What Size Graphic Tablet Should I Get
Many creative workers consider a graphics tablet with a pressure-sensitive pen to be a must-have item. If you decide to purchase one, you may be wondering which size to get: small, medium, or large. The answer is not always what you expect.
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Getting Around on the Screen
When using a graphics tablet, you navigate around the screen differently than when using a mouse or trackpad. A mouse makes use of relative positioning, but a graphics tablet makes use of absolute positioning.
What does this imply?
When you move the pointer using a mouse or trackpad, it begins where you last let go of the mouse or lifted your finger from the trackpad. In other words, it moves in relation to its previous location. When you move the pointer using a stylus, it begins from the absolute coordinates on the tablet that match to the display.
This implies that if you place the stylus in the top right corner of the tablet’s active area, the pointer will go to the top right corner of the screen regardless of where you last left it. Because you’ll frequently be travelling over the full surface of a tablet only to move the pointer across the display, your hand may go considerably farther than it would with a mouse or trackpad.
Using a Small Tablet to Control a Large Screen
Whether you’re new to graphics tablets, you may ask if a larger display necessitates a larger tablet; nevertheless, most graphics tablets offer a lot better resolution than your display. Computer screens normally have a resolution of no more than 3000 lines over their full width or height, while Wacom claims that its Intuos Pro tablets have a resolution of 5080 lines in only one inch.
As a result, even a little tablet has more than enough resolution to manage every pixel on a normal 27-inch diagonal display (2560 1440 pixels), at least in terms of technology.
Using a Large Graphics Tablet
A huge graphics tablet may be ideal for you if you produce art on paper and canvas or want to create digital art using movements that move your full arm. If you want to use a graphics tablet to trace drawings or other physical work, the bigger tablet size is more likely to accommodate a whole sheet of paper.
But the huge size comes at a cost, and it’s not only that the Intuos Pro Large is almost twice as expensive as the Small. Large tablets are much larger than mousepads, so you’ll need to clear a lot of work space to accommodate one.
Wacom Intuos Pro tablet
The big Wacom Intuos Pro tablet measures 16.8 by 11.2 inches. A tablet that large may wind up fighting for desk space with your laptop, particularly if your keyboard includes a numeric keypad. If you’ll be utilising a big graphics tablet on a regular basis, you may want to relocate your keyboard to an under-desk keyboard tray.
Using a Small Graphics Tablet
The little tablet is at the opposite extreme of the tablet size spectrum. If you travel often or prefer to work in coffee shops and libraries, a tiny tablet is the most portable option. It’s simple to slip into a bag with your laptop since it’s flat, not merely compact. The tiny tablet size may be sufficient for a laptop display or a display with a low resolution, such as 1920 1080 pixels.
Small Tablet Uses
While a big tablet is normally required for digital painting and other work using arm-sized motions, a small tablet is frequently more than enough for layout or when the majority of your graphics editing comprises control points, transformation handles, and filters. You may easily zoom into the document to work with more accuracy when necessary.
Using a Medium Graphics Tablet
Although a tiny graphics tablet has more than enough resolution to accurately manipulate the pointer on a variety of screens, this does not indicate that a person can place the cursor as easily. As the tablet size decreases and the display size increases, you may find it more difficult to properly control the pointer since you must make smaller movements with your hand.
If you want to be able to manage precise pointer movements more readily, but the big tablet size is too large for your arm and available work space, choose the medium tablet size. While the medium Wacom Intuos Pro tablet is still portable, it is longer than a MacBook Pro and hence will not travel as readily as the tiny tablet size. But if it’s just going to sit on your desk, that’s not an issue.
Customizing a Tablet of Any Size
The software that comes with Wacom tablets allows you to customise how the active area of the tablet maps to your display. For example, if you require the vast active area of the large tablet for your artwork but it’s too big for web surfing and typical office duties, you may use the Wacom software to map simply a few square inches of the tablet to your full display.
If you have numerous screens, you may instruct the tablet to control just one of them, making precise changes simpler. When you want the stylus to function more like a mouse or trackpad, you may set the tablet to relative placement rather than absolute positioning.
ExpressKeys
Graphics tablets often contain shortcut buttons (referred to as ExpressKeys by Wacom), pop-up menus, or features such as the Wacom Touch Ring that allow you to scroll or alter settings such as opacity without having to reach for the keyboard. In the Wacom tablet software, you may modify what those features do. If you like utilising them, the medium and large tablet sizes contain additional ExpressKeys.
Making Your Final Choice
Starting with the medium size is a smart place to start when deciding on a tablet size. Go smaller if mobility is important, you don’t have much desk space, or you have a limited budget, and bigger if you’ll be utilising huge arm motions to make digital drawings or paintings, tracing whole pages of artwork, or you want more shortcut buttons on the tablet.
