Tablet Set-Up
How To Customize Your
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I keep the Eraser Feel at its normal setting.
I do change the switches on the side of the pen. I prefer to have the lower switch set to double click and the upper switch to open the Pop-up Menu.
I change the Tip Feel to a more firm setting because I press really hard when I am writing. If I had it at the soft end I would never see any variability in pressure sensitivity so I crank it up.
You can Double Click by tapping the pen twice on a radio button or Icon on your computer. I make the Double Click Distance larger than normal because I tend to miss from time to time.
Tablet Set-Up For The Pop-up Menu
A great thing about the Pen is that you can program the side buttons. When I press the top button on my pen in Photoshop a little dialogue box appears in the center of the screen.
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The box contains some common tools that I use frequently so I can select the tool I want without going to the Photoshop tool box. All I need to do it press the top side switch and this little menu of tools appears on my screen.
It just tends to make things a bit easier.
In my example I have the brush tool, the patch tool, the clone tool, the lasso tool and the default foreground/background colors in my pop-up menu. You can select anything you like – or not use it at all.
To add a keystroke you simply drop down the menu on the left and choose Keystroke. A box opens up and you type in the keystroke you want (b for Brush in Photoshop) and click OK. On the next screen you name the keystroke (Brush) and that is what appears when you press the pop-up menu button.
It is a great feature.
Tablet Set-Up for Switches and Scroll Wheel
This is where you program the buttons on your Graphire. The default setting are forward and backward (for Internet surfing, I imagine).
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I have changed mine to:
Left Button – Undo (Ctrl-Z)
Right Button – New Layer (Shift-Ctrl-N)
You can see that my selections for the left and right switches are noted on the Tablet Set-Up Screen.
This is done the same way as the Pop-up Menu.
You can also change the way the scroll wheel operates and that is self explanatory.
Intuos3 Tablet Set-Up
The Intuos tablet set-up screen is quite different from the Graphire tablet set-up screen. The reason for this is that the Intuos3 has more add-on brushes and more on-tablet options. In addition, you can customize how your Intuos acts with different programs.
This is, after all, a professional product.
Main Screen
The top three lines are Tablet, Tool and Application.
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The top line (Tablet)relates to the Intuos tablet(s) you have installed. You can see I have both the Intuos 6X8 and 4X5 on my system. In this case the 6X8 is selected.
The second line is Tool because the Intuos3 has a number of different tools you can add (Air Brush, 3D Art Pen, etc). What this means is that you can program how each tool reacts with each application. You do this one time and each time you use the tool it knows how to react.
The third line is Application. With this you can have your pen react differently in different applications. For instance, you may want the eraser to be an eraser in Photoshop but you want it to be a double click in Painter 3.
Further down are three tabs - Pen, Eraser and Mapping.
Tablet set-up for the Intuos Pen
The Pen tab is where you set up the various functions of your Intuos pen. In this example I have the Tip Feel higher than normal, the Tilt Sensitivity normal and I have changed the side switches to the way I prefer.
Main Screen
The top three lines are Tablet, Tool and Application.
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The top line (Tablet)relates to the Intuos tablet(s) you have installed. You can see I have both the Intuos 6X8 and 4X5 on my system. In this case the 6X8 is selected.
The second line is Tool because the Intuos3 has a number of different tools you can add (Air Brush, 3D Art Pen, etc). What this means is that you can program how each tool reacts with each application. You do this one time and each time you use the tool it knows how to react.
The third line is Application. With this you can have your pen react differently in different applications. For instance, you may want the eraser to be an eraser in Photoshop but you want it to be a double click in Painter 3.
Further down are three tabs - Pen, Eraser and Mapping.
Tablet set-up for the Intuos Pen
The Pen tab is where you set up the various functions of your Intuos pen. In this example I have the Tip Feel higher than normal, the Tilt Sensitivity normal and I have changed the side switches to the way I prefer.
Have some fun
The tilt function of the Intuos3 is a fun feature! I am sure some proficient digital artist knows exactly how to use it and - sadly - I am not one of them.
I did figure out how to have some fun with tilt, however. Here's what I did ...
I opened a new file in Painter 3 and set my paper color to black.
Then I selected an Air Brush tool and a bright yellow as the color.
I sprayed the yellow on the black paper and experimented with different tilts of the pen. It is really cool!
My incredible feat of artistic genius ended up being a yellow star field and a midnight black sky with a bright red comet streaking through and it was all done with the air brush and some fancy tilting.
Hey - I do the best I can!
Tablet set-up for the Eraser
On this tab you have the option of setting eraser pressure (like you do with pen pressure) and you can also change what the eraser does as well.
If you drop down the dialogue box (which is set to Erase) you can choose another function for the Eraser.
Tablet set-up for Mapping
This is a really amazing tab because you can set your Intuos3 to any orientation you wish - Landscape (default), Portrait, Landscape Flipped or Portrait Flipped.
You can even choose to work with only one part of the tablet or one part of the screen. You have to try this for yourself!
Tablet set-up for the Express Keys
When you select the Function Tab the Express Keys, Touch Strip and Pop-up Menu screen appears.
More than anything else, the Express Keys and Touch Strip are an amazing addition to the Intuos 3.
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On the 6X8 tablet, for instance, there are 8 Express Keys that can be programmed for anything you want in any program!
You can have the extreme left switch function as the space key in Photoshop, Undo in Painter and New Layer in Paint Shop Pro - and you have eight choices for each Graphics Program you are using.
The combinations and permutations are enormous and you are going to have to figure out what is best for you. Once you get the Express Keys the way you want them your work will be much easier and faster.
Didn't I say the Express Keys are incredible?
Tablet set-up for the Touch Strips
Other than the Intuos 4X5 and 4X6 (with one Touch Strip), all of the Intuos tablets have a Touch Strip on the right and the Left. I have my left Touch Strip set to increase or decrease brush size and the right Touch Strip zooms in and out.
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I am right handed and every time my right hand passed over the right Touch Strip the screen I was working on started zooming in or out depending on the way my hand moved over the Touch Strip.
This could be very frustrating, for sure.
I decided to dig a bit more deeply into the Wacom Control Panel to see if there was anything I could do about it. I was thinking I would have to Disable the right Touch Strip but that just didn't seem right.
On the Touch Strip screen I noticed an Advanced selection box so I clicked it - and to my complete surprise I found out I could make either the right or left Touch Strip react only to pen input.
So - that is what I did!
Way to go, Wacom! Life with an Intuos is truly incredible!
Finally …
It is easy to customize your Graphire and/or Intuos to fit the way you work but it is not necessary. To me the most important things to change are the pen pressure, the pen side buttons and the tablet switches with the rest of the functions fine as they are pre-set.
Return to Photoshop Tutorials from Tablet set-up.
