IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (music playing)
| | 00:04 | Wa is Japanese for harmony, and
com is short for communication.
| | 00:13 | So, Wacom stands for harmonious communication.
| | 00:19 | A little mnemonic to remember this is,
especially if you're a dog owner, what do
| | 00:22 | you do with your dog everyday? You Wacom. Hi!
| | 00:26 | I'm John Derry and welcome
to Wacom Essential Training.
| | 00:31 | In the world of digital art and design,
Wacom pressure-sensitive pen tablets and
| | 00:36 | displays are considered to be the gold standard.
| | 00:40 | For more than 25 years, Wacom has
provided the creative community with
| | 00:45 | technology that faithfully captures
the artist's expressive gestures and
| | 00:49 | transform them into a visual
form that can be shared with others.
| | 00:54 | With the ability to sense all of an
artist's wrist, hand, and arm motions, Wacom
| | 00:59 | pens become the means through which an
artist, from beginner to professional, can
| | 01:04 | express one's inner feelings and emotions.
| | 01:07 | In this course, the models we're using
are the Intuos5 and The Cintiq 24HD Touch.
| | 01:13 | But many of the techniques that we
show on these can be transferred to the
| | 01:17 | other Wacom tablets.
| | 01:19 | I'll be using Adobe Photoshop and
Illustrator, SketchBook Pro, and Corel Painter
| | 01:25 | to demonstrate how these tablets work.
| | 01:28 | We'll discuss which tablet is best for
your creations, show you how to set up
| | 01:32 | your tablet and pen for optimal use,
as well as instruct you through some
| | 01:37 | eye-hand coordination exercises to
help you improve your skill level.
| | 01:41 | Now, let's get started
with Wacom Essential Training.
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| Why use a tablet?| 00:01 | Every computer comes with a mouse.
| | 00:03 | So why wouldn't you use it to paint and draw?
| | 00:06 | While a mouse is a great pointing device,
it is not particularly good at drawing.
| | 00:11 | A mouse can only go up and down
and back and forth on a flat surface.
| | 00:17 | A tablet stylus, on the other hand, has
the ability to sense the articulation
| | 00:21 | of an artist's hand.
| | 00:24 | This ability enables highly
expressive gestures, and then there is the issue
| | 00:28 | of repetitive stress.
| | 00:30 | A tablet and stylus are much more
suited to prolonged gestural input.
| | 00:35 | Because we already have a prolonged
history of stylus usage with writing
| | 00:39 | instruments like pens and pencils, using
one in conjunction with the computer is
| | 00:43 | fairly straightforward.
| | 00:45 | There is a bit of an initial
learning curve, but using a stylus with the
| | 00:49 | computer becomes natural with practice.
| | 00:52 | Pretty much all graphic applications
like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel
| | 00:57 | Painter, and Autodesk SketchBook Pro
have significant built-in tools for
| | 01:02 | maximizing the use of a stylus.
| | 01:05 | If you're completely new to a tablet
and stylus, you may want to visit the
| | 01:09 | Tablet Calisthenics chapter and
follow along with the exercises.
| | 01:14 | If you have experience using traditional
art tools, you'll be happy to find that
| | 01:19 | your existing skills
transfer to the computer intact.
| | 01:22 | The bottom line is that a tablet and
stylus will greatly enhance your expressive
| | 01:27 | mark-making experience.
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| Exercise files| 00:01 | In most lynda.com videos, the Exercise
Files are projects that you can download
| | 00:06 | to help you follow along.
| | 00:07 | But this course is a bit more about
understanding the tablet and its functionality.
| | 00:12 | So, I've included a few resources in
the Exercise Files Tab on the course
| | 00:17 | details page for all lynda.com
subscribers. Or, if you're watching this course
| | 00:22 | on a DVD-ROM, the Exercise
Files have been included there.
| | 00:26 | You'll see calisthenics exercises to
help improve your eye-hand skills as well
| | 00:32 | a schematic of all the tablets to help you
understand the features of the tablet better.
| | 00:37 | These documents aren't necessary to
follow along with this course, but they will
| | 00:41 | give you some helpful resources to keep
learning and take your understanding of
| | 00:45 | Wacom Tablets to the next level.
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1. Tablets in ActionIntro| 00:01 | In its infancy, tablet technology was
used to input hand-drawn engineering
| | 00:06 | blueprints into the computer.
| | 00:08 | Since then, tablets and styli have
come a long way, as well as the software
| | 00:13 | that utilizes them.
| | 00:15 | You can create freehand drawings
from scratch, trace over an existing
| | 00:19 | image, create precise illustrations,
retouch photographs, and create an
| | 00:25 | expressive painting.
| | 00:27 | Recently, multi-touch gestural technology
has enabled direct interaction with the screen.
| | 00:34 | You can even completely eliminate the
mouse and put it away in the drawer.
| | 00:38 | In this chapter, we'll take a
look at all these possibilities.
| | 00:42 | Let's get started.
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| Drawing freehand| 00:01 | Drawing freehand is one of the
basic means of communication.
| | 00:05 | The term freehand means to draw
using only eye-hand coordination.
| | 00:10 | It is a method for explaining something
that can't be fully expressed in words alone.
| | 00:16 | Even a simple map drawn to explain
to someone how to get to a location is
| | 00:20 | a freehand drawing.
| | 00:22 | We use freehand drawing to transfer
something we see in our mind's eye to a form
| | 00:28 | that is viewable by others.
| | 00:30 | Beyond a simple sketch, drawing
becomes a means of expressing our inner
| | 00:34 | feelings to others.
| | 00:35 | At its highest level, drawing becomes a
mirror into the times a drawing is created.
| | 00:41 | A pen and tablet provide a means
to preserve these expressions in a
| | 00:46 | malleable, digital form.
| | 00:49 | I'm just going to start sketching,
and I am really not even thinking about
| | 00:52 | what I'm drawing here.
| | 00:53 | It's just basic, kind of mindless sketch play.
| | 00:56 | And this is one of the best
ways to get yourself started.
| | 00:59 | If you begin trying to emulate
objects that are in reality in front of you,
| | 01:04 | you're going to run into the problem of
feeling as if you're not matching up to
| | 01:08 | the expectations of how that object looks.
| | 01:11 | Just making things up as I'm doing here,
just drawing a simple cube, for example,
| | 01:16 | is just a way to exercise those
skills of, in particular, playing with the
| | 01:22 | thinness to thickness of an expressive
drawing, and the thing that's key here is
| | 01:28 | that pressure is really your main
attribute in terms of expressive drawing.
| | 01:33 | I'm just going to do a little sample over here.
| | 01:35 | If I start very lightly, you can see
how I'm getting a very light stroke on the
| | 01:41 | screen, and it's not entirely opaque.
| | 01:44 | But, as I start to press harder and
harder, what happens is I begin to get a
| | 01:49 | much more intense line.
| | 01:51 | So it's learning how to control
this thinness to thickness and opacity
| | 01:56 | to transparency that all comes about once
you start incorporating it into a drawing.
| | 02:02 | And the thing to remember is, once
this becomes internalized, you're not even
| | 02:06 | going to think about anymore exactly
how you're doing it. It just happens,
| | 02:11 | it becomes an expression of yourself.
| | 02:13 | So, freehand drawing is the
underlying foundation for all forms of
| | 02:18 | visual communication.
| | 02:20 | The eye-hand coordination, which is
learned via sketching, applies to all
| | 02:25 | stylus-based expressive media.
| | 02:28 | If you're at the beginning of an
expressive journey into visual art, practicing
| | 02:32 | drawing skills is the fastest way
to improve your drawing ability.
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| Tracing an existing image| 00:01 | For some reason, the term tracing has
a negative connotation. Why is this?
| | 00:06 | For some, it is considered a form of cheating,
| | 00:08 | somehow avoiding the time
required to learn how to sketch.
| | 00:12 | I consider it to be just another tool
available to the artist, like a ruler or French curves.
| | 00:18 | In particular, artwork done under
a deadline can benefit from tracing
| | 00:22 | from source material.
| | 00:24 | In the malleable digital realm,
tracing can be utilized to quickly
| | 00:27 | communicate an idea.
| | 00:29 | At its best, tracing is merely a
framework upon which a more refined visual
| | 00:34 | statement is created.
| | 00:36 | Now, in this case, I am going to be
using Painter, and I am going to be
| | 00:40 | using Layers to do this.
| | 00:41 | So, any application like Photoshop
or SketchBook Pro can also do this.
| | 00:46 | This just happens to be in Painter in this case.
| | 00:49 | Now, a technique that I employ here,
and I'm going to be using the image that
| | 00:53 | you see on screen as the source image
that I'm going to trace from, I've created
| | 00:57 | a special layer that has
white in it, and why do I do that?
| | 01:02 | Well, let's turn it on.
| | 01:03 | And I'm going to start to turn it down.
| | 01:06 | And what I can do here, as I turn this
down, I start to emulate the look of a
| | 01:09 | sheet of tracing paper on top of a
photograph in this case, just like you'd see
| | 01:14 | in real-world usage.
| | 01:15 | And once that's in place, I can begin
to trace on these individual layers.
| | 01:21 | And I'm going to go through and show
you how I've previously gone through
| | 01:25 | this process and traced these, so that
you can see I started off with kind of
| | 01:29 | the outline of the object with rather heavy
lines, because I want to emphasize that shape.
| | 01:33 | Then, as I went in, I started to add
some shading to mimic the shadowing that
| | 01:38 | was going on within the image.
| | 01:40 | And then it's just a matter of
starting to add more and more detail, and the
| | 01:44 | nice thing is, once I get this all done,
I can start to embellish it with my own
| | 01:51 | work, which I've already actually done here.
| | 01:52 | But, we'll do a little bit more.
| | 01:54 | I'm going to create a new layer here.
| | 01:56 | And at this point, I really don't even
need to see the underlying image, because
| | 02:01 | at its best, you want to take this
beyond simply tracing the exact lines that
| | 02:06 | are in the underlying image.
| | 02:07 | So, I'm going to go back to my
tracing paper emulator here and turn it up.
| | 02:13 | So now I'm just looking at the tracing.
| | 02:15 | And for me, it's just a drawing that
I'm working on, I'm no longer a slave
| | 02:19 | to that photograph.
| | 02:20 | And as such, I can go back to the
new layer I created here, and grab my
| | 02:25 | pencil, and let's switch to black,
and I'll just go ahead and just do a
| | 02:30 | little extra work on here.
| | 02:33 | But, at this point, you can see I
have no relation really to the underlying
| | 02:38 | image, it's not a resource at this point.
| | 02:40 | I'm treating this more as if it was
originally just a sketch onto itself.
| | 02:46 | So, the thing here is that I have
these multiple layers I can work with.
| | 02:50 | And essentially, it's a safety net.
| | 02:52 | The more larger safety net you have,
the more you're going to try things out.
| | 02:57 | I can do something like I just did
knowing that if I don't like it, I can just
| | 03:01 | eliminate that layer.
| | 03:02 | So, to finish up, tracing can be
considered cheating if the finished artwork is
| | 03:07 | intended to portray true freehand drawing.
| | 03:10 | It becomes just another technique in
the artist's toolbox when it is used as an
| | 03:14 | underlying aid for a more
fully expressed artwork.
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| Vector illustration| 00:01 | Vector Illustration describes digital
artwork using a variety of high precision
| | 00:05 | tools to create a crisply illustrated image.
| | 00:08 | Hallmarks of vector illustration
include highly controlled lines, curves, and
| | 00:13 | shadings, as well as a new generation
of tools that employ the Wacom Pen and
| | 00:17 | Tablet to create natural
media appearing Artwork.
| | 00:21 | As opposed to expressive freehand,
illustration vector illustration resides at
| | 00:25 | the opposite end of the scale, and is
constructed using mathematical expressions.
| | 00:30 | Because of its math underpinnings,
vector illustration can be re-scaled
| | 00:34 | without loss of quality.
| | 00:36 | The traditional equivalent of vector
illustration is pen and ink, executed with
| | 00:41 | drawing aids like rulers and French curves,
| | 00:43 | although modern apps can now include
natural media emulation in which the Wacom
| | 00:48 | Stylus' pressure sensitivity
and tilt become contributing vectors.
| | 00:52 | So I'm going to go ahead and start
drawing here, and if I didn't tell you I was in
| | 00:57 | Illustrator, you might assume from the
marks that are being made on the screen
| | 01:02 | that this is a pixel-based application.
| | 01:04 | But in fact we are in Illustrator
and we're taking advantage of the great
| | 01:09 | new tools that they have that do
address the Wacom Pen and Tablet. And just to
| | 01:15 | show you, I'll kind of start very lightly
here, see how these are very light, and
| | 01:19 | then as I increase my pressure as well
is tilt, I can alter the impression that
| | 01:25 | is made on the canvas.
| | 01:27 | And so what happens here, and if we
look at this tip as I move it around, you
| | 01:33 | can see that I can create many
different shapes based on the tilt and
| | 01:38 | pressure of this pen.
| | 01:39 | And the result of that is that with a
single tool in my hand, I can get a wide
| | 01:45 | variety of expressive
variability within those strokes.
| | 01:48 | And that's really useful because rather
than concentrating on switching from one
| | 01:54 | pen to another to get a
different strokes, for example,
| | 01:58 | I can just stay within this one
brush and because of the nature of the
| | 02:02 | changeability through the pen pressure
as well as its tilt, I can get a really
| | 02:07 | wide variety of looks
within this particular tool.
| | 02:11 | I'll go ahead and use a different brush
here just to accent the outline a little
| | 02:16 | bit, and maybe we'll go in here,
let's add a little leaf element.
| | 02:23 | Once again, take a look at those
lines, they you don't look at all like the
| | 02:26 | vectors your mom and dad used to use.
| | 02:28 | I'm going to go head and zoom in using
the scroll wheel here, and notice when we
| | 02:39 | get really close to this, it's not
breaking down into individual pixels like you
| | 02:43 | would normally see in a pixel-based
image where it turns a little mosaic.
| | 02:47 | In this case, it's maintaining the sharp ,
crisp edges of all of the strokes that we've made.
| | 02:52 | And the reason for that is
this mathematical underpinning.
| | 02:55 | So an illustration like this can be
resized to a very large scale and maintain
| | 03:01 | all of the focused crispness
that the vector lines deliver.
| | 03:05 | If you try to do the same thing with
a Photoshop image, at some point it's
| | 03:09 | going to break down, become soft and pixilated.
| | 03:14 | Okay, now I'm going to use the one of
the express key here where I can change my
| | 03:18 | tool into the command key, and that
lets me select one of these individually.
| | 03:24 | Now that it's selected, I can readjust
or move this individual element, I can
| | 03:30 | rotate it for example, and this is
something you certainly couldn't do with a
| | 03:36 | pixel-based image. The fact that every
stroke in here maintains its live nature
| | 03:41 | means that you've got a whole of
set of individual elements that can be
| | 03:45 | controlled individually. And once again,
as I'm saying, you cannot do this in a
| | 03:49 | traditional environment.
| | 03:53 | Vector based tools like Illustrator
definitely benefit from the stylus-based
| | 03:57 | input, particularly in the area of
selecting and adjusting the individual points
| | 04:02 | that make up an illustration.
| | 04:04 | The precision of a fine-pointed stylus
trumps the ham-fisted manipulation of
| | 04:09 | a mouse.
