Archive for the ‘Wacom Intuos4’ Category

Pen practice

It's like a dark, uh, splotchy thing.

Tweaking my pen settings. Dialed it in so that little-to-no pressure starts at 1-2%, and I can still run the gamut of values without pressing super hard to get full opacity. This abstract thing grew out of repeated pen tests as I was messing with the settings, and, well, I kinda like it. Also moderately happy with the pen response now, for  a change.

But I am reminded that my decade-old tablet still performs better than this out of the box, and that takes the shine right off everything.

Intuos4, still a jerk

You’d think I’d exhaust all the possible complaints I could have with a piece of hardware I purchased almost a year ago, but no. Still angry. Recently I pulled up the driver diagnostic window while the pen was just touching the surface and noticed this:

You damned numbers.

31%? I am using 1/3 of the available pressure just by resting the pen on the surface?

Now to be fair, I just reset it to the defaults, and the grip pen is not light by any stretch of the imagination; an HB pencil this is not. But seriously? Thirty one percent of the pressure can be registered by the weight of the pen alone?

Maybe this makes sense in some technical way. Maybe I am just leaping at every chance to complain about my disappointing piece of $400 hardware.

My feeling, though, is that this is far too high for when you’re not actively applying pressure. Think of it this way: The Intuos4 can register 2048 levels of pressure. That means that at the default setting, the pen registers level 635