"Buy the best paintbrush you can afford!" my high school art teacher Bob Lozano always said. He pointed out how brushes made with natural, red sable bristles are more responsive and expressive, and they always outlast their man-made counterparts if cared for properly.
It doesn't take long to realize that for tracing outlines and doing detail touch-up work on digital photographs, using a computer mouse as an input device just doesn't quite make it, either. Nothing beats the control of a pen on a pressure sensitive graphics tablet.
Wacom has made this technology both affordable and easy to install. The Wacom Pen Partner, available in standard serial, USB, or ADB configurations will make you wonder how you ever got by with a mouse or trackball. If you've struggled trying to trace the contours of an image with the lasso tool or felt a bit inept with the airbrush and retouching features, you're about to enter a new dimension of pinpoint control and pressure sensitivity.
The PenPartner tablet measures about 8x8 inches, and just ¼" thick. The pen is wireless. It operates without any tether to the tablet! The tablet can sense its position up to ¼" away from the surface, but when the pen does make contact with the tablet, it initiates a left button click, and the tablet responds by sending information indicating not only the position of the stylus, but its contact pressure (in to 256 levels of resolution). Programs like PaintShop Pro and PhotoShop interpret that information in a number of ways, using it to vary brush size, color or opacity on the fly.
On
top of all this, you can still leave your mouse plugged in and
use it normally! Touching the pen on the tablet will instantly
override the mouse, and the cursor will jump to the absolute position
of the pen on the tablet. Sound complicated? It's really quite
simple to use. You can swap back and forth between pen and mouse
as the mood strikes you.
A double tap of the pen tip generates a double click. Wacom provides a Control Panel utility to disable the tablet, to select the tablet sensitivity, and to adjust the minimum distance between double clicks.
In addition to the stylus, the pen has a switch located in a position convenient for either thumb or forefinger and a spring loaded "eraser" that will actually trigger a right button click. If the application supports it, to either erase or draw in the palette's alternate color selection
How all this works without a tether between the pen and the tablet is basically magic. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the pressure sensitivity detection is probably capacitive, and the position sensing is done through radio frequency, but maybe it's done with gremlins?
The tablet is has a layer of clear, durable plastic under which you can slip a small photo or sketch for tracing or just decoration. I've found that the tablet actually makes a convenient mouse pad when It's not in use. That saves on desk space.
(You can just make out the murky presence of USB
"gremlins" beneath the Pen Partner's Biondi Blue surface)
The PenPartner connects to your computer through either the Serial Port or USB interface (be sure you buy the appropriate product!)
The USB version comes with a Imac-esque details, a transparent blue plastic panel, if you're into that sort of thing.
The standard serial version (shipped in January 1999) with a CD containing Corel Print & Photo House, and PenPartner drivers for Windows 3.1, 95 and NT. A floppy disk included a driver for Windows 98.
The system worked flawlessly on my office desktop running in the WIN-95 environment. For my Windows 98 home machine, before I found the Windows 98 driver on its separate floppy, I tried using the WIN-95 driver and discovered that it conflicted with the Power Manager and would not let the system power down into standby. Once the correct WIN-98 driver was installed, Power Manager was able to function normally. I do notice occasionally when the computer comes out of sleep mode the PenPartner has been deactivated, and I have to go to the Control Panel and select "enable" again before I can use it.
I have not verified that this is an issue with the USB version, but check back here in a week or two.
The standard serial port version of the PenPartner tablet derives its power from the keyboard or mouse connector. A "wye" cable consisting of the DB/9 interface connector and a pass-through keyboard/mouse connector is provided with adapters that are compatible with either AT-style keyboard ports or 9-pin serial ports.
There is a warning not to install any of these connections with the power on. If you ignore the warning and plug & unplug cables with the power on, there is a slight possibility that "inrush current" into the PenPartner could potentially damage circuitry in the Keyboard or Mouse ports. To avoid problems of this type and the associated headache of adapters and connectors, I really recommend using the USB version of the tablet. I am a big fan of the WIN-98/USB configuration for hassle-free installation of most peripherals.