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| Using the tablet as a photo-retouching tool| 00:01 | Traditionally, photo retouching was an
exacting skill with little room for error.
| | 00:06 | Whether working on negatives or
positive, these were the actual source medium of
| | 00:10 | the photographic imagery.
| | 00:12 | As such, the retoucher often had to
work on a tight rope without a safety net,
| | 00:16 | which was part of his skill set.
| | 00:18 | Retouching's digital form is much
more flexible, as is all digital media.
| | 00:24 | This advantage has created a world in which
retouching is now available to the masses.
| | 00:29 | It still requires skill and a
good eye to do acceptable retouching.
| | 00:33 | The addition of Wacom's pressure-sensitive
stylus enables precise subtlety,
| | 00:37 | a requirement for
retouching's invisible nature.
| | 00:41 | I'm going to be working on an image
here that I actually did do some work on a
| | 00:46 | few years ago, and the problem with this
image after it was shot, the photographer
| | 00:51 | felt that the bracelet on the girl's
left wrist was somewhat distracting.
| | 00:56 | So he asked me if I could remove it, and
that's what I'm going to show you now.
| | 01:00 | I'm primarily going to be using the
Clone Stamp Tool, and to work with this, let's
| | 01:04 | first zoom up, so we'll get closer here
| | 01:07 | so we can see exactly what we're doing.
| | 01:10 | And the other thing I'm going
to do is want to rotate this.
| | 01:16 | So again I'm using the touch wheel to
do this, and I've got it on rotate now.
| | 01:21 | So I can go ahead and get a better
angle on this. A lot of times when you're
| | 01:25 | working on an image, the default angle
sometimes just isn't good for your wrist
| | 01:29 | and you want to find a more comfortable angle.
| | 01:31 | In this case, rotating this gives me a
much more kind of up-and-down motion as
| | 01:35 | opposed to back and forth, which is harder to do.
| | 01:38 | So let's go ahead. I'll hold down my
Option key here to get my source, and then
| | 01:44 | I'm just going to paint in here.
| | 01:46 | And you can see, I have very light
touch, or as I press harder, I get a
| | 01:50 | more opaque touch to it.
| | 01:53 | So, I'm controlling the
opacity of this as I work.
| | 01:56 | Let's go ahead and change our source
point, and we'll do the same thing here.
| | 02:02 | So we're just basically using the
adjacent imagery here to fill in what was the
| | 02:08 | area where the bracelet was.
| | 02:10 | Okay, now we need to work on the hand, or
wrist in this case, and let's just line that
| | 02:19 | up and then we just do this.
| | 02:21 | So again, it's just picking up
adjacent imagery, and because it's all kind of
| | 02:26 | on the same conical shape here, we are
able pretty easily just describe more
| | 02:33 | flesh tones where they would be natural.
| | 02:34 | I'm going to run into a couple spots here,
| | 02:38 | I can see right there, I want to thin
this down just a bit, and I'm also going to
| | 02:43 | reduce my brush size just by a little bit here.
| | 02:45 | So let's go to Brush Size and
let's reduce that, there we go.
| | 02:52 | Now at this point I can start to
just use the regular Airbrush Tool, and again,
| | 02:56 | because I'm dealing with opacity through
pressure, I can very easily do something
| | 03:01 | like capture this color, and I'll
probably enlarged my Brush Size a bit.
| | 03:08 | So we'll go back to -- so we'll go
back to Brush Size and enlarge the brush
| | 03:16 | a bit, and let's grab this color here, and
then I'll just feather it into the imagery.
| | 03:24 | She's also got a couple blemishes here.
| | 03:26 | So once again, I'll grab some adjacent
color here and we'll just kind of cover it up.
| | 03:34 | And then I might grab, right here, some
of this highlight that's acting as a
| | 03:38 | rim light on her wrist.
| | 03:45 | And this ends up looking just a little
light, so let's grab a slightly darker
| | 03:49 | shade, work with a little bit larger brush.
| | 03:59 | And at this point, we can go back and let's
reduce our scale of this, let's move it over here.
| | 04:10 | And there we are with our
finished retouched image.
| | 04:13 | Bad retouching is easy,
good retouching is difficult.
| | 04:17 | Just take a look at any number of
Photoshop disaster websites for what not to do.
| | 04:22 | Using a Wacom stylus, you can make a
good job much easier to accomplish.
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| Expressing yourself through painting| 00:01 | Thanks to the venerable pixel, the
emulation of traditional art tools is
| | 00:05 | possible. Unlike
mathematically described vector graphics,
| | 00:09 | painting apps rely on a near-invisible array
of mosaic-like pixels to construct an image.
| | 00:14 | As displays in CPUs have increased in
resolution and power, the pixels making up
| | 00:20 | digitally painted images have
become invisible, like atoms.
| | 00:23 | Add a tablet and stylus capable of sensing
artists' hand, wrist, and arm motions in
| | 00:29 | 3-D, and an amazingly wide range
of expressive possibilities exists.
| | 00:34 | I am going to be using Painter for this,
and I'm just going to paint abstractly
| | 00:38 | here because I don't want to focus so
much on subject matter as much as the
| | 00:42 | brush strokes, and while I'm doing it,
I am going to describe a little bit of
| | 00:47 | what I'm capable of doing. Also, I want
to mention that I'm using the Art Pen.
| | 00:51 | Now, if you buy a Wacom Tablet, by
default you'll get the Grip Pen in it.
| | 00:56 | The difference between the Grip Pen
and the art pen is that the Art Pen is
| | 01:00 | capable of barrel rotation,
which means when I rotate my brush, a
| | 01:06 | non-symmetrical brush tip will
rotate with it, as you will see here.
| | 01:10 | So, let's start off with an opaque brush
here that shows this, and right away you
| | 01:15 | can see as I rotate this brush in my
hand you can see how the cursor is showing
| | 01:20 | me this difference in the angle
based on the rotation of the pen.
| | 01:25 | So, this means that with the same brush,
I can draw a wide stroke, or I can draw
| | 01:30 | a narrow stroke. And just depending on
how I address the angle of the brush based
| | 01:38 | on the rotation of the pen,
| | 01:39 | I can really control the kind of
expression I'm getting out of this brush, and
| | 01:45 | that's the secret to this, is that one
brush can produce a wide range of expressibility
| | 01:50 | just by the fact that
using a non-symmetrical tip
| | 01:55 | I'm able to get so many variations out of it.
| | 01:58 | So, lets just start playing around here, and
I'm going to just kind of paint abstractly.
| | 02:04 | Well one thing you'll see, I am also
using pressure here, so that very light
| | 02:08 | pressure gives me very little coverage,
whereas I increase the pressure I get
| | 02:13 | more and more of that coverage.
| | 02:15 | I can also go in here and let's just grab
some other color and I can actually start
| | 02:21 | to mix and blend these together,
and again that's based on pressure.
| | 02:24 | So, pressure and the rotation of the
tip together gives me the ability to get a
| | 02:30 | lot of variation throughout this image,
and so far I have only used the one brush.
| | 02:36 | Now, I will switch to another one here.
I am going to grab a piece of chalk.
| | 02:39 | And this is another thing that's kind of
interesting about digital art, is that I
| | 02:44 | can start to combine mediums that
typically would not be combined. Chalk and paint
| | 02:50 | don't necessarily go
well together on the canvas.
| | 02:53 | But in this case I can start to play
around with combinations that would be
| | 02:57 | somewhat difficult to achieve otherwise.
| | 03:01 | And then finally here, I am going to
grab a Scratchboard tool, and I am just
| | 03:06 | going to use this to do a little bit
of line work, and here you can see how,
| | 03:11 | again, this is very pressure-controlled so
that I can go from a very light pressure
| | 03:15 | point to a very thick, heavy pressure point.
| | 03:19 | So, the idea behind this is that the
Wacom Tablet, when used in collaboration
| | 03:26 | with an application like Painter, gives
me the ability to get this wide range of
| | 03:31 | expression through a single tool, or in
this case three separate tools, and I've got a
| | 03:37 | very complete kind of
composition with a lot of variability in it.
| | 03:42 | In artist's expression is intimately
linked to hand motion. As a result, paint
| | 03:47 | apps tend to utilize the tablet and stylus
more than any other digital application area.
| | 03:52 | Thanks to digital paint's nonlinear
nature, the artist has a wide safety net
| | 03:57 | to try and do things
impossible in the traditional world.
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2. Tablet FundamentalsIntro| 00:01 | A Tablet is just a device with a flat
surface that you apply a stylus to, right?
| | 00:05 | Well, there's a bit more to it than that.
| | 00:08 | In this chapter we'll take a look at
man's long association with stylus-based
| | 00:12 | instruments, as well as some of the
voodoo that makes this technology so
| | 00:16 | applicable to expressive gestural input.
And, taking a look into the crystal ball,
| | 00:21 | we'll explore touch computing.
| | 00:23 | Let's go.
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| A short history of the computing input devices| 00:01 | Today, we are quite comfortable
interacting with computers, but it wasn't always so.
| | 00:06 | Back in the early development of
modern computing hardware, the idea of
| | 00:10 | expressive painting on a
computer was unheard of.
| | 00:13 | Let's take a look back at the
shoulders of the computing giants that today's
| | 00:17 | expressive Wacom Stylus and Tablets stand up on.
| | 00:21 | Back in the late 40s, early 50s, we
had something called the punch card.
| | 00:25 | Punch cards were used to input
instructions one line at a time into the
| | 00:30 | computer, primarily because memory was
so small, you couldn't put any more than
| | 00:34 | that amount into it.
| | 00:36 | Once all the cards are input,
the program was finally created.
| | 00:40 | Move on a little farther and we get
into the military's use of something
| | 00:43 | called the light pen.
| | 00:45 | The light pen was originally used with
the SAGE Military Air Defense computer.
| | 00:50 | It enabled the operator to be able to
select individual targets on a screen.
| | 00:55 | It was the first time
that this was ever possible.
| | 00:59 | Moving onto the early 60s,
we now have the mouse.
| | 01:02 | The mouse offers a direct interaction
with the screen. Once you're able to
| | 01:06 | interact directly with menus, you have
much greater efficiency in controlling
| | 01:10 | what you're doing on the computer.
| | 01:13 | Early CAD digitizers were designed
to transfer pen and paper engineering
| | 01:17 | plans to the computer.
| | 01:19 | The idea being that in the transition
from the hand-drawn plans of the former
| | 01:24 | era, we were now starting to do this on
the computer, and we needed some method
| | 01:29 | to be able to input the
earlier plans into a digital world.
| | 01:33 | Next we get into the rise of desktop
computers and the software that led to the
| | 01:37 | development of paint and draw applications.
| | 01:40 | Initially CAD digitizers were
used with these paint applications.
| | 01:45 | Unfortunately there was no pressure,
and the stylus was corded, which made it
| | 01:49 | rather difficult to actually
use as an expressive instrument.
| | 01:52 | Wacom saw this opportunity and developed
cordless pressure-sensitive technology.
| | 01:58 | Thanks to a combination of military,
academic, and commercial engineering
| | 02:02 | needs, we now have an elegant
technology for expressively communicating our
| | 02:07 | emotions via digital means.
| | 02:10 | And we are only at the early era of these tools.
| | 02:13 | Who knows what means we'll use to
visually express ourselves in the future?
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| Understanding relative versus absolute positioning| 00:01 | If you're new to Tablets, you are
most likely use to interacting with a
| | 00:04 | computer via the mouse. Switching
from a mouse to the tablet is a bit like
| | 00:10 | being in a foreign country, where
drivers operate a vehicle from the opposite
| | 00:14 | side that you're used to.
| | 00:16 | It's extremely disorienting at first,
and just like there is left- and
| | 00:20 | right-sided driving, computer
pointing devices can operate in either
| | 00:24 | relative or absolute mode.
| | 00:26 | In this video, we'll get to the bottom of
all this. Or is it the top? Let's find out.
| | 00:32 | Relative mode is useful in situations
where the pointing device's movement
| | 00:36 | is limited. Mouse movement is typically pick up,
set down, drag, to reposition the screen cursor.
| | 00:45 | In absolute positioning, the stylus tip
and tablet are directly linked, or mapped.
| | 00:50 | For example, the upper left of the tablet,
corresponds to the upper left of the screen.
| | 00:56 | Likewise, the lower right corner of the
tablet corresponds to the lower right
| | 01:00 | corner of the screen.
| | 01:01 | This is exactly the same as a tablet
device like the iPad, except that the
| | 01:05 | screen and the tablet are in
spatially different locations.
| | 01:09 | It takes practice to develop the eye-hand
coordination to watch the screen and move the pen.
| | 01:16 | Absolute positioning is superior for
drawing and painting activity. Relative
| | 01:20 | positioning is excellent for
navigating menu structures.
| | 01:24 | If you are a mouse user, then you've
internalized the specific behavior to
| | 01:28 | control the cursor, relative positioning.
| | 01:31 | This learned behavior can take some
practice to overcome when becoming
| | 01:35 | proficient at absolute positioning,
but it is definitely worth achieving.
| | 01:39 | It's a small price to pay for
expressing yourself via mark-making activities
| | 01:44 | like painting and drawing.
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| Introducing the six axes of motion| 00:01 | In order to talk about the
various Wacom Tablet models,
| | 00:04 | as well as the pens that come with them,
| | 00:07 | we need to have a discussion
about how motion is sensed in
| | 00:10 | three-dimensional space.
| | 00:12 | Much of an artist's expressive
strokes are communicated through the hand,
| | 00:16 | and wrist, and arm.
| | 00:18 | All of these motions working
together move the pen in 3-D space.
| | 00:23 | Known as the 6 Axes of Motion, these 3-D
references can be used to describe the
| | 00:29 | pen's location and attitude in 3-D space.
| | 00:32 | Let's take a look at how these axes work.
| | 00:36 | If we imagine a pen in space and then
add a two-dimensional grid to represent
| | 00:41 | the tablet surface, we can now describe
the location of the pen's tip anywhere on
| | 00:47 | this two-dimensional space.
| | 00:49 | These two dimensions are known as X
and Y, and refer to the horizontal and
| | 00:55 | vertical motion on the two-dimensional grid.
| | 00:58 | Now let's add the third
degree of motion, pressure.
| | 01:02 | In the case of our pen tip, this is a
slight height change of the pen tip through
| | 01:07 | the artist's hand pressure.
| | 01:09 | Applications like Painter, Photoshop, and
SketchBook Pro all take advantage of pressure input.
| | 01:16 | For expressive mark making, pressure
is the most important axis of motion.
| | 01:23 | When the pen is not perpendicular to
the tablet's surface, its angle could
| | 01:27 | be described as tilt.
| | 01:30 | This is the fourth axis of motion.
| | 01:33 | Once you've describe tilt using the X
and Y position, you can calculate bearing.
| | 01:39 | Imagine the pen tip stationary on the
tablet as the eraser end of the pen is
| | 01:44 | swept out in a 360 degree circle.
| | 01:48 | This is bearing, the fifth axis of motion.
| | 01:52 | Finally, we have rotation. This is
the barrel of the pen being rotated in
| | 01:57 | the hand by the artist.
| | 02:00 | This becomes important when
dealing with non-symmetrical brush tips.
| | 02:04 | When all six of the axes of motion
are being sensed and communicated to the
| | 02:09 | application, all of the artist's combined
hand motions can be interpreted for use
| | 02:14 | by the expressive mark-making tools.
| | 02:17 | Not all Wacom tablet
support all 6 axes of motion.
| | 02:22 | The entry-level tablet, the
Bamboo supports X, Y, and pressure.
| | 02:28 | Intuos Tablets, using the standard grip
pen that comes with the tablet, support X,
| | 02:33 | Y, pressure, tilt, and bearing.
| | 02:37 | The optional Art Pen supports
these five axis plus barrel rotation.
| | 02:43 | This is also true for this Cintiq pen display.
| | 02:47 | So if you want the maximum expressive
mark-making environment, you'll want to
| | 02:52 | have either and an Intuos Tablet or
Cintiq pen display and the optional Art Pen.
| | 02:57 | Keep in mind that pressure is the
single most expressive axis of motion.
| | 03:03 | As a result, all levels of Wacom
Tablets make excellent expressive mark-making
| | 03:08 | tools when used in combination with
an application that takes advantage of
| | 03:13 | this data.
