Details, details

Drawing and sketching on a computer with the mouse as an input device is hard. A pen or stylus on a touch-sensitive surface works much better. To that end I picked up a Wacom intuos CTL4100 to play with. It advertised that it came with some complimentary software to do art and things with. I failed to look at the details on said software. It’s mostly “free 90-day trial” limited, then you have to buy it, and with one item and one item ONLY with a 2-year license. So you get the  cheap hardware, but have to buy the software to keep using it. Not nearly as good a deal as it looked like at first. Guess I’ll have to play with GIMP and see how that likes it. Also, it’s a “hover over the drawing tablet, tap it to click” thing, which is seriously strange. Not sure how I’ll like it. Firt impression (like set it up, still trying to get software for it, just tryig to click a few things) is “bizarre and not intuitive.” and if I don’t move the stylus well aware from it, then I can’t use the mouse because the stylus input keeps sending a signal. Will need some practice.

1 thought on “Details, details

  1. GIMP is quite good. Also check out Inkscape, an open source vector drawing program (as opposed to bitmap image editing). If you know the main commercial options, think Inkscape = Illustrator, GIMP = Photoshop. But without the crazy subscription licensing that Adobe and others moved to in recent years.

    I once had a Wacom tablet, from maybe 15 years ago. Someone borrowed it and kept it. Long before that, I used a table on a DEC workstation, to trace a topo map to make a trail map for a local conservation group. Yes, a whole topo map, including all the contour lines, for a 3000 or so acre property in the NH hills. It took a while. That was before digital map data was available, early 1990s.

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