Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2013/07/25

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Subject: [Leica] wacom tablet
From: dbirkey at hcjb.org (Duane Birkey)
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 05:16:15 +0000

I've been using a wacom 6x8 tablet for years...   I don't remember there 
being much of a learning curve....   and I am not a particularily skilled 
drawer....   

My bits of wisdom is always do short things and pick up the pen... so you 
can undo our mistakes.....   the exception is if you are erasing something 
at a percentage....  say 20% eraser.....   if you pick the pen up mid 
process..    you won't be able to get overlap areas to look right... as the 
first part that gets erased the second time will be will be like 36% 
erased...    you have to learn the best ways to use the brush  size and 
hardness to acheive the results you want...   I always use flow at 100%.  
but adjust transparency as needed depending on how I want to blend layers....

Also ....   I recommend always working at 100% or higher when retouching.... 
  I often go to 200% to 1200%....    learn when to use a healing brush and 
when to use a clone/stamp....

it is sooooo  much faster and precise than using a mouse for retouching 
spots....   especially for repairing damaged images...  or spotting BW scans 
and things....   I also use it for making masks...   seperating things from 
backgrounds...   doing composites...    and taming difficult lighting 
situations by creating and adjusting multiple layers of the same image...

The quality is much higher than what you can achieve with a mouse as you 
adjust the pressure of the pen and you can make much smoother curves...   it 
is soooo much faster for spotting....

I do not do any admin or other computer functions with the tablet.....    I 
always use the mouse for that....

I'd buy one...   as I can't imagine retouching and spotting things without 
it...

Duane