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| An overview of the Wacom product line| 00:01 | Tablet choice is largely a
matter of personal preference.
| | 00:05 | What works for one person may be
absolutely wrong for someone else.
| | 00:10 | Artists with a background in
traditional painting may favor an
| | 00:13 | extra-large tablet.
| | 00:14 | Conversely, artists that have a history
of sketching in a journal may prefer
| | 00:19 | a small tablet size.
| | 00:21 | It's important to note that the
models we're using in this course are the
| | 00:25 | Intuos5 and the Cintiq 24HD touch.
| | 00:29 | And while in this video, we'll take a
look at the Bamboo Create and the Inkling
| | 00:33 | Digital Sketch pen, which
is in its first-generation.
| | 00:36 | Wacom offers a product range that
extends from hobbyist to professional.
| | 00:42 | And while this course focuses on the
professional, we'll touch on the entry level
| | 00:46 | to help you decide which
tablet is right for you.
| | 00:49 | How much space do you have for a tablet? This alone
may dictate which size is appropriate. Oh yes, and cost.
| | 00:56 | Your budget may also be a defining factor.
| | 00:59 | Let's begin by talking about the entry-
level and hobbyist tablet, the Bamboo.
| | 01:05 | Like all Wacom tablets, even the
Bamboo line now includes a touch surface.
| | 01:11 | The line of Bamboo tablets
has the smallest active area.
| | 01:15 | There's also a handy wireless option,
should you want to make your tablet a
| | 01:18 | little bit more mobile.
| | 01:21 | The tablet supports X and Y, which
are the two dimensions used to recognize
| | 01:26 | where the position of your stylus is,
| | 01:28 | as well as 1024 levels of pressure.
| | 01:31 | Focusing here on the Bamboo Create,
you'll see four express keys used for
| | 01:36 | assigning keyboard shortcuts.
| | 01:38 | It's the lowest priced tablet and
good for a first tablet experience.
| | 01:43 | The next rung up in the tablet line is
the Intuos5. It's more of a prosumer and
| | 01:49 | professional level tablet.
| | 01:51 | The Intuos gives you multiple size
choices, as well as the touch surface.
| | 01:56 | It also comes with the handy wireless option.
| | 01:59 | There are many differences
between the Intuos and the Bamboo.
| | 02:02 | The two biggest differences are
pressure sensitivity and the stylus choices.
| | 02:07 | The Intuos offers 2048 levels of
pressure sensitivity, double that of the Bamboo.
| | 02:14 | The added pressure sensitivity is
most noticeable on the lighter end of
| | 02:18 | the pressure scale.
| | 02:20 | The Intuos works with several other styli,
including the Airbrush Pen and the Art Pen.
| | 02:27 | It also supports X and Y, plus
pressure, tilt, bearing, and barrel rotation.
| | 02:35 | The Intuos line in general is by
far the most popular choice for
| | 02:38 | pro applications. It's a real workhorse.
| | 02:42 | If you're a working creative professional, I'm
sure you've heard of the Cintiq Pen Display.
| | 02:48 | It's the Ferrari of tablets.
| | 02:50 | The first thing to talk about here is
that the display and drawing surface are one.
| | 02:55 | There are three size choices available.
| | 02:59 | The 24HD Touch is so named
because it has a touch surface.
| | 03:03 | This display covers 97% of
the Adobe RGB color gamut.
| | 03:09 | Like the Intuos, it also supports 2048
levels of pressure sensitivity, and it
| | 03:16 | also includes X, Y, pressure,
tilt, bearing, and barrel rotation.
| | 03:22 | It has ten express keys and two touch rings.
| | 03:25 | The smallest Cintiq tablet, the
12WX has two touch strips instead.
| | 03:32 | With the Cintiq family
| | 03:33 | you'll gain all of the benefits of
working digitally in a creative experience
| | 03:38 | that replicates traditional media.
| | 03:41 | The Inkling deserves a quick look as an
example of a novel approach to capturing
| | 03:46 | the artist's expressive marks.
| | 03:48 | I think of the Inkling as a 21st
century answer to the paper napkin.
| | 03:53 | The Inkling provides a solution for
easily capturing a traditional drawing
| | 03:58 | without the need for a computing platform.
| | 04:02 | It captures a digital likeness of
your work while you sketch on any
| | 04:05 | sketchbook or paper.
| | 04:08 | It's ideal for the front
end of the creative process.
| | 04:12 | You can then refine your work on your computer.
| | 04:16 | It allows you to create layers
and digital files while you sketch.
| | 04:20 | Completed files are then transferred to
your computer using the Inkling sketch manager.
| | 04:26 | You can export your images to
supportive software such as Photoshop,
| | 04:31 | Illustrator, and SketchBook Pro.
| | 04:33 | The sketch manager can edit, delete,
add layers, or change file formats.
| | 04:38 | Wacom offers a variety of
options for any level of user.
| | 04:43 | Wacom's broad product line offers
expressive mark-making input available to a
| | 04:49 | wide range of budgets.
| | 04:52 | Whether you're a beginner testing the
pressure sensitive waters, an advanced
| | 04:56 | hobbyists looking to extend your skills,
| | 04:59 | or an experienced artist with a
requirement for the highest quality tools, you'll
| | 05:03 | find a solution to fit
both your budget and needs.
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|
|
3. Extending the Functionality of the Tablet and Pen DisplayWorking with the Intuos: Symmetric and asymmetric placement| 00:01 | Because the pen and tablet is
expressive interface between the art and the
| | 00:05 | artist, many of the ergonomics discussions
we'll have here must be taken with a grain of salt.
| | 00:11 | Tablet placement in the overall setup
of your work environment is ultimately a
| | 00:15 | personal preference.
| | 00:16 | I am going to show you two basic
setups here, and there is what I call
| | 00:21 | symmetric and asymmetric.
| | 00:23 | This is the symmetric setup, where you have
the tablet directly in front of the display.
| | 00:29 | And I've been using this for years,
and I'm very comfortable with, it just
| | 00:34 | works very well, because the tablet
is central to your work area, and it's
| | 00:39 | exactly in front of the display, which
makes for a very comfortable drawing and
| | 00:44 | painting arrangement.
| | 00:46 | The other thing that I do is I have the
keyboard back here, so that when I need
| | 00:50 | to type, I'll type where it is.
| | 00:53 | However, though, I want to say that
working in this arrange what we have here,
| | 00:58 | this is a wireless keyboard, and I've
found that this really works nicely.
| | 01:02 | And in fact, I'm definitely going to
get a wireless keyboard now, because it
| | 01:06 | makes a little more ergonomically
comfortable to work with the actual
| | 01:11 | keyboard right up front.
| | 01:13 | The asymmetric setup would be when
you're off to the side like this, and perhaps
| | 01:18 | you have your keyboard a little closer.
| | 01:20 | This way, your keyboard is available,
and you draw in an offset manner.
| | 01:26 | Now the reason for this is some
people just like to have the keyboard more
| | 01:30 | central, and it does take a little bit
of practice to get used to this offset.
| | 01:35 | At first you'll find your lines tend
to draw a slightly different angle than
| | 01:39 | you're used to, but within five
minutes or so you'll acclimate to this and
| | 01:43 | get it out of the way.
| | 01:45 | The other possibility for an
asymmetric setup is to do this, where you still
| | 01:48 | have the tablet central,
but you offset the keyboard.
| | 01:52 | Now it's back to kind of the way I like
to work, so that it's right in front of
| | 01:57 | me, but I also have the keyboard
off to the side when I need to use it.
| | 02:03 | These are some basic setup guidelines.
| | 02:05 | In the end, it's going to be up to you
to configure your own setup to meet your
| | 02:09 | comfort and creative needs.
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| Using multi-touch on the Cintiq| 00:01 | Multi-touch is still in its infancy,
with three key constriction points, the
| | 00:06 | operating system, the application
software, and Wacom's touch technology.
| | 00:10 | Because of this, the current multi-
touch landscape can be somewhat spotty.
| | 00:15 | Wacom is at the mercy of these other
bedfellows, but does provide a useful
| | 00:19 | multi-touch experience within limits.
| | 00:22 | While the goal of multi-touch is
to simplify the user experience, the
| | 00:26 | presence of a keyboard, mouse, pen tablet, and
gestural input can quickly become confusing.
| | 00:32 | Is there any hope? Let's take a look.
| | 00:35 | The first thing you want to
know is, how do you enable touch?
| | 00:38 | On a Cintiq, you actually have a hardware
button up here at the top that lets me enable touch.
| | 00:44 | On the Intuos Tablet, you can go to
the express keys panel, and there is a
| | 00:49 | option in the drop-down menu for
express keys that enable you to select that
| | 00:54 | for one of your buttons.
| | 00:56 | So, you have that option in
both the Cintiq and the Intuos.
| | 01:01 | Now I am going to begin and show you in
three different applications, how each
| | 01:05 | one of these applications is currently
engaging touch and using it in concert
| | 01:11 | with their software.
| | 01:13 | So, we're going to begin with SketchBook Pro.
| | 01:16 | And SketchBook Pro allows me to resize
and move around an image that I have
| | 01:23 | opened up in the application.
| | 01:25 | However I can't rotate.
| | 01:28 | So, that's probably the simplest
implementation we have right now.
| | 01:32 | Next, we are going to go to Photoshop.
| | 01:35 | Photoshop has got a little
bit more going on the ball here.
| | 01:38 | I can actually change sizes, and rotate.
| | 01:42 | So, I can do both of those, but it's
not quite seamless yet here, you can see
| | 01:48 | how is it doesn't always want to catch
my motions, and it seems to move the
| | 01:52 | center point around,
| | 01:54 | so that you'll get into some weird
states where it's, there we go, see how
| | 01:58 | that's kind of rotating in an odd
place for where I would expect it to be.
| | 02:04 | And if I want to get back to square
I've got to use my Escape key to do that.
| | 02:10 | Now let's go to Painter, and
once again, here's the same image.
| | 02:18 | Now in Painter, and with Painter, I can
move, rotate, scale all at the same time.
| | 02:26 | So, in the race for multi-touch, at this
taping, Painter has the edge, it's got
| | 02:32 | the most fluid way to do this.
| | 02:35 | And to get back to just normal, just a
double tap with two fingers will bring it
| | 02:41 | up to full size and centered on my screen.
| | 02:46 | So, you can see, we've looked at the
same functionality in three different
| | 02:49 | applications, and yet none of
them act the same as the others.
| | 02:54 | So, we're still in a very nascent period
of multi-touch, and as a result, I would
| | 02:59 | say, don't try to jump into
this and get over your head.
| | 03:03 | What you want to do is select a
single function, perhaps what we just looked
| | 03:08 | at here, scaling and rotating, and work it
into your workflow, until it becomes seamless.
| | 03:13 | At that point, you can then begin to
adapt to different functions and bring them
| | 03:17 | in slowly, don't jump in over your head.
| | 03:21 | Touch can be very useful, and an
improvement in some situations. Windows 8 and
| | 03:26 | Mac OS are both becoming more
touch friendly with every version.
| | 03:30 | Though it does seem to be the direction
in which we are heading, you shouldn't
| | 03:34 | buy a touch enabled tablet expecting
a Minority Report kind of experience,
| | 03:39 | just yet.
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| Working with multiple displays| 00:01 | As hardware has become more powerful,
it's become common to have a working
| | 00:05 | environment in which multiple displays
are used to increase screen real estate.
| | 00:10 | The second display can be used for a
variety of things. For example, have your
| | 00:14 | email client up, have a web browser
open, or in our case, use it to display
| | 00:19 | reference images to refer
to while painting or drawing.
| | 00:23 | The operating system generally treats
multiple displays as one large screen
| | 00:28 | spanning both displays.
| | 00:29 | Wacom Tablets and Pen
displays provide for this situation.
| | 00:34 | Let's take a look at this on this Cintiq.
| | 00:36 | So, what will happen if we look on my
second display, I have got my cursor all
| | 00:46 | over here on the left, and I am going
to start to bring it across the screen.
| | 00:50 | Now I am going to stop right at the
edge here, and notice that we're only about
| | 00:55 | one third of the way across from here,
that's because both displays are mapped
| | 01:00 | to this single amount of space,
which is the tablet area as well.
| | 01:06 | And so as I continue on, now it's
showing up on the Cintiq display, but its
| | 01:13 | offset and it's only going to match up
when I get all the way to the end here.
| | 01:18 | So, you've got a situation that is very
difficult to work with, in fact it's got unusable.
| | 01:24 | So, what we want to do is correct this,
and there are a couple things we need to do.
| | 01:29 | One thing I want to show you, I am
going to hold down the information key here,
| | 01:33 | this brings up a little display
that shows how our settings are.
| | 01:36 | The third button is set to Display
Toggle, and before you would attempt to do
| | 01:41 | this, you want to make sure whichever
Tablet or Display you're using that you do
| | 01:46 | have this Display Toggle set somewhere
where you can toggle it on or off.
| | 01:51 | So, we've got it set to our third button here.
| | 01:55 | The second thing we're going to do is
bring up the Wacom panel, and when you've
| | 02:02 | got a Cintiq in this case, it's going
to have this Display Toggle set up, and
| | 02:07 | you'll see by default what it's
set to here is Pen Display to Desktop.
| | 02:12 | That's where it's going to just
bridge both displays on one tablet surface.
| | 02:18 | And in this case we're going to switch
it to, the pen display, to other displays.
| | 02:22 | Now let's go ahead and close this
and you'll see now my cursor is in
| | 02:29 | registration with my pen on this Cintiq,
and if I used the display switching
| | 02:34 | button, now I'm over here on the second display.
| | 02:38 | So, I can easily be in this display, a
single button click, and I am back over here.
| | 02:43 | So, in this case I would set this up
to perhaps use it to display various
| | 02:48 | images, and then I might want to go
through looking at images till I find one
| | 02:53 | that I may want to work on.
| | 02:55 | And in this case, I chose this image,
now I could go ahead and put this in
| | 02:59 | fullscreen mode, and I've got this as
a reference, and then I can work over
| | 03:05 | here, and continue in this
case, to work on this image.
| | 03:10 | There a multitude of hardware
combinations that the Wacom Tablet Pen Display
| | 03:14 | can be attached to. Because of this you
may have to play with specific operating
| | 03:19 | system settings in order to get this to work.
| | 03:22 | Once you do, you'll find one-click
display switching invaluable.
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| Going wireless| 00:01 | All Wacom Pen Tablets offer a wireless option.
| | 00:04 | This eliminates the need for a wired USB
connection, enabling greater freedom of movement.
| | 00:10 | Because each of us has our own working
style, the wireless option may or may not
| | 00:15 | be necessary for your environment, which
is why Wacom offers this as an option.
| | 00:20 | Let's take a look at setting up
a Tablet for wireless capability.
| | 00:25 | You'll need the wireless connection
kit, which is sold by Wacom and available
| | 00:29 | through various distributors.
| | 00:31 | And basically what it comes
with are three components.
| | 00:34 | We have the battery, we have a small
transmitting unit, and we have a tiny little receiver.
| | 00:45 | So the first thing you want to do in
installing this is disconnect it from the computer.
| | 00:49 | So I'm going to go ahead and get rid of
my connection, and we'll flip this over.
| | 00:57 | And basically what we want to do here
first is remove these two covers. And
| | 01:02 | these are quite a bit like what
you'll see on a TV remote, you just need to
| | 01:06 | slide them out to remove them.
| | 01:11 | And once we have those out of the way,
there are a couple of things we want to do here.
| | 01:15 | First we want to install the battery, and
you'll see one end of the battery actually
| | 01:20 | has a set of contacts on it. You want
to make sure, you line that up with the
| | 01:26 | contacts showing here.
| | 01:28 | So I'll just slip those in. And don't
drop it straight in and try to press it
| | 01:34 | down, you want to slight it in up against the
contacts and it will naturally fit in there.
| | 01:39 | Next, we want to install the
transmitter, and that goes in this spot here and
| | 01:42 | there's a little dummy element in
here that we remove, and we take this and
| | 01:48 | you can see where there is a receptacle here,
so we want to make sure that we line these up.
| | 01:53 | So I'm going to flip this over into this
orientation and just slide it on in. And
| | 02:02 | while we have this open, I
do want to show you this.
| | 02:05 | The receiver unit, you can see how small it
is, and as a result it's very easily misplaced.
| | 02:12 | Wacom has conveniently placed a
little receptacle for it in here, and even
| | 02:17 | when this cover will be open, you
can pop this open and you can store the
| | 02:24 | receiver unit in their.
| | 02:25 | So it's just a great way to not lose
this because, I can tell you from having
| | 02:29 | used one at home, I've misplaced one
of these before and it gets a little
| | 02:34 | nerve-racking when you can't find it.
| | 02:36 | So let's go ahead and
replace these two drawer covers.
| | 02:41 | All right, we'll flip it back over.
| | 02:48 | Now we need to install the receiving
unit, and the receiver, a good place to put
| | 02:54 | this if you have this
capability with your keyboard,
| | 02:57 | usually keyboards will have a USB connection
on either end, that's a great place to put it.
| | 03:03 | However, this is a wireless
keyboard, it doesn't have it.
| | 03:06 | So I need to put it into a
receptacle on my laptop here.
| | 03:11 | So I'm going to flip this around, and
we'll just insert this, so we have it the
| | 03:17 | right way, 50 percent of the time it
will the wrong way, so I'll just flip it
| | 03:21 | over, and now we have our transmitter in there.
| | 03:25 | So let's turn this back around,
make sure our screen's going here.
| | 03:30 | And you may or may not have it work
instantly, it's not working at the moment.
| | 03:35 | So what you want to do is right here on
the end, there is little on/off button.
| | 03:40 | The other thing that's here is
there's a little light on here, and it's not
| | 03:44 | showing right now because
it's not a 100 percent charged.
| | 03:49 | When it is 100 percent charged,
you'll get a little blue light on here.
| | 03:52 | But in the meantime just press on this
on/off button, and there we go, we now
| | 04:00 | have our wireless connection.
| | 04:02 | So now you're free to pick this up.
| | 04:03 | Now once you've got this all set up,
you've got about a 33 foot range that you
| | 04:08 | can operate within, and you've got an
eight hour time period that you can use your
| | 04:13 | setup without any recharging.
| | 04:16 | Wacom's wireless option untethers
your drawing activity from the computer.
| | 04:21 | This offers a potentially enhanced
seating and drawing arrangement.
| | 04:24 | It can also be useful in classroom
situations, when you need to move around and
| | 04:29 | still be able to access your computer.
