If you’re serious about creating digital art then you’ll need a graphics tablet. And if your hobby becomes an obsession, it’s going to have to be a good one. That’s where Wacom comes in. The Intuos range has long been the standard for artists wanting more control over their digital art.

A mouse is far too clumsy when you want to trace a sketch or colour up a piece of art, whereas a tablet echoes the act of drawing with a pen or pencil, something we’ve all done long before picking up a mouse.

The great thing about the Intuos range is the amount of control you have over the thickness and pressure of brush strokes. Painter (or Painter Essentials, supplied with the tablet) was made to work with a graphics tablet. Once you start painting and realising that digital media can act exactly like traditional media, it’s hard to remember what it was like to create art without a tablet. Wacom’s Grip Pen (or stylus) is ergonomic and comfortable enough to use all day long, so bye bye RSI.

The Intuos sizes range from A6 up to A3, with this particular model being a mid-range A5 wide tablet. This equates to a 6x11-inch active area, which is plenty big enough to trace sketches. If you have a widescreen monitor (or use a two monitor set-up), this wide tablet is perfect, the proportions of the tablet matching your screen. If you don’t have a widescreen monitor, you may want to look to the regular Intuos3 A5 (around £200), or even the A6 model at £140.

The Intuos3 also looks the part, and comes with a cordless mouse. You can even buy different pens to replicate traditional media such as airbrushes and markers, and customise the buttons on the tablet itself to open custom menus or perform mouse clicks. Simply put, unless you’ve got a couple of grand to spare, get an Intuos. If you can’t afford it, save up. We promise you won’t regret it….

Features
•6x11-inch active area
•16:10 aspect ratio
•Customisable ExpressKeys
•1024 levels of pressure sensitivity
•Grip Pen supplied
•Tilt sensitivity
•Absolute positioning
•No cord or batteries

System Requirements

•PC: Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP • CD-ROM drive • USB port
•Mac: Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later • CD-ROM drive • USB port

Web www.wacom.co.uk
Reviev from www.imaginefx.com:
http://www.imaginefx.com/02287754331151947500/wacom-intuos3-a5-wide.html