5.0 and 5.0/5.5 either double click on the `Brush Tool' button or select Window > Show Options, and clear the Stylus Pressure check-box. The pen will now mimic the mouse. Remember to re-check the Stylus Pressure box to return to the pressure sensitive action. In Photoshop 6.0 click on the brush symbol to the right- hand side of the horizontal option bar to reveal the stylus settings box. Set the Size setting to off. Also try the settings available by clicking the brush symbol to the left-hand side of the option bar. In this instance a pop-up will appear containing a number of sliders. The one that adjusts Hardness will give good results. It's best to experiment for yourself.

Other manufacturers do a tablet, but the Wacom tablets are reckoned to be the best choice for use with Adobe products.

The Wacom Graphire tablet is a mouse-pad like device that connects into the USB port (or serial port if you don't have USB.) A special electronic stylus comes with it and you can draw on the pad as you would on sketch paper. The Graphire tablet is for home use and is distinguished from other Wacom tablets in that it also has a cordless mouse. It comes in a choice of kid-pleasing colors (well, I like colors too, I must admit. I bought a clear purple keyboard recently, so who'm I kiddin'!) Now, this tablet-mouse pad is a darn clever idea. Both a graphics tablet and a mouse are "human interface devices" or pointing devices for the computer (how you move around and click on items on the screen.) So having a combination mouse/pen pad is nice as you can eliminate your regular mouse. And I can tell you, cordless mice are the way to go. Much more comfortable than mice with cords.

I prefer my Logitech cordless mouse to the mouse on the Graphire as it isn't as smooth as the Logitech, and I also use an ergonomic mouse pad to prevent wrist strain. You must use the Graphire mouse on the Graphire pad--that's how the electronic connection is made, through the tablet. Still, this is a wonderful interface especially if you have kids. They can draw and paint on the computer. What a great idea. And this is wonderful for creating digital art for your webpage. (ok, who'm I kidding! I'm the one who uses the pad and draws for the website and sends pictures to my mom in email.)

Wacom sells their Graphire tablets with a copy of Painter Classic. Great idea as this helps you get a lot out of the tablet. Painter Classic is a cut-down version of the powerful Painter sold by Corel and developed by Metacreations. It replicates the look and feel of real art media like oils, watercolor, chalk, crayon and pencil. For the home user (maybe doing some homepage graphics, someone wanting to dabble in digital art, or for kid) it's simply great.) The art you create can be saved as a .jpg, gif, .tif, .bmp files, put on your page, used as screensavers or sent to Grandma in email. If you want to know more about what Painter does, check my reviews about it and Painter Classic.

Check out the Wacom website http://www.wacom.com . You can find out more about Painter at http://www.corel.com .