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|
|
4. Working with Control SurfacesIntro| 00:01 | Besides its stylus input, Wacom Tablets
have various touch controls that can be
| | 00:06 | customized to your specific applications.
| | 00:09 | This is all adjusted via
the Wacom Properties Panel.
| | 00:13 | These services include express keys,
touch rings, hardware control keys,
| | 00:18 | and on-screen menus.
| | 00:20 | In this chapter, we'll take a look at
each of these, and learn how to program
| | 00:24 | them to your specific needs.
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| Using the Wacom property pane| 00:01 | Not only can you customize your Wacom
Tablet experience, you can customize it on
| | 00:06 | a per application basis.
| | 00:08 | The settings you use in
Photoshop, for example, will be different from
| | 00:11 | those in Painter or a 3-D app.
| | 00:13 | I am going to be demonstrating this on a Mac.
| | 00:16 | This process is going to be
a bit different on Windows.
| | 00:19 | If you are using Windows, click on
the Windows Start button and choose
| | 00:23 | All Programs, then choose Wacom Tablet, and
choose the Wacom Tablet Properties Option.
| | 00:30 | On a Mac, you'll find the Wacom Tablet
controls in the System Preferences panel.
| | 00:36 | So, let's go down to our System
Preference panel and drop down to Wacom Tablet.
| | 00:42 | Now that we have this open, let's
just take a look at the top here.
| | 00:46 | We have the Tablet row, which if you
had multiple tablets would show up; we
| | 00:50 | have the Tool row, and as you add tools
they will be added to this; and we have
| | 00:54 | the Application row;
| | 00:55 | this is where, if you want to work
specifically with an application and could
| | 00:58 | customize settings, you are
going to need to set it here.
| | 01:01 | So, to add one, we go over to the right,
click on the plus button, and in
| | 01:06 | this case I have Photoshop running.
| | 01:08 | So it shows up in the list.
| | 01:10 | If it's not running, you could go to the
Browse button and select it through there.
| | 01:14 | So, let's select Photoshop, say OK,
and now we've added Photoshop.
| | 01:20 | Now it's in the Application row and
you'd think you'd be finished, but you
| | 01:23 | need to do this for each tool that you have.
| | 01:26 | So, if we go to Touch,
you'll see it's not in there.
| | 01:29 | So you need to make sure that you add it
for each of these tools, assuming you're
| | 01:33 | going to be using it with Photoshop.
| | 01:35 | Same with the Grip panel,
I want to add Photoshop.
| | 01:37 | So, I just go through, and the same in this
case with the second Art Pen we're using.
| | 01:42 | So, we add Photoshop there, and now we
have Photoshop set for all of these.
| | 01:49 | Now the one thing I want to tell you,
it's important to understand that it's
| | 01:53 | very easy to go into here and start
making settings and not look up here and
| | 01:58 | realize in this case, it's set to all other.
| | 02:00 | You want to make sure, if you are going
to make changes that you want to apply
| | 02:04 | to Photoshop, be sure to check the
application in this Application row,
| | 02:08 | otherwise you are going to be making
settings for something else that you don't
| | 02:12 | really want it to be applied too.
| | 02:14 | So, once you've customized the
Wacom Pen and Tablet for a specific
| | 02:18 | application, there may be further
keyboard customizations that you'll have to
| | 02:23 | create in the application itself.
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| Setting up the tablet for handedness| 00:01 | If you're left-handed, like I am,
then you are familiar with living in a
| | 00:04 | world biased against us.
| | 00:06 | We often have to buy items like scissors
that are specifically designed with the
| | 00:11 | lefthander in mind, and often at a higher price.
| | 00:15 | Wacom Tablets are reversible, so that
the controls can be on either the left
| | 00:19 | or right hand side. Just rotating the
tablet won't automatically change the
| | 00:24 | orientation on the screen, everything
will be backwards and upside down by default.
| | 00:29 | Fortunately, there is a
simple way to correct this.
| | 00:32 | I am going to begin by playing like
I'm a right-hander, and so in a normal
| | 00:36 | right-hand orientation, I would be
using, obviously, my right-hand to paint and
| | 00:41 | draw with, and the control surface over
here on the left would be easy for my
| | 00:46 | left hand to address.
| | 00:48 | However, I'm left-handed, so I want to
have the controls on the opposite side, so
| | 00:54 | I need to turn the Tablet around.
| | 01:00 | Now I can address the Tablet and the
proper orientation is here for my express keys.
| | 01:07 | But look what happens.
| | 01:08 | Everything is upside down and
backwards for me, and I can tell you from
| | 01:13 | experience, it's not a
very fun way to try to draw.
| | 01:16 | So, I need to fix this situation, and
I've done this enough, I can actually do it
| | 01:21 | using this reverse orientation, but if
you're not used to that you might want to
| | 01:26 | use a mouse for this just so
you have the correct Orientation.
| | 01:29 | What we need to do here is go to one
of the pens, and this will address both
| | 01:34 | of them in this case.
| | 01:36 | I'm going to go ahead and go down here,
and you can see right now, Orientation is
| | 01:40 | set for ExpressKeys Left.
| | 01:42 | However, we now have them on the right.
| | 01:44 | So, we want to open this
and select ExpressKeys Right.
| | 01:49 | Now I can draw and paint and my
Orientation is correct, and I can address the
| | 01:55 | various buttons with my right hand.
| | 01:57 | So, this is the orientation for workflow
that is going to give me the most efficiency.
| | 02:04 | With the ExpressKeys on the Right
side and the Tablet Orientation usable, a
| | 02:08 | lefty can now use the right hand
to address the control surface.
| | 02:12 | Unfortunately, you'll still have to
purchase the optional left-handed stylus.
| | 02:17 | I'm kidding!
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| Taking advantage of ExpressKeys| 00:01 | If you are a keyboard shortcut fanatic
like I am, you'll love ExpressKeys, and
| | 00:06 | even if you're not, I think
you will find them highly useful.
| | 00:10 | ExpressKeys' primary advantage is that,
unlike the keyboard, they are located
| | 00:14 | right on the surface of the tablet.
| | 00:16 | They remind me a lot of the types of
on-steering wheel controls you may find
| | 00:21 | on autos these days.
| | 00:23 | By their convenient location, they
quickly become an extension of your hands
| | 00:27 | while allowing you to stay
focused on the display and your work.
| | 00:32 | Let's take a look at the actual
Wacom driver here and make sure we're in
| | 00:37 | ExpressKeys, and the other thing you
want to be sure of is if I didn't pay
| | 00:42 | attention up here, I could start to
assign this and it would be assigned to
| | 00:45 | all other by default.
| | 00:47 | We must make sure we've selected
Photoshop as our target for these
| | 00:52 | particular shortcuts.
| | 00:54 | What I want to do is use this bottom
express key, and right now it's currently
| | 01:00 | assigned to Pan/Scroll. I want to
change that, so I'm going to go and open this
| | 01:05 | up, and there are a series of default
settings you can use, some of them are
| | 01:10 | useful, some of them not so much.
| | 01:12 | And what I want to do in this case is
use Keystroke, and I need to now assign
| | 01:17 | a keystroke to this.
| | 01:19 | One of the things I use in Photoshop
all the time is creating a new layer, and
| | 01:24 | on the Mac, the keyboard shortcut for that is
Shift+Command+N, and so I need to put it in here.
| | 01:30 | So I am going to go to my keyboard and
just do Shift+Command+N. That enters it
| | 01:35 | into the field where the
keyboard shortcut will be accepted.
| | 01:39 | Now we go down to Name, and I'm just going to
call this New Layer, hit OK, and we're done.
| | 01:50 | Now let's jump over to Photoshop.
| | 01:53 | And one of the things that will happen
with ExpressKeys when you touch any of
| | 01:57 | these ExpressKeys, it pops up an
overlay that shows you what the settings are
| | 02:02 | for the various buttons, and we can see
down here at the very bottom, my bottom
| | 02:06 | key is now set to new layer.
| | 02:09 | So if I press on it, it allows me to
create a new layer, and I can make any of
| | 02:15 | the option changes I want, hit
Return, and I've got my new layer.
| | 02:19 | So that's one of the things you can do.
| | 02:22 | Now there may be times where you're
going to want to assign a keyboard shortcut,
| | 02:25 | but there isn't one, what do you do then?
| | 02:28 | Well, we can go into the Edit menu in
Photoshop, and if we drop all the way down
| | 02:32 | to the bottom here, we have Keyboard Shortcuts.
| | 02:34 | One of the Keyboard Shortcuts I use a
lot is Sample All Layers, which is part
| | 02:39 | of the Mixer Brush, and there are
times where you want to toggle that on and
| | 02:44 | off rather quickly.
| | 02:45 | So what we need to do in that case is go
to the Tools menu, and if I drop all the
| | 02:50 | way down here to the bottom, we'll see
that there is a command right here, Toggle
| | 02:55 | Mixer Brush Sample All Layers.
| | 02:57 | It currently doesn't have a keyboard
shortcut assigned to it, so I want to assign one.
| | 03:02 | I just pressed on there, and that
opens up that field for me to give it
| | 03:05 | a keyboard shortcut.
| | 03:07 | And in this case I'm going to use the semicolon.
| | 03:10 | So let's press on that.
| | 03:11 | Now I'm getting a warning, and this is
kind of a problem with Photoshop, it's
| | 03:15 | not so much of problem, what the
problem is, almost every keyboard shortcut has
| | 03:20 | been used in Photoshop.
| | 03:21 | It's very rare that you'll find a
keyboard shortcut that you can actually apply
| | 03:25 | and not get this error message.
| | 03:27 | So the one gotcha about this is you
have got to make sure you're not giving up
| | 03:31 | some functionality you may be used to.
| | 03:33 | Now I never use the Magnetic Pen or
Magnetic Lasso tools, so this isn't a
| | 03:38 | keyboard shortcut I'm going to miss,
but you do want to make sure that the
| | 03:42 | keyboard shortcut you're replacing isn't one
that you previously were using all the time.
| | 03:47 | So now that I've done that, I can say I
accept that, and now I have a keyboard
| | 03:53 | shortcut for Toggle Sample
All Layers, so I'll say OK here.
| | 03:58 | Now we need to return back to the
System Preferences and our Wacom ExpressKeys
| | 04:04 | panel, and let's take now
this second to the bottom key.
| | 04:08 | So right now it's Option.
| | 04:10 | And I'm going to go in here to Modifier.
| | 04:13 | Once again, I'm going to use Keystroke
in this case, and I'm going to enter my
| | 04:17 | new keyboard shortcut, which is just
the semicolon, and now I'll just, for a
| | 04:24 | shortcut, I'm just going to call
this, SAL, Sample All Layers, say OK.
| | 04:30 | Once again, let's jump back in Photoshop,
and if I go to a Mixer Bush, right here,
| | 04:37 | you'll see right here, Sample All Layers.
| | 04:40 | It's very useful to be able
to turn this and off at random.
| | 04:45 | So I now have a keyboard shortcut when
I click it, see how it went on, click
| | 04:50 | it again, it's off.
| | 04:52 | So now I've got a quick shortcut right
available on the surface of the tablet
| | 04:57 | that I can use to turn this on and off.
| | 04:59 | The more you start to use these keys,
the more you are going to find things
| | 05:03 | you can do with it.
| | 05:05 | Once you start using ExpressKeys,
you'll find yourself coming up with various
| | 05:08 | usages that will improve your workflow.
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| Utilizing the stylus side switch buttons| 00:01 | When using the Wacom Pen, you've
literally got a pair of convenient, customizable
| | 00:06 | controls at your fingertip, the side switches.
| | 00:09 | There are a lot of different
ways to employ this pair of buttons.
| | 00:12 | And you can get pretty creative in
what functionality you assign to them.
| | 00:16 | In this video, we'll take a look at
some of the ways these easily accessed
| | 00:20 | controls can be utilized.
| | 00:23 | The first thing I want to talk about
is the buttons themselves on the Pen, and
| | 00:27 | there's a couple of ways you can address them.
| | 00:29 | A lot of people use their index
finger, and that works pretty well, but some
| | 00:34 | people find that this rear button, it
just cramps up a little bit when you have
| | 00:37 | to move your finger in that
position to address that rear button.
| | 00:41 | So the optional way to do it is to
turn it on its side and then just use your
| | 00:46 | thumb, and there is not quite as much
crimping in your thumb when you go back
| | 00:50 | and forth between here.
| | 00:51 | So it's different for everybody, and it
just depends on what works for you, how
| | 00:56 | your hand is built, and
what makes you comfortable.
| | 00:59 | So you've got those two options to work with.
| | 01:02 | Now let's take a look at the Wacom
Tablet preferences, and we're going to work
| | 01:05 | with the Grip Pen, so I'm going to click on it.
| | 01:08 | And it's right here in this panel.
| | 01:10 | It shows me what is assigned to the
buttons, and right now the defaults are the
| | 01:15 | Double Click for the rear and
the Right Click for the front.
| | 01:19 | So before you do anything though, I
do want to tell you, make sure if you're
| | 01:24 | working with Photoshop as we are, be
sure that this is selected up here.
| | 01:27 | If it's selected like this, you'll
make these changes, go to Photoshop, and
| | 01:32 | nothing happens, because you've
assigned it to anything but Photoshop.
| | 01:37 | So make sure that you assign it to
the application before you get started.
| | 01:41 | So let's take a look at what we can do here.
| | 01:44 | I'm going to jump over to Photoshop.
| | 01:46 | We are in the Mixer Brush, and the
Mixer Brush, like the regular Paint Tools,
| | 01:51 | utilize the Option key to be able to
select color on screen, and just to show how
| | 01:57 | that works by default, I'm going to
hold down my Option key, and you'll notice
| | 02:01 | that the cursor changes to the Color
Selection Tool in the Mixer Brush.
| | 02:07 | When it's in that mode, I can now
select a color, pick it up, and now
| | 02:13 | I'm painting with it.
| | 02:14 | So it's nice that I can do this, but
it's taking a lot of extra motion and
| | 02:20 | disconnection from your
workflow when you do this.
| | 02:24 | So what we want to do is take that option
functionality and apply it to the front button.
| | 02:30 | Let's go back to our Wacom
Preferences, and I'm going to go into that front
| | 02:35 | button options, and I'm going to select Modifier
in this case, and we're going to select Option.
| | 02:41 | We'll say OK, and let's go back, and
instead of using the Option key, now I can
| | 02:47 | just click on that button and I
instantly get the color that I want.
| | 02:52 | In fact, the Mixer Brush happens
to have the functionality of picking
| | 02:55 | up multiple colors.
| | 02:56 | So if I pick it up, say right in the
center there, I'm now going to be painting
| | 03:01 | with multiple colors across the brush.
| | 03:02 | So every time I want to switch colors,
it's very easy to pick up colors right
| | 03:07 | off of the existing colors on your canvas.
| | 03:10 | So we've got that set.
| | 03:12 | The other thing I'm going to show you is
that when you're using the Mixer Brush,
| | 03:16 | when this Wet value is set to zero,
you are going to get an Opaque Brush, and
| | 03:22 | let's just set it anything other than zero.
| | 03:25 | So I'm just going to move it up a little bit,
and we'll see that the behavior now changes.
| | 03:30 | It becomes a smeary brush, it still
applies paint, but it also is starting to
| | 03:34 | mix the colors that are on the brush as
well as the colors it finds underneath of it.
| | 03:39 | So we have altered the behavior of
the brush in a fairly radical way.
| | 03:44 | So what we want to do in this case is
somehow assign this functionality, once
| | 03:49 | again, in this case, to the
rear button of the Wacom stylus.
| | 03:54 | So let's go back to our Wacom
Preferences, and instead of Double Click, I'm going
| | 03:58 | to open this up, I'm going to go to Keystroke.
| | 04:01 | And I'm going to put zero in there.
| | 04:04 | So we put 0, and I'm going to
call this Smear Toggle, and hit OK.
| | 04:14 | Now I've got a different functionally.
| | 04:16 | I'm going to show you how this
works, because it's not obvious at first.
| | 04:20 | Let's go ahead and put this down to
zero again so we're now painting with an
| | 04:24 | Opaque Brush, but if I click the
rear button, it now changes to 100%.
| | 04:33 | Now I've got a fully smeary
brush. But how do we get back to zero?
| | 04:37 | Well, it turns out a Double Click
alters it back to the zero position, which now
| | 04:43 | once again gives us an Opaque Brush.
| | 04:46 | So now I've got two combined functions
on here that are actually close to the
| | 04:50 | Pen, and I kind of think of the front
of the Pen as the place where the paint
| | 04:55 | comes out, so it makes sense to me that
these buttons somehow be associated with
| | 05:00 | what's going on in the tip and
being able to change its functionality.
| | 05:05 | So now I can go ahead and I can pick up
colors, I can alter the behavior of the
| | 05:11 | brush so that it becomes smeary, and I've
got just a lot more functionality, I am
| | 05:17 | longer relying on the keyboard.
| | 05:19 | The Stylus switches offer another
option for assigning and accessing
| | 05:23 | absolute value UI elements.
| | 05:26 | Doing so serves to break the
reliance on the keyboard, and anytime you can
| | 05:31 | eliminate extended physical motions
like changing focus to address the keyboard
| | 05:36 | will improve your workflow.