The on-disk PenPartner Users Manual is among the best I have seen. The presentation is very straightforward, done in Adobe Acrobat (the viewer is provided on the CD) with a lot of informative graphics and helpful details.
The USB PenPartner was shipping with a CD containing MetaCreations' Painter classic, PenTools (pressure sensitive plugins for Photoshop compatible programs), and PenOffice SE - a program that lets you add handwritten notes and comments to Word97 documents, Emails and screen shots as of this writing.
The USB version is compatible with both Macintosh and PC-compatible computers, whereas the Standard Serial version supports only PC machines.
I have verified compatibility with JASC's PaintShop 5.0, and Photoshop 4.01 as of this writing, but in principle the tablet should work with any program compatible with the mouse as a pointing device, including the Windows Operating system. Not all programs will respond to the pressure sensitivity feature, however.
To enable pressure sensitivity in PaintShop, simply select FILE->PREFERENCES->GENERAL PROGRAM PREFERENCES->CURSORS & TABLET and make a selection under the Pressure Sensitive Tablet heading for pressure sensing by Opacity, Color and/or Line Width.
Pressure
sensitivity can be used to cause a transition between foreground
and background color selections in JASC Paintshop Pro, as shown
here between yellow and red hues. The teal is a drop shadow for
contrast, because I don't know what color background your browser
is currently displaying.
The "eraser" end of the tool was not recognized by PaintShop 5.0 as a different "tool' than the stylus end. Both for example, drew in the foreground color.
Using the Standard Serial PenPartner with Adobe Photoshop required copying a file into the PhotoShop directory as indicated in the read.me file in order to enable pressure sensing. The new USB version comes with some advanced utilities in the PenTools package to support pressure sensing effects in programs with PhotoShop compatible filters - like Jasc's Paintshop Pro and, of course, Adobe PhotoShop.
WACOM earns an "Average" rating (three of five stars) for their product support. An email inquiry to their support line concerning a minor intermittency I was having with the stylus went unanswered for a week. When I sent the email a second time asking for confirmation, I received an apologetic email a few days later indicating the "gateway had been down" and I was instructed to call telephone support. After wading through a sea of voicemail prompts on product and system information, I was then able to hold on the line for tech support.
If you provide on-line technical support, be sure to provide prompt, automated confirmations ~ minus one star...
A few voicemail tags and another week later, I got a live operator who wanted to give me an RGA (return goods authorization) and have me send the Stylus in for replacement. When I explained that after the delays I had already experienced this was unacceptable, she offered to send a replacement pen out right away if I provided my charge card number to ensure that I would actually send back the defective pen.
I told her "thanks but no thanks," and said I'd arrange an exchange through the retailer.
Wacky support policies ~ minus a second star...
Standard Serial Version:
USB Version:PenPartner, WACOM
| SPECIFICATIONS | |
| Interface |
9-Pin Serial USB (separate versions) |
| Tablet Dimensions | 7.72"x7.13"x0.28" |
| Active Area | 4"x5" |
| Reading Height | 0-.20" |
| Pressure Levels | 256 |
| Data Rate | 205 pps |
| Resolution | 1000 LPI |
| Accuracy | +/- 0.02" |
| Price |
USB VERSION ~US $100 retail (CompUSA 4/99) ~US $81 NECX STANDARD SERIAL VERSION ~US $70 retail (CompUSA 1/99) ~US $66 (NECX) |
| Warranty | 1-year warranty |
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VALUE |
* * * * * |
CONSTRUCTION |
* * * * |
SUPPORT |
* * * |
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* * * * * |
SUPERIOR |
* * * * |
GOOD |
* * * |
SATISFACTORY |
* * |
POOR |
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UNSATISFACTORY |
Product Information: www.wacom.com
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