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A helpful tutorial

As I sit here editing and uploading another set of images for our reviews section, I find myself thinking of all the various ways I can speed up my own photo-editing process and at the same time slow down the onset of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). One idea that comes to mind is to get rid of my mouse altogether and use a touch-screen monitor where I could actually brush out all those blemishes by applying pressure directly to the picture displayed on the screen – now that would be neat.

However, a setup like that probably won’t arrive on my desk for some time to come, so instead I decided to take a break from the monotonous image editing and uploading and turned my attention to a setup that’s far simpler, cheaper, and has the potential to make my job a little less “mouse intensive” – a pen tablet from Wacom.

In this case, it’s the Graphire3 Classic that comes complete with a pen, cordless wheel mouse and an A6-sized tablet – all battery free because the power is drawn from your PCs USB port. This particular model sits at the lower end of the Graphire3 range and costs in the region of £70. Not bad when you consider that many pen tablets can set you back many more hundreds.

Now, I have to admit that although I’m a bit of photography enthusiast, this is the first time I have used such a device. But as it turned out, there was little to worry about when setting up the Graphire3 Classic. It was simply a case of installing the driver CD, following the prompts, and plugging the tablet’s 1.5m cable into an available USB slot in my PC. After installation, I was immediately launched into an animated training tutorial that guided me through a range of topics for successfully using the tablet with the pen and/or mouse.

Moving on to the pen itself, this is comfortable to hold and isn’t too light or too heavy. The nib and eraser are also sensitive to 512 pressure levels, so the harder you press the stronger and thicker the strokes will be. The pen also has a built-in rocker switch or “DuoSwitch” as Wacom likes to call it, which can be assigned to a variety of common tasks such as clicking and keystrokes, all within the Wacom Tablet Control Panel. However, by default, rocking it downwards invokes a double click and upwards a single click. In addition, a little clear plastic holder offers a place to store the pen when not in use.

As for the mouse, this works like a typical rodent. It fits snugly into the palm of one’s hand and is symmetrical in shape allowing both lefties and righties to operate it with ease. As mentioned earlier, there’s also a wheel for scrolling up and down pages as well as for clicking, plus you can adjust the speed and acceleration of the mouse pointer. The only real difference between this and other mice immediately becomes apparent when it’s flipped over. Instead of a ball, or even an optical lens the Wacom mouse is completely sealed with just a soft fabric stuck to the base. The only issue I really had with the mouse is the fact that its orientation is restricted. For example, it doesn’t matter how the mouse is angled, if you move the mouse up the cursor also moves straight upward.

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