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| Using Precision mode| 00:01 | When using a pen and tablet, there
are times when it may be desirable to
| | 00:05 | refine your hand motion.
| | 00:07 | In the real world, threading a
needle is just such an activity.
| | 00:11 | Unfortunately, there is no
magic to assist in manual dexterity.
| | 00:14 | But the Wacom driver does offer such
a magic bullet for fine motor skilled
| | 00:20 | drawing activities for
extremely detailed work, Precision mode.
| | 00:24 | Essentially, the Wacom Tablet surface
is mapped to the size of the screen.
| | 00:29 | In Precision mode, the surface area
of the tablet is remapped to a smaller
| | 00:34 | subsection of the screen for more precise work.
| | 00:38 | Let's begin by taking a look at the
surface of our Wacom Tablet here, and you may
| | 00:44 | notice that there are these four little
corner markers that indicate exactly the
| | 00:50 | area that is a live area that you can
actually paint and draw in, and these four
| | 00:56 | corner markers in this area are
mapped exactly to your screen.
| | 01:01 | So, whatever happens on the
tablet is mirrored on the screen.
| | 01:06 | And in fact I can show you this, I'm
going to draw a line here from the lower
| | 01:10 | right corner, and I'm just going to go
up to the upper left corner, and you can
| | 01:16 | see that by drawing across the complete
diagonal of our tablet, we now have a
| | 01:22 | complete diagonal on the screen.
| | 01:25 | Now, let's go into Precision mode, and
by default, you can get to Precision mode
| | 01:30 | by going to the third key down, your
ExpressKey, and when I press this, this puts
| | 01:38 | me into Precision mode.
| | 01:39 | I'm going to position this so that
we're going to be right in the center of the
| | 01:43 | screen here, and now I'm going to draw
a line, same length, this time from the
| | 01:48 | lower left to the upper right, and you
can see how much smaller that surface area
| | 01:57 | is indicated on the screen.
| | 02:01 | So Precision Mode squeezes the size
of this tablet down into your screen
| | 02:07 | for more precise work.
| | 02:09 | you can also even get more precise, and
to show you that, I'm going to go to the
| | 02:14 | Wacom Preferences, and if we go down
here to our Settings to Precision Mode, I'm
| | 02:21 | going to take this all the way down to
Precision Mode and if you select it, it
| | 02:25 | calls up this slide,r and this slider
allows me to essentially adjust the size of
| | 02:29 | that box, which is reflecting the
degree of precision you're going to get by
| | 02:35 | changing the active area on the screen.
| | 02:38 | So, let's take this to its
ultra fine mode, we'll say OK.
| | 02:42 | Let's go back to Photoshop, and once
again I'm going to draw another line here by
| | 02:49 | going into Precision Mode, and I'm
going to draw the same line again, same
| | 02:54 | diagonal from the lower left to the upper right.
| | 02:57 | And you can see that that
line is now even smaller.
| | 03:02 | You aren't likely to stay in Precision
mode for long, but when you need it, it
| | 03:07 | really helps threading the digital
needle for precise pen and brush work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Improving application interaction with the radial menu| 00:01 | Hmmm, let's see, ExpressKeys, the Touch Ring,
| | 00:05 | the Side Switch, that's a lot of different
ways to relive your keyboard of shortcut duty.
| | 00:11 | Yet the keyboard remains the
undisputed king of non-menu oriented
| | 00:15 | workflow enhancement. Why?
| | 00:17 | Well, as an example, there are a total
of only 14 hardwired keyboard replacement
| | 00:22 | options available on the popular medium-sized
Intuos5, compared to the hundreds
| | 00:28 | of possible combinations
available on a standard keyboard.
| | 00:32 | While some folks thrive on keyboard
shortcuts, myself included, they do require
| | 00:37 | memorization of often arcane key combinations.
| | 00:40 | This is where the Radial Menu
comes into play, as we'll see.
| | 00:45 | So to get started with the Radial Menu,
we first need to assign a key to it, one
| | 00:51 | of the ExpressKeys, so that we can call it up.
| | 00:54 | So let's start with that, we'll jump
over to our Wacom panel, and I want to go to
| | 00:58 | my ExpressKeys, and in this case I'll
just use this fourth key, the one that's
| | 01:03 | immediately below the Radial Menu.
| | 01:05 | So we're going to go ahead and assign a
key to that in here and I'm going to use
| | 01:10 | this key that's immediately below the
Touch Ring, so let's go here and go to
| | 01:14 | Radial Menu, which is one of the
default items they have here for you.
| | 01:17 | Now that button will call up the
Radial Menu in our application, and you
| | 01:21 | always want to make sure you're in your
application when you're in the Tablet Preferences.
| | 01:28 | So, let's try this out.
| | 01:29 | Here I am, and as I'm moving around and
working on my screen, when I touch that
| | 01:34 | key, I get the Radial Menu immediately below it.
| | 01:38 | And as you can see, it's comprised of
eight little pie slices, each one having a
| | 01:44 | function assigned to it.
| | 01:46 | And so in the case of Brush Panel,
for example, when I click that, it
| | 01:50 | immediately brings it up.
| | 01:52 | And so it's just a convenient way to
quickly bring this up that might take a
| | 01:57 | little more time, interface-wise, to
move around and locate it and punch it up.
| | 02:02 | So this is immediately useful for
things that you want to get at, and especially
| | 02:08 | things that might be buried in the
menus, where you've got to take some time to
| | 02:12 | go up, open a menu, drop down,
| | 02:14 | maybe go through a submenu to get to it.
| | 02:17 | It's right at your cursor
when you do it this way.
| | 02:21 | I've assigned a few functions here myself.
| | 02:23 | I actually had someone ask me this
recently, about how can I get certain brush
| | 02:28 | sizes consistently, and they weren't
even thinking Radial Menu, but it struck me
| | 02:33 | that the Radial Menu is an
excellent way to do this.
| | 02:36 | So I set up some keys where I can get
a 10 pixel brush, I can get a 20 pixel
| | 02:42 | brush, and I can call up a 30 pixel brush.
| | 02:46 | So this gives a real easy way to do this.
| | 02:48 | The thing you want to eliminate here
is all this traversal time, going up to a
| | 02:51 | corner, punching something open and
assigning that number to it, it takes time,
| | 02:56 | and this is much more fluid.
| | 02:59 | So we're going to take one of these, and
I'm going to continue this, and let's do
| | 03:03 | a 40 pixel brush, and I'll show you how I did it.
| | 03:06 | What I have to do here is literally create a
short action that encapsulates this function.
| | 03:13 | So, we're going to go in here to our Actions.
| | 03:16 | I'm going to create a New Action, and
we'll call this Brush 40, and then this is
| | 03:26 | where we assign some keyboard shortcuts to it.
| | 03:30 | So I'm going to use a Function key, in
this case F4, and I'm also going to assign
| | 03:35 | the Shift and Command key to it.
| | 03:38 | So, that's done, now we have
to actually do the recording.
| | 03:42 | So when we hit Record, the only thing I
need to do is go in here and set this to 40.
| | 03:50 | Once I'm done with that, I can stop the
recording, and I've now got that working.
| | 03:56 | So now we have our action and we have a
keyboard shortcut assigned to it. Let's
| | 04:00 | jump back over to the Wacom Tablet
panel, we'll go to Radial Menu, and we're
| | 04:07 | going to take this one, it was set for
email, which I would never use, so I'm
| | 04:10 | going to go ahead here and I'm
going to assign a keystroke to it.
| | 04:15 | I'm just going to give it Shift+Command+F4.
| | 04:21 | We'll give it a name here, so it's just
like we did before, we'll call it Brush
| | 04:25 | 40, hit OK, and now that's set up.
| | 04:31 | Now, once again, I can use my
ExpressKey to call that up, go to Brush 40, well
| | 04:35 | let's set it back Brush 10, for
example, so that's the smaller brush.
| | 04:40 | If I want a 40 pixel brush, I
just click on that and now I have it.
| | 04:44 | So this gives me the opportunity to
quickly get these things at my cursor
| | 04:50 | without having to do a lot of
navigation to get to anything.
| | 04:54 | Now the last thing I do want to talk
about is that in the Radial Menu one of the
| | 04:59 | things you can do is you can create a Submenu.
| | 05:02 | I'm not even going to go through
doing it, but what it will create is yet
| | 05:06 | another set of eight pie slices that
will spawn from this one and you can assign
| | 05:12 | more keyboard shortcuts to it.
| | 05:14 | In fact, if you were crazy enough to
do it, you could literally use submenu
| | 05:20 | after submenu to eventually assign all
the keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop to it.
| | 05:26 | However, think about that, you'd be
having to drop down through multiple
| | 05:29 | sub-levels to get to this command, and
in effect you'd be killing your own
| | 05:35 | efficiency because you're spending
so much time in this menu system.
| | 05:39 | So you want to think through what
you assign here, and I would, as much as
| | 05:44 | possible, refrain from trying to use
submenus, because you will get yourself into
| | 05:49 | a situation that is not
going to be very efficient.
| | 05:55 | The Radial Menu is a great tool for
having several of an application's oft used
| | 05:59 | commands at your fingertips.
| | 06:01 | But don't go overboard and try
to assign too many using submenus.
| | 06:05 | Doing so is bound to affect your workflow.
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| Using the Touch Ring| 00:01 | Take a look at any software
application user interface and you'll find two
| | 00:05 | basic types of controls.
| | 00:07 | The first is an absolute control,
which controls only set values.
| | 00:13 | This includes interface elements like
checkboxes, radio buttons, and drop-down lists.
| | 00:18 | These elements control choices
like on or off, visible or hidden, or
| | 00:23 | small, medium, or large.
| | 00:26 | ExpressKeys are useful for this type of control.
| | 00:29 | The second type is a relative
control, where a specific value within a
| | 00:34 | continuous range of values can be selected.
| | 00:37 | This includes interface elements like
sliders, which adjust choices like brush
| | 00:42 | size, opacity percentage, and canvas angle.
| | 00:46 | As we'll see, the Touch Ring is perfect for
selecting relative values. Let's take a look.
| | 00:52 | We'll begin by taking a look at the
control surface of the Wacom Tablet here, and
| | 00:57 | you noticed before that we have the
two sets of ExpressKeys, but here in the
| | 01:01 | center we have what's called the
Touch Ring, and the Touch Ring is a concave,
| | 01:05 | depressed area on the surface of the
tablet, and what this does is it makes for
| | 01:10 | an easy way for you to target this
without even looking at it, which is kind of
| | 01:14 | nice because once again
this helps aid in workflow.
| | 01:17 | The center of the Touch Ring is a
button, and you'll notice onscreen when I
| | 01:22 | touch that and click on it, it brings
up a little heads-up display that shows
| | 01:27 | what the functions are that are assigned
to the four possibilities of the Touch Ring.
| | 01:33 | Several things are already
programmed into it by default.
| | 01:36 | For example, screen rotation, which
is excellent way to rotate your screen.
| | 01:43 | Now why would you do that?
| | 01:44 | Well it turns out that a lot of times
when you're drawing, it can be difficult,
| | 01:48 | for example, to draw a horizontal line.
| | 01:51 | It's ergonomically difficult
to draw that horizontal line.
| | 01:56 | I can do it, but it's just an
unusual kind of motion that you have to do.
| | 02:01 | When you rotate that screen, now it's just
easier for the arm, hand, and wrist to draw that line.
| | 02:07 | So, screen rotation is one thing I highly
advise you to utilize the Touch Ring for.
| | 02:13 | The second thing we're going talk
about is using it for going back and
| | 02:18 | forward in history.
| | 02:20 | Just to demonstrate this I'm going to go
ahead and just make a few marks here on
| | 02:24 | the screen so we can see how this works.
| | 02:27 | Now normally you can go backwards
and forward in history using a pair of
| | 02:31 | keyboard shortcuts, and Option+Command+Z
on the Mac goes backwards in your
| | 02:36 | history, and Shift+Option+Z takes you forward.
| | 02:40 | So there is already built in this nice
way to do this, but this is one of these
| | 02:45 | relative controls where I can assign
this to the Touch Ring and it makes it a
| | 02:51 | much more elegant way to do it.
| | 02:52 | So let's go about doing that.
| | 02:54 | Let's take ourselves over to the Wacom
Control Panel, and we're going to go over
| | 02:58 | to the Touch Ring, and I'm going to
mention this again as I will several times
| | 03:03 | through the title, always make sure
that your application is set to the
| | 03:07 | application you want to apply this to.
| | 03:10 | I can't tell you how many times I've
gone through the motions of setting this
| | 03:14 | up only to realize later on that it wasn't
even in the application I wanted it to be.
| | 03:18 | So first things first, check your
application setting to make sure you're
| | 03:23 | applying it to the correct application.
| | 03:25 | And now let's go to the Touch Ring
Panel, and if we want to, in this case, I'm
| | 03:30 | going to reassign this Auto
Scroll/Zoom to show you this.
| | 03:34 | So let's pop down the menu, and in this
case we're going to go to Keystroke, and
| | 03:40 | you'll see there's a pair of boxes located here.
| | 03:43 | The top box indicates counter
clockwise motion, and the bottom box is going to
| | 03:48 | indicate clockwise motion.
| | 03:51 | Always try to think through to
what is it you are doing here.
| | 03:54 | In this case, we're going backwards and
forwards in history, which is almost like time.
| | 03:58 | So it makes sense to go back in time
in a counter-clockwise motion and go
| | 04:04 | forwards in time in a clockwise motion.
| | 04:06 | That way it just makes it one step
simpler to understand what you're doing.
| | 04:10 | So in this case we're going to assign going
back in history here in the top panel,
| | 04:15 | so I'm going to do Option+Command+Z,
and let's activate the second box, and in
| | 04:21 | this case I will do Shift+Command+Z.
And we're going to name this, and we'll
| | 04:27 | just call it Undo/Redo.
| | 04:33 | And click OK, let's go back to our
application, and I'm going to press on the
| | 04:38 | center button here again, and
you'll see that we now have among our
| | 04:42 | selections, Undo/Redo.
| | 04:44 | So when I use this now, and I go in
a counter-clockwise motion, I'm going
| | 04:48 | backwards in time, and when I go
clockwise, I'm going forward in time.
| | 04:52 | And I can't tell you how useful I have
found this over my experience using the
| | 04:58 | tablet ever since they
introduced the Touch Ring.
| | 05:00 | This is just a great way to be able to
slide back and forth and evaluate your
| | 05:06 | last strokes to see where you're
going and where you've come from.
| | 05:12 | I find the Touch Ring to be
incredibly useful, particularly for controlling
| | 05:16 | canvas rotation angle and stepping
backward and forward in a painting's
| | 05:20 | construction history.
| | 05:22 | Anytime you want an elegant control
for relative value UI elements, look no
| | 05:27 | further than the Touch Ring.
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| Saving multiple settings with the Wacom Tablet Utility| 00:01 | You're probably beginning to realize
that completely customizing your tablet
| | 00:05 | settings can take up quite
a bit of time and effort.
| | 00:08 | Even after initially customizing the
tablet, you'll likely make adjustments over time.
| | 00:13 | Once customized to your workflow
habits, you don't want to have to go
| | 00:17 | through this process again.
| | 00:18 | Fortunately, you can save your tablet
settings using the Wacom Tablet Utility.
| | 00:24 | And taking this a step further, you
can save and restore multiple settings.
| | 00:28 | Let's see how this works.
| | 00:29 | Now, the main function of the Wacom
Preferences Driver is to save the current
| | 00:37 | preferences that you have in your
Wacom Tablet Control Panel, and I'm going
| | 00:42 | to begin here by going to the System
Preferences and let's just see what we have here.
| | 00:49 | And these are the basic
settings that the Wacom Tablet has.
| | 00:55 | They're not special by any means, but
we're going to use those as a sample of
| | 01:00 | something that we'd want to save.
| | 01:02 | And to do that, the next thing we have to do
is get to the Wacom Preferences Utility.
| | 01:08 | So I'm going to create a new Finder
window, and in Applications, down here at the
| | 01:18 | bottom, we'll find a folder called Wacom
Tablet, and in here is the Wacom Tablet
| | 01:25 | Utility, so I'll double click to launch it.
| | 01:29 | Now what it lets me do is backup, and
when it says Backup, it's going to backup
| | 01:33 | what is currently in the Wacom Tablet Driver.
| | 01:37 | So I'll say Backup, and we'll give this a
name, we're going to name this Default,
| | 01:43 | and we'll go ahead and Save that.
| | 01:48 | You may have noticed that I saved
that to the Wacom Folder that the Wacom
| | 01:53 | Preferences Utility is in.
| | 01:55 | I do that because it's just an easy way
to remember where these are rather than
| | 01:59 | putting it somewhere else on your system.
| | 02:01 | Now that I've backed that up, I will
always have these settings that I can retrieve.
| | 02:08 | Now, let's go the other way.
| | 02:09 | I have a set of preferences that I
have created before, that I use in
| | 02:16 | association with Photoshop, and these
preferences are going to be different than
| | 02:21 | what we're seeing right now, so I want
you to notice that's our current setup.
| | 02:25 | I'm going to go ahead and once again
open the Wacom Utility, and I'm going to
| | 02:31 | say I want to Restore.
| | 02:32 | So I'm going to go to my Photoshop
preferences, we'll open those, and it's going
| | 02:38 | to tell me it's going to replace the
current preferences, that's good because
| | 02:41 | I've already saved the preferences that
are in there now, so I can easily swap
| | 02:45 | them back out anytime.
| | 02:46 | I'll say Replace, and now when we go
back to the Wacom Panel, we could see that
| | 03:01 | I've got a whole new set of actions and
keyboard shortcuts programmed into all
| | 03:07 | of the various keys
associated with the Wacom Tablet.
| | 03:11 | So, the idea here is, I've now got this
set, I can always reload them anytime I
| | 03:16 | want, I have my default settings
anytime I want, and to extend this
| | 03:21 | functionality, let's say I have a
very specific set of commands I want
| | 03:25 | associated with the keyboard when I'm
in Illustrator or Painter, for example.
| | 03:30 | Each one of those I could have its
own separate preferences file and then
| | 03:34 | anytime I want to swap out the
preferences, say for Photoshop, or a set of
| | 03:39 | preferences that are preferred
for Illustrator, I can do that.
| | 03:44 | The really nice thing about the way this
utility works is, it gives you a way to
| | 03:49 | conserve all of the work that you put
in to putting these things together, and I
| | 03:53 | can tell you it does sometimes take
a while to assemble a set of keyboard
| | 03:57 | commands that you like associated with
your various components on the tablet.
| | 04:01 | The other thing I do want to say
though, however, and I've learned this through
| | 04:05 | experience with trying to provide
these files with courses here at lynda.com,
| | 04:11 | sometimes they won't work with other
versions of the tablet, the tablet driver,
| | 04:17 | the operating system, the tablet
model, all are very specific to the way the
| | 04:23 | preferences are saved.
| | 04:24 | So unfortunately, these settings I have,
say for Photoshop, you couldn't put
| | 04:29 | them into a Cintiq tablet,
there is no way to do it,
| | 04:32 | it won't recognize it.
| | 04:33 | So, right now, the way this is set up,
it's really kind of specific to your
| | 04:38 | tablet and work environment.
| | 04:41 | So anytime you're going to make a change,
say to your Photoshop preferences, be
| | 04:45 | sure to just save or re-save that
particular set of preferences with the Wacom
| | 04:52 | Preferences Utility, and that
way they'll remain up to date.
| | 04:56 | Take my advice and backup
your Wacom settings regularly.
| | 05:00 | I always update mine whenever I make a
change to my custom shortcuts or update
| | 05:04 | the Wacom Driver, and you should too.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Selecting the Right Stylus for the JobIntro| 00:01 | A stylus is just a stylus, right?
| | 00:04 | Au contraire, mon frere. Wacom
styli are available in different models.
| | 00:09 | Is the supplied standard Grip Pen right
for you, or do you need the 6 degrees of
| | 00:14 | freedom of the Art Pen?
| | 00:15 | And then there is the matter of the nib
at the end of the stylus. Teflon, Felt
| | 00:20 | or Spring Loaded, which is best for you?
| | 00:23 | All will be answered in this chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The standard Grip Pen| 00:01 | If you own either an Intuos or Cintiq
tablet, you already have the Grip Pen, as
| | 00:06 | it is the standard included stylus.
| | 00:08 | For most users, the Grip Pen is all you need.
| | 00:11 | Let's take a close up look at it.
| | 00:13 | Now, the main thing we want to
concentrate on is that with the Grip Pen, as with
| | 00:18 | all the pens, pressure is always
going to be your most important attribute.
| | 00:22 | Anything else after that is
kind of icing on the cake.
| | 00:25 | But as you'll see, you may want to
have additional capability if the Grip Pen
| | 00:31 | itself isn't going to handle it.
| | 00:32 | So, one of the things that we look at
here is that the Grip Pen utilizes five of
| | 00:39 | the six degrees of freedom.
| | 00:40 | And going through them, the first are
X and Y, which is simply the grid that
| | 00:45 | allows the tablet to sense where
on the tablet the pen is located.
| | 00:50 | Next we have Pressure.
| | 00:52 | So when you press harder, you're going to get
in some cases a wider line, or a darker line.
| | 00:58 | Once we have pressure, you
can then have Tilt, okay.
| | 01:02 | And once you have tilt, you can then
describe Bearing. So we've got five of the
| | 01:07 | six degrees of freedom.
| | 01:09 | That means even a single brush is going to be
capable of a pretty wide range of expression.
| | 01:14 | And to start off I've got a blunt,
round, symmetrical tip to show you this.
| | 01:21 | And I also want to give you a little
demo of how it looks and there actually
| | 01:25 | is a little icon here.
| | 01:27 | If your machine supports
a GPU, you will see this,
| | 01:31 | otherwise you wouldn't be
able to see this display.
| | 01:34 | But what this does is it just gives
me a mirror of what I'm doing with my
| | 01:38 | stylus, and in this case I've got it set up so
it's as if we're looking directly from above.
| | 01:43 | But you can already see how I can do
tilt in stylus, and when you also see the
| | 01:49 | tip mirrored on the screen itself,
it's showing me, basically, you know, the
| | 01:55 | attitude of the tip of the stylus, or
in this case the actual brush tip that
| | 02:00 | Photoshop is presenting.
| | 02:02 | So, when I start using this, if I'm
more or less straight up, I'm going to
| | 02:06 | get kind of a nice set of narrow lines and
in this case pressure is also changing things.
| | 02:12 | But once you start to use tilt, it
starts to use more and more of the edge of
| | 02:17 | the tip itself so that I get a much
fuller, thicker application of the paint.
| | 02:24 | And so, once you start to combine these,
just this one tip starts to have quite
| | 02:29 | a bit of variability within it.
| | 02:31 | But I want to show you where the
limitation begins, and to do that I'm going to
| | 02:36 | switch to an asymmetrical tip.
| | 02:38 | So we're going to go down here and
select a Fan brush, and I'll change colors
| | 02:45 | just so we get a good sense of difference here.
| | 02:48 | So now this pen, you can see it's an
asymmetrical tip, and I still have my tilt
| | 02:54 | and my bearing, but what's going to
happen here, you'll notice that when I start
| | 02:58 | to draw, is that I can't
change the angle of the tip itself.
| | 03:05 | So if I want a wide stroke this way, I
really don't have a way to get a wide
| | 03:11 | stroke in this angle.
| | 03:12 | So, that's where the limitation of
this lies, and the best advice I can give
| | 03:17 | you is, this tip is great as long as you
stick with symmetrical tips, like a round tip.
| | 03:22 | But once you start getting into the
world of asymmetrical tips like a Fan brush
| | 03:28 | is, you're going to sense that limitation.
| | 03:31 | Capable of sensing five of the six
degrees of freedom, the Grip Pen will satisfy
| | 03:36 | most casual users' needs. And hey,
| | 03:38 | it didn't cost any extra.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Art Pen| 00:01 | The Grip Pen, the Art Pen, and the
Airbrush Pen all have 2048 levels of
| | 00:07 | pressure and an eraser tip.
| | 00:09 | In addition to the 5 degrees of
freedom that the standard Grip Pen and
| | 00:13 | the Airbrush Pen feature, the Art Pen adds
the 6th degree of freedom, Barrel Rotation.
| | 00:18 | The Art Pen is capable of capturing all of
the combined motions of the artist's hand.
| | 00:25 | As such, the Art Pen is the stylus to
have for maximum, expressive mark making.
| | 00:31 | Because the stylus senses barrel
rotation, it's perfectly matched with
| | 00:35 | non-symmetric dab shapes. Let's take a look.
| | 00:38 | So, I've now got the Art Pen in my
hand, and I've got a Fan Brush here, so we
| | 00:45 | can see that it's an asymmetrical tip,
and if you look at the little 3D model
| | 00:51 | up in the upper left, you can see
that as well as tilt and bearing, what is
| | 00:57 | different here is, when I rotate this
pen in my hand, it's literally rotating
| | 01:02 | the shape of the brush as well.
| | 01:05 | So, what this means, unlike the Grip Pen,
if I want to get a wide line in this
| | 01:10 | dimension and a wide line in this
dimension, I can, and alternatively, if I want
| | 01:15 | to get a narrow shape and a
narrow shape in these angles, I can.
| | 01:21 | So, whatever angle of the shape I
want to paint with, it's available to me,
| | 01:26 | and because of that, it just really makes it
the ultimate in expressive brush capabilities.
| | 01:35 | What I want to emphasize here is when
you do use this, at first it's kind of
| | 01:39 | this parlor trick of oh, wow I can
change this shape, and you'll be conscious of
| | 01:43 | it for awhile, but the real effect you
should have over time is that you don't
| | 01:49 | even think about it.
| | 01:50 | You use it and you'll naturally
acclimate to the fact that the varying rotation
| | 01:55 | in your hand, as well as tilt and
bearing, all add up to give a single pen, or a
| | 02:01 | single brush in this case,
a wide variety of shape.
| | 02:04 | Just looking at what I've done on
the screen, that's all one brush doing
| | 02:08 | that, and yet there is a very wide
variety of expression throughout all of
| | 02:12 | the different lines.
| | 02:14 | Now the other thing I want to point out
about this pen is I want to compare it
| | 02:19 | to the Grip Pen, and if you look at
these two pens, they are almost identical.
| | 02:26 | The Art Pen does have a slightly fatter
shape at the tip, but still, if these are
| | 02:31 | just laying around, I can tell you
from experience, it's very easy to pick up
| | 02:34 | the Grip Pen and start working and
realize oh, I don't have barrel rotation.
| | 02:39 | So there's something you can do.
| | 02:41 | I generally will do it to the Grip Pen.
| | 02:45 | There is a little accessory that will
come with your Cintiq or Wacom tablet, and
| | 02:50 | it's this little plastic baggy with
these little rings in it, and I've pulled
| | 02:54 | out the red one in this case, right
here, and what you can do is you just
| | 02:59 | unscrew this flange, and then we take this, we
put it in here, and then we just screw it back on.
| | 03:13 | Now, we have a visual identifier, so
now these two pens have an obvious
| | 03:18 | difference that they didn't have before.
| | 03:21 | So, this is just a very simple way to
keep your Art Pen and Grip Pen in the same
| | 03:25 | environment, but not run into,
you know, which one am I using.
| | 03:29 | It'll be obvious to you with that
little red flange associated with the Grip Pen.
| | 03:33 | If you've never experienced
the Art Pen, you won't miss it.
| | 03:38 | But once you have, you'll never
want to return to the Grip Pen.
| | 03:42 | The ability to rotate non-symmetric
brush tips adds a whole new level of
| | 03:46 | expressiveness to your brush strokes.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The Airbrush| 00:01 | The Airbrush Pen is a specialty stylus
aimed at replicating the ergonomics of a
| | 00:05 | traditional dual-action airbrush.
| | 00:08 | Traditional airbrush technique
utilizes a choreography of airflow, color
| | 00:12 | volume, and distance.
| | 00:14 | The Airbrush Pen replicates this
style of control, which requires practice
| | 00:18 | to become proficient.
| | 00:20 | It's a little bit like patting your head
and rubbing your stomach at the same time.
| | 00:24 | Let's go ahead and take a look.
| | 00:26 | Now this is the pen itself, and you'll
see it is a rather unusual shape, and you
| | 00:30 | may be asking why does it look like this
with this little porpoise-like appendage on it.
| | 00:35 | A traditional airbrush typically will
have an extension in the way it's built,
| | 00:40 | so that it can handle the connection
of a typical air hose, and it also often
| | 00:46 | will have a receptacle here so that you
can attach a small container containing
| | 00:51 | either ink or paint.
| | 00:52 | The other thing that's unique about the
Airbrush Pen is that it has this little
| | 00:56 | wheel on it, and what this wheel does
is emulates a traditional airbrush's
| | 01:02 | needle valve, which works in concert
with the fact that you have this air
| | 01:06 | blowing through it and by creating a
slight vacuum, it's able to start sucking
| | 01:10 | up the spray of the paint, and it atomizes and
sprays it out into a very fine mist pattern.
| | 01:18 | But what the needle valve does is, as
you close it, it more and more closes up
| | 01:24 | the flow of the paint, and as a result,
you can go from no paint all the way to
| | 01:31 | full open paint, and then you have
all of the variability in between that.
| | 01:35 | So, that's basically what this does.
| | 01:39 | Let's take a little look at how this works.
| | 01:41 | So, I've got my pen here and at first
it looks very normal, and we'll just spray
| | 01:45 | a little bit here, and like a
traditional airbrush, to emulate distance from the
| | 01:51 | surface as I press down more and more,
I'm emulating the distance from the
| | 01:56 | surface, and that may look like a very
fine line, but you literally can get an
| | 02:00 | airbrush so close that you literally do
reduce it down to that narrow of a line.
| | 02:05 | The other thing that we were
talking about here was the actual wheel.
| | 02:10 | As I adjust this wheel, you can see
how I can subtly slow down my spray till
| | 02:16 | it's completely gone.
| | 02:20 | The third thing, and this is probably
the most interesting property of this, is
| | 02:24 | that using tilt, you can see how that
shape is going from just a perfectly
| | 02:30 | circular spray pattern, I'll do a
little bit here, to a very elliptical pattern,
| | 02:40 | and that kind of falloff of density
is very, a signature look of traditional
| | 02:48 | airbrush art, because what's happening
is, the closest part of the airbrush is
| | 02:53 | applying the most amount of spray.
| | 02:55 | But as you get farther and farther,
you start to get less and less of a spray
| | 03:00 | pattern until it tapers off to nothing.
| | 03:02 | So, this ability to use this tilt
becomes very germane to the way an
| | 03:07 | actual airbrush will work.
| | 03:10 | Another important point is that the
standard Grip Pen uses tilted pressure, which
| | 03:14 | is quite capable of controlled
airbrush technique on its own.
| | 03:17 | The airbrush pen is aimed
at a very specific audience.
| | 03:21 | If you are a member of that
audience, you'll appreciate this stylus.
| | 03:25 | Most artists, however, are not
going to find this style of control
| | 03:28 | life changing.
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| Utilizing the eraser tip| 00:01 | We're used to having an eraser on
our pencils, it makes a lot of sense to
| | 00:05 | combine both mark making and
mark removal in the same instrument.
| | 00:08 | Make a mistake, and the eraser is
handily accessible for correction.
| | 00:13 | Wacom took advantage of this form
factor, and places a so-called eraser tip on
| | 00:17 | the opposite end of the pointed stylus.
| | 00:19 | So, the eraser to a behavior is
application-specific, and what I mean by that is,
| | 00:25 | when I utilize the eraser tip, say in
Photoshop or SketchBook Pro, it always is going
| | 00:32 | to be eraser, you can't change its behavior.
| | 00:35 | Painter, on the other hand, is a
little more of forgiving, and it allows you
| | 00:38 | actually switch over to the eraser
tip, select a new, say, a brush, and then it
| | 00:45 | sticks to the eraser tip end.
| | 00:47 | So I could be moving between one type
of brush with my normal tip, and then I
| | 00:52 | could quickly switch around and have the
other tip doing some other kind of mark-
| | 00:56 | making activity, and that can be useful.
| | 00:59 | So I'm just going to do a little eraser
here, just so we can see how this works.
| | 01:04 | So I'm now on my eraser tip end, and
you can see here I can go head and
| | 01:08 | erase wherever I need to.
| | 01:10 | And in fact, you know, sometimes you
can actually use an eraser as a mark-
| | 01:14 | making tool. There are times where, say for
highlights, I might want to actually use
| | 01:18 | an eraser remove density.
| | 01:20 | Now, Painter has a slightly different
take on this, and let's jump over to
| | 01:23 | Painter to demonstrate that.
| | 01:26 | In Painter, I can be painting with a brush,
| | 01:30 | but I can also flip over the eraser tip,
and I can choose some other brush, some
| | 01:35 | other medium, I'll take a Blender for example
here, and we'll just select Just Add Water.
| | 01:42 | Now this brush is a blender, okay.
| | 01:46 | But I can instantly go back now to my
red brush, and I can quickly change back
| | 01:53 | to the Blender Brush.
| | 01:54 | So this literally gives me two active
brushes, one at either end, and just by
| | 01:59 | switching from one end to the other, I
can alternate between, in this case, the
| | 02:04 | smeary brush and the regular paintbrush.
| | 02:09 | Depending on the experience you bring
to digital mark making apps, you may or
| | 02:13 | may not find the eraser tip all the
useful, but the inclusion of the eraser tip on
| | 02:18 | Wacom pens displays a thoughtful
functionality that makes a lot of sense.
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| Nibs: Tires for your stylus| 00:01 | Each of us have a distinct sense of touch.
| | 00:03 | Some people are described as heavy-handed.
| | 00:06 | Others are described as having a light touch.
| | 00:09 | When it comes to mark-making
instruments, the interface between an artist's
| | 00:13 | expressive gestures and the actual
mark made is the instrument's point of
| | 00:17 | contact with the mark-making surface.
| | 00:19 | Wacom realizes this and provides
various pen nibs in order to offer various
| | 00:24 | point of contact experiences.
| | 00:27 | In fact, you may have a set of these
various nibs to try out and not even know it.
| | 00:31 | Let's find out where they are.
| | 00:34 | If you are either a Cintiq or a
Wacom owner, you received along with your
| | 00:38 | stylus, this little holder that you
use to kind of keep your pen at bay when
| | 00:43 | you're not using it.
| | 00:44 | Well, if we take this little holder and
unscrew it, there are a set of nibs in here.
| | 00:51 | So, they supply you with a full set of
replacements as well as some optional nibs.
| | 00:57 | There are a set of five of the
standard nibs that are in the pen when you get
| | 01:02 | it, and the thing about these is, even
though they are made of a Teflon-like
| | 01:06 | material, over time they are going to
wear out and you want to make sure that
| | 01:11 | once it gets kind of flat and it
starts to be a little more difficult to use,
| | 01:15 | that you inspect it and if it looks like it
needs changing, just use one of these nibs.
| | 01:20 | Also there are some felt nibs, and the
thing about the felt nibs is the surface
| | 01:26 | of them is a little bit more abrasive,
and when you use this in concert with the
| | 01:32 | surface, it gives a little bit more
of an abrasive feel like a pencil has.
| | 01:37 | So for pencil users, you might
be interested in these felt nibs.
| | 01:40 | And here's also this little guy right here.
| | 01:44 | This one has a bit of a spring in it,
and the spring gives just a little bit, and
| | 01:50 | for mediums like Pro Quill Pen, when
you use those, there's a little bit of
| | 01:55 | spring in them, and this
provides that same kind of sensation.
| | 01:59 | So, depending on the kind of medium you
use, you may find an alternate nib style
| | 02:04 | to be useful for your work.
| | 02:07 | Now, you may be asking, how
do I get a nib out of here?
| | 02:11 | And that's what the center area of this is for.
| | 02:14 | It has this little circular device,
which is essentially just a little tweezer,
| | 02:19 | and so I can take my stylus and just
insert the nib point in there, hold it
| | 02:24 | together, and pull, and that pulls out
the nib. And then to replace it, we just
| | 02:30 | select another nib, and we go ahead
and you just put it inside here, in the
| | 02:38 | receptacle, and just press down till it's kind of,
you'll sense the resistance, that's where
| | 02:44 | it's installed, and then you've got your new nib.
| | 02:47 | And this is basically held in here by just
a little bit of tension in the receptacle.
| | 02:51 | So, once you have this, you are now
able to try out a different type of nib.
| | 02:57 | While pen nibs may seem like a small
thing, and as we see they physically are,
| | 03:02 | they are very much like auto tires.
| | 03:05 | You need to change them when they
wear out, and the different threads are
| | 03:08 | available for varying feedback to the user.
| | 03:11 | Nibs are the ultimate customization
feature of a stylus, serving to provide the
| | 03:15 | best interface between your
emotions and expressive marks.
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|
|
6. Work Out with Tablet CalisthenicsAn intro to tablet calisthenics| 00:01 | The key to tablet mastery
is eye-hand coordination.
| | 00:05 | Some folks have no problem with
this, and others find it frustrating.
| | 00:09 | It all comes down to practice.
| | 00:11 | So I've develop a set of exercises
that start out gently and progress
| | 00:16 | towards greater facility.
| | 00:18 | If tablets, pens, and pressure
sensitivity are new to you, then you'll want to
| | 00:22 | start out with the beginner lesson.
| | 00:24 | On the other hand, if you have some
tablet experience under your belt, then
| | 00:28 | you'll want to start your workout with the
intermediate lesson and work your way up to master.
| | 00:34 | I've been using tablets for over
25 years and I still practice these
| | 00:37 | exercises to warm up.
| | 00:39 | Now, roll up your sleeves and let's
get your eyes and hands sweating in a bit.
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| Tablet calisthenics: Beginner exercises| 00:01 | If you are new to tablets, then
you're probably going to find out that the
| | 00:05 | tablet's Absolute Mode is in direct
opposition to the manner in which your
| | 00:09 | muscle memory currently
engages the screen cursor.
| | 00:13 | The exercises in this video are
designed to begin to retrain your muscle memory
| | 00:18 | with Absolute Mode in mind.
| | 00:21 | You can reference your Exercise
Files for this example tablet workout.
| | 00:25 | Before we get started, I'm going to
give you the lay of the land here.
| | 00:29 | We happen to be in Corel Painter, and
I'm using the Scratch Board Tool, which is
| | 00:33 | an excellent tool for
doing this kind of exercise.
| | 00:37 | If you don't have Painter, basically
you just want a pen that goes from a very
| | 00:43 | fine point to about 3.5 as I have set
here, or 4, that is able to express that
| | 00:50 | full range through pressure from the
finest size up to the maximum size.
| | 00:55 | Also, you're probably going to want
to go in here and create a layer on top
| | 01:00 | of this exercise file, because you
don't want to destroy the exercise file,
| | 01:05 | and by doing this on a layer
rather than on the actual surface of the
| | 01:09 | exercise file itself, you'll save
yourself from accidentally perhaps saving
| | 01:14 | this with your scribbling on it.
| | 01:17 | The other thing I'm going to do is I'm
just going to switch to red here, so that
| | 01:21 | it stands out a little bit more
against the black, and I'm going to go, finally,
| | 01:25 | to full screen mode.
| | 01:26 | Now this is very simple.
| | 01:28 | Basically, we're going to connect the
dots, and in this case it's just going to be
| | 01:33 | basically following this along, you
don't have to keep your hand on the tablet
| | 01:39 | the entire time, we're not worried at
all in this case about the thickness of
| | 01:45 | the pen at all, we're just completing the dots.
| | 01:48 | And the reason for this is, this is
just a really good way for you to get
| | 01:52 | yourself acclimated to Absolute Mode.
| | 01:54 | And this is where, where your hand and
pen are on the tablet are where you're
| | 02:01 | going to be on the surface of
your screen and in this exercise.
| | 02:06 | So that's the first one.
| | 02:08 | The next one gets into diagonals, which
start to introduce another little twist.
| | 02:13 | I won't be necessarily go through
and complete every one of these,
| | 02:16 | I'll go far enough so you
can just see what this is.
| | 02:19 | Basically, it's this saw tooth pattern.
| | 02:21 | So you want to go through and try this
out, and I'm fairly facile with this, so
| | 02:27 | what you're seeing here is what you
want to aspire to, and you may find this
| | 02:31 | very difficult at first.
| | 02:32 | In fact, I recommend that you try this
with a mouse after you've done this a few
| | 02:37 | times and I think you'll already start
to see that the pen in Absolute Mode is a
| | 02:43 | much better way to do this.
| | 02:45 | Finally, I have this little star, and
I've got all these numbered, so basically
| | 02:51 | it's just a connect the dots exercise,
and I've got four of them here, once again,
| | 02:58 | I won't go through in this case.
| | 03:00 | But this is just so you can
practice it multiple times.
| | 03:06 | Practice these exercises until
using the pen begins to feel natural.
| | 03:10 | This may take some time, but once
you get comfortable, move on to the
| | 03:13 | intermediate exercises.
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| Tablet calisthenics: Intermediate exercises| 00:01 | This set of exercises assumes that you
have some existing pen and tablet experience.
| | 00:07 | If you don't, go to the
previous beginner lesson.
| | 00:10 | We'll cover basic up and down motion,
as well as utilize your signature to
| | 00:14 | strengthen your eye-hand coordination.
| | 00:17 | You can reference your Exercise
Files for this example tablet workout.
| | 00:22 | Now, to begin, we're going to use your
signature as a means of just starting to
| | 00:26 | adapt to using something that you're
very familiar with as a means of getting
| | 00:32 | used to transferring your already
existing muscle memory to the tablet.
| | 00:38 | So what I'll often do is I'll just
sit and keep repeating my signature over
| | 00:43 | and over, until what happens
essentially is it becomes nothing more than kind
| | 00:47 | of an abstract pattern.
| | 00:50 | But the fact that you're using
something you already have really good
| | 00:54 | muscle memory for, is a good way to start to
transfer that kind of feel onto the tablet.
| | 01:01 | Once you've played around with that
for a while, I want you to progress to
| | 01:05 | starting to use this lined ruled paper,
which I provide for you in the Exercise folder.
| | 01:13 | We're going to start with just a simple
up and down exercise here, and the idea
| | 01:19 | is, you want to kind of gain speed
over time, and try to keep the tops and
| | 01:23 | bottoms basically at the top
and bottom of the ruled line.
| | 01:27 | You're not going to be perfect, and you
can see I'm not either, but the idea is,
| | 01:31 | you're starting to use eye-hand
coordination to develop that sense of being able
| | 01:36 | to stop at the tops and
bottoms of those lines within reason.
| | 01:40 | Next, we're going to do the
same thing, but now we're going to
| | 01:43 | introduce pressure.
| | 01:44 | So I'm going to begin very lightly, and
then I start to build up pressure and
| | 01:50 | then I reverse it, and I go down to light
pressure and then back up to a heavy pressure.
| | 01:56 | So, now we're starting to juggle a
couple balls here, where you're both trying to
| | 02:01 | keep your eye-hand coordination going,
as well as introducing the changing
| | 02:05 | pressure with your hand and the
way that you're applying the stylus.
| | 02:10 | The next one is a little bit like a seismogram.
| | 02:13 | It starts large, and then it gets
smaller, and then it gets larger, and then it
| | 02:19 | gets smaller, and we just
repeat this over and over.
| | 02:25 | And the idea, once again, is you're
developing eye-hand coordination in the way that
| | 02:31 | you are altering the sizes of those
lines as you continually repeat them.
| | 02:36 | Okay, let's up the ante a little bit,
and this time we're going to use our pen
| | 02:43 | but we're going to go down to a small
light line, and then go back up to a heavy line.
| | 02:50 | So now we're changing size as well
as changing pressure at the same time.
| | 02:56 | And you may want to try playing with
this the opposite way, start light and then
| | 02:59 | go to a heavy pressure.
| | 03:03 | Okay, so now for this final one you
don't necessarily need to use the ruled
| | 03:06 | lines, but what I do is I go from large
to small and back, and I just keep doing
| | 03:13 | this, and you'll notice that what this
does is it kind of creates a diamond shape,
| | 03:19 | and once you've made a few of these, you
can start to start another row and nest
| | 03:25 | it within the last one.
| | 03:31 | Again, all of these are basically
aimed at applying eye-hand coordination to
| | 03:37 | make these things happen.
| | 03:42 | You may find some of these exercises
to be a bit more difficult to master.
| | 03:46 | If so, focus on
practicing these harder examples.
| | 03:50 | Once you're comfortable with these
exercises, you can move on to the
| | 03:53 | advanced tablet workout.
| | 03:55 | Remember, no pain, no gain.
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| Tablet calisthenics: Advanced exercises| 00:01 | In these advanced set of exercises,
we'll start utilizing circular motions to up
| | 00:06 | the eye-hand coordination ante.
| | 00:09 | As before, I recommend warming up
repeatedly by signing your own signature.
| | 00:14 | You can reference your Exercise
Files for this example tablet workout.
| | 00:18 | Now, this one is going to get a
little difficult for some people, and it's
| | 00:23 | basically just doing a
circular motion repeatedly.
| | 00:26 | So you're going to go basically like
this, and as before, the idea is to pretty
| | 00:31 | much try to stay
close to being in the lines.
| | 00:34 | And I recommend too that you may
want to try this going both clockwise
| | 00:42 | and counter-clockwise.
| | 00:44 | I'm left-handed and I tend to be a
little bit more fluid with the other
| | 00:48 | direction, I just -- so you can see
how this direction is not my favorite
| | 00:52 | direction, I need some practice.
| | 00:55 | Okay, next we're going to repeat this
exercise, but as we've done before, we're
| | 01:01 | going to change pressure as we do it.
| | 01:04 | So you're going to go hard, and then soft,
and then back up to hard, back down to soft.
| | 01:10 | So as we've stated before, the whole
idea here is that all of these exercises
| | 01:19 | are increasing your ability to control
your hand with your eye to be able to
| | 01:25 | properly understand exactly how
you make the marks on the screen.
| | 01:30 | And once you've built this into your
system, you won't even think about it
| | 01:34 | anymore, it'll become totally unconscious.
| | 01:36 | Right now these can seem rather conscious.
| | 01:39 | Okay this one gets a little more interesting.
| | 01:42 | We're going to go from round to oval, and
then back out to round, and back down to oval.
| | 01:54 | So here we're learning how to
change shapes as we're drawing.
| | 02:00 | Now the final one is the one that
probably is going to throw you for the biggest
| | 02:06 | loop, and this one we'll stay doing an
oval, but we're going to do is change
| | 02:13 | orientation as we go.
| | 02:16 | So it's kind of like it's bouncing
along almost, it just keeps alternating the
| | 02:22 | angle that you're making the actual oval in.
| | 02:27 | These exercises may seem repetitious,
but the practice will pay off in terms of
| | 02:31 | developing your eye-hand coordination.
| | 02:34 | Remember, practice makes perfect.
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| Tablet calisthenics: Master exercises| 00:03 | This will be your black belt. Plus, you'll
master a cool flourish that makes a great doodle.
| | 00:09 | This loop-to-loop figure begins to
incorporate many of the motions employed in a signature.
| | 00:15 | You can reference your Exercise
Files for this example tablet workout.
| | 00:18 | So, the loop-to-loop actually starts out
fairly simple, and let's just do a line of them here.
| | 00:26 | And basically, you are just repeating
this loop figure, and as always, try to
| | 00:37 | keep them in the lines, as you can
see I'm purposely doing these a bit
| | 00:41 | primitive, so that yours
will look better than mine.
| | 00:46 | Now, here's where it gets pretty difficult,
this takes a while for people to get use to doing.
| | 00:53 | What we're going to do here, I'm going
to kind of give a little space to do this,
| | 00:58 | is you're going to change size as you
do it, so you are going to go like this,
| | 01:07 | and just keep doing it, and as I said,
once you master this it makes kind of cool
| | 01:11 | little doodle you can do on the sides
of your notes while you're in a meeting
| | 01:15 | that's boring, or just anywhere.
| | 01:19 | And the last one I'm going to show you,
and this is the one that really get's
| | 01:24 | kind of interesting, is this is
similar to what we did before.
| | 01:27 | We are going to go ahead and we're going to
make these, and you can see as a previous
| | 01:33 | exercise we did, these kind of have a
little bit of a diamond shape, so the next
| | 01:39 | thing you're going to want to do once
you start doing these is you start to nest
| | 01:43 | them into one another.
| | 01:47 | And just keep repeating it.
| | 01:50 | So, this is where, once you get to
this level of being able to do this, you're
| | 01:54 | really kind of taking all of the
things we've been practicing in the other
| | 01:58 | exercises and putting it all to use in here.
| | 02:05 | Practice these exercises regularly,
particularly before painting and drawing
| | 02:09 | to loosen up your hand. I do these all the
time, even when I'm writing with pen and paper,
| | 02:15 | as a means of improving
the fluidity of my stroke.
| | 02:18 | Remember, the journey is the reward.
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|
|
7. Working with the CintiqSetting up the Cintiq| 00:01 | It's important to install the hardware
before installing the software, or else
| | 00:04 | your Cintiq may not work properly.
| | 00:07 | The first thing you want to do is open up the
display back panels and check the connections.
| | 00:12 | If they're not tight, tighten them.
| | 00:14 | On the back of the base, there is
a panel that you have to unscrew.
| | 00:19 | Inside, you'll find multiple
cable options for your video input.
| | 00:23 | Choose the input cable
appropriate for your video card.
| | 00:27 | In this case, we're using the DVI cable.
| | 00:30 | There are some minimum system requirements.
| | 00:32 | For Windows, it must be Windows 7 or
later, 32 or 64-bit configuration, DVI,
| | 00:39 | DisplayPort, or VGA port,
available USB port and CD-ROM drive.
| | 00:46 | For the Mac operating system, you'll
need Mac OS X version 10.5.8 or later,
| | 00:52 | Intel-based platforms only are supported.
| | 00:55 | You'll need a DVI, DisplayPort, or VGA
port, or an appropriate Mini DisplayPort
| | 01:01 | to DVI Adapter, an available
USB port and a CD-ROM drive.
| | 01:07 | To begin the setup of your
hardware, first turn off the computer.
| | 01:11 | Then, determine the video port type on
your computer and make the connection.
| | 01:17 | For the best results, connect the
Cintiq to a DVID or DisplayPort Card.
| | 01:23 | Connect the Cintiq USB cable located
in the base of the stand to an available
| | 01:27 | USB port on your computer.
| | 01:30 | Next, connect the power adapter to the
display stand extension cable for power.
| | 01:37 | Connect the adapter power cable
and plug it into an AC outlet.
| | 01:43 | Turn on the Pen Display using the on-
off switch behind the right side of
| | 01:47 | the display surface.
| | 01:50 | Now, you can turn on your computer.
| | 01:53 | The interactive pen display will
automatically install as a default monitor.
| | 02:00 | As necessary, configure the Display
Control Panel Settings for the proper Size
| | 02:05 | and Color Resolution.
| | 02:07 | Now that the hardware is setup,
we'll install the Cintiq driver software.
| | 02:12 | Save any work that you have
and close all applications.
| | 02:17 | Next, insert the installation CD
into your computer's CD-ROM drive.
| | 02:22 | You may want to check the web for
updates, as the CD version may be out of date.
| | 02:27 | Then, click Install Tablet and follow
the prompts to install the driver software.
| | 02:36 | Check to see that you can use your pen on the
Cintiq display to move the screen cursor. And that's it!
| | 02:43 | As you can see, the Cintiq is set up a
bit more involved than the Intuos or
| | 02:47 | Bamboo, which only require a
simple USB connection to operate.
| | 02:52 | Now you're ready to enter the
amazing world of the Cintiq.
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| Positioning the Cintiq for your working style| 00:01 | Because the Cintiq pen display
combines the drawing surface with the display
| | 00:05 | into a single device, its placement
considerations are very different than that of a tablet.
| | 00:11 | The first thing you need to know is that
this device is heavy, 63.9 pounds to be exact.
| | 00:17 | As such, you won't be moving it around much.
| | 00:20 | The good news is that the Cintiq comes
with a heavy-duty adjustable stand that
| | 00:25 | accommodates a wide range of positioning.
| | 00:27 | So first of all, you need to realize
that you're going to want a required
| | 00:32 | working space for this.
| | 00:34 | It's not something you are going to
easily move around, and there are two
| | 00:37 | basic working styles.
| | 00:39 | The first style I call is the drawing
style, and this is where your palm is
| | 00:43 | supported on the surface.
| | 00:45 | And in order to get there, we need to
make an adjustment to this, and you'll see
| | 00:49 | this is rotating on here, but right now
I can bring it down to a very low angle,
| | 00:57 | and in this situation its very much
also its like working at a drafting table,
| | 01:01 | where I can be drawing and resting my
hands on it, no problem, and the Cintiq is
| | 01:06 | fully designed to support your weight
on here, you don't want to stand on it
| | 01:10 | certainly, but you can easily rest your
palms on here and you're not going to
| | 01:15 | cause any damage or any surface
degradation to the surface itself.
| | 01:21 | The second style is what I call the
painting style, and this is where only the
| | 01:25 | pen point is touching the screen, and in
this case we want to raise this up, and
| | 01:31 | you heard that little snap back there,
there's actually a lever back here that
| | 01:34 | you use to lock and unlock this.
| | 01:36 | When it's in this position now, I can go
ahead and adjust this very much like an easel.
| | 01:41 | So if I want to work on it, stay like
this, I could be working and actually
| | 01:46 | working on it almost like I'm painting on a canvas.
| | 01:50 | So these are the two basic styles you can use.
| | 01:54 | The Cintiq resides at the top of
Wacom's product line for a reason.
| | 01:58 | It's the Ferrari of digital
express mark-making technology.
| | 02:02 | And its highly accommodating stand
makes personal placement a joy to use.
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| Optically aligning the Cintiq| 00:01 | When you first get your Cintiq, there's
a couple of things you have to do.
| | 00:05 | One of those is optical alignment,
and that's what we're going to do here.
| | 00:09 | I want to show you what I mean by this.
| | 00:12 | When you first get the tablet,
it's likely that you're going to see a
| | 00:15 | situation like this.
| | 00:16 | I have my cursor on screen and I
have my pen down here, but you can see
| | 00:20 | they're not matching up, and so when I
draw, there's this offset, and that can
| | 00:26 | get quite disconcerting.
| | 00:27 | I could certainly use this, but it isn't
very accurate, and where it really makes
| | 00:33 | a difference is, if I'd go up here and
try to click on this, you see what I'm
| | 00:37 | doing, instead of actually addressing
that interface element I'm just making a
| | 00:41 | point sample down here that has nothing
to do with selecting, so I've got to
| | 00:46 | offset to get to that UI element.
| | 00:48 | So what we need to do then is to
properly align the pen and cursor alignment.
| | 00:54 | We're going to go down here to the Wacom
Preferences, and you can see right there it's offset.
| | 01:01 | What I want to do then to get to this is
go to your Pen, and you're going to
| | 01:06 | go to the Calibration tab, and
this can be a bit confusing.
| | 01:09 | When I see the word Calibration, I
think of color calibration, which we will
| | 01:13 | be doing a little later, but right now this
is really Calibration calibrating the pen.
| | 01:18 | I prefer to call it optical
alignment, but you'll see how this works here.
| | 01:22 | So we're going to say Calibrate, and
this brings up a screen where we now have a
| | 01:27 | target to put the pen at, and what
you want to do here is put your head
| | 01:32 | positioned where you're normally going
to be working because it's all about how
| | 01:37 | your location is going to
make this alignment work.
| | 01:41 | So I'm now in the position that I would
normally be using this, and I'm going to
| | 01:46 | go up and I'm just going to visually
put my pen from my eye location to the
| | 01:52 | center of that point, and I'm going to go
through and do that for all four points
| | 01:56 | in each corner, and let's go ahead and say OK.
| | 02:03 | Okay, now when I'm drawing, it
looks exactly consistent to me.
| | 02:11 | Anybody else watching this, it might
look as if it's not in the right position,
| | 02:16 | but for the user it is, and that's the
important critical setup that you want to have.
| | 02:24 | Aligning your screen cursor and pen
position will ensure accuracy while
| | 02:28 | working on the Cintiq.
| | 02:29 | This process is painless and will only
need to be performed when you are making
| | 02:34 | a big adjustment to your
Cintiqs or your position.
| | 02:37 | As I like to say, an
aligned Cintiq is a happy Cintiq.
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| Color calibrating your Cintiq display| 00:01 | The LED backlit panel of the Cintiq
24HD Touch is a wide gamut display capable
| | 00:08 | of displaying 97% of Adobe RGB color
space, which makes it capable of working in
| | 00:14 | a pro-color managed working environment.
| | 00:17 | If you are going to use the Cintiq in a
color-managed workflow, then you'll need
| | 00:21 | to color calibrate the display to
ensure color accuracy between it, other color
| | 00:26 | managed displays, and printed output.
| | 00:29 | This is accomplished with the Wacom
Color Calibration Software, included on the
| | 00:34 | Cintiq Software CD that comes with the Cintiq.
| | 00:38 | There are many display
sensors that are supported.
| | 00:40 | We're using the MonacoOptix XR.
| | 00:44 | So, I've got an image on here and it
looks nice and colorful, but I have no idea
| | 00:50 | at this point if these are the correct
colors, because currently the Cintiq is
| | 00:55 | not set up to be color management, so
we're going to go through that process.
| | 00:58 | Now, the first thing we're going to
do is step over to the side here, and on
| | 01:03 | the left upper edge, there is a USB
port, so I'm going to plug my color
| | 01:08 | calibrator into there.
| | 01:10 | Now that it's in there, when we launch
the software, it will know that it is
| | 01:15 | actually part of the process.
| | 01:17 | So, let's put it up here and start that process.
| | 01:21 | I've got the color calibration
software over here on my second monitor,
| | 01:25 | i'll click it, and it's telling me it's
detected the MonacoOptix, it's ready to calibrate.
| | 01:33 | So, what we get here is, it's
telling me the Cintiq is not calibrated, so
| | 01:39 | we're going to say OK.
| | 01:40 | And it just gives us a few facts about the
particular calibration we're going to do to it.
| | 01:50 | You do get some options here so if you
have some specific settings you want, you
| | 01:54 | can choose among these.
| | 01:55 | I'm going to be doing photo editing
so I'm just going to leave it there, and
| | 01:59 | we'll go ahead and say Calibrate, and
you may get a warning or two, just go
| | 02:03 | ahead and say OK to that.
| | 02:06 | And now, it's telling me, Place the
calibration sensor on the flat surface and
| | 02:11 | it wants it to be right here so let's
set that up, and then down in the lower
| | 02:17 | left corner here we'll hit Continue, and
now the Calibration Process will begin.
| | 02:25 | So, if you're interested in watching it,
you can, it's just going to present a
| | 02:29 | number of color targets that will be
read by the MonacoOptix in this case, and
| | 02:34 | use those to build the profile.
| | 02:37 | Normally, calibration
takes about five minutes or so.
| | 02:40 | Once you're finished, you can go
ahead and remove your Color Calibrator, and
| | 02:45 | what you will see is a Read-Out of
essentially what the calibrator determined
| | 02:51 | was the proper calibration.
| | 02:53 | Once that's done, you're free to go
ahead and close up the calibration software
| | 02:59 | You'll still have this on here to
let you know it's been calibrated,
| | 03:03 | you can see right here, Calibrated. And
normally, it tells you and will give you a
| | 03:07 | warning in advance when 14 days is
up so that you will be reminded to go
| | 03:13 | through this process
again. And basically, that's it.
| | 03:17 | Color calibration of the
Cintiq is crucial for accuracy in a
| | 03:21 | color-managed workflow.
| | 03:22 | If this isn't a requirement for you, or
you don't have color measuring hardware,
| | 03:26 | then you can alternatively use its
supplied factory calibration profile.
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| Utilizing the hardware keys| 00:01 | Being a sophisticated piece of hardware,
the Cintiq has a few functions that can
| | 00:05 | be quickly accessed via a trio of
physical buttons located in the upper right
| | 00:09 | hand surface of the display.
| | 00:11 | Unlike the ExpressKeys, which can be
reprogrammed to fit your individual work
| | 00:15 | flow, hardware keys address specific
functions that you want to have on hand at all times.
| | 00:21 | They cannot be reprogrammed.
| | 00:23 | Let's take a look at these
buttons and see what they do.
| | 00:25 | The info button calls up an onscreen
schematic displaying the current layout of
| | 00:31 | your ExpressKeys, click
wheels, and pen functions.
| | 00:35 | You can even change the functionality
of an ExpressKey or other button from
| | 00:39 | this info schematic, as long as touch is enabled.
| | 00:43 | The second button is an onscreen
keyboard that can be used when you don't
| | 00:47 | have a keyboard handy.
| | 00:49 | The third button toggles touch on and off.
| | 00:53 | This dedicated button makes it so
you don't have to go into your Wacom
| | 00:57 | preferences every time you
want to disable or enable touch.
| | 01:02 | By providing convenient access to the
Cintiq's settings, the hardware buttons are
| | 01:06 | yet another means to enable you
to focus on your creative workflow.
| | 01:10 | Quick adjustments to your hardware
setup are just a key press away.
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ConclusionNext steps| 00:01 | I hope you've enjoyed working your
way through Wacom Essential Training.
| | 00:05 | If you use either Photoshop or Painter,
you may be interested in taking a look
| | 00:09 | at some of my other courses in
the lynda.com Online Training Library.
| | 00:13 | In these titles, I go into the specific
features of each of these applications
| | 00:18 | that pertain to working with Wacom tablets.
| | 00:21 | The key to improving personal expression with
any creative tool is practice, and lots of it.
| | 00:28 | I can show you how to get the most out
of a pen and tablet, but the mastery of
| | 00:32 | these tools is up to you.
| | 00:33 | Good luck with your expressive
journey, and always remember that the journey
| | 00:38 | is the reward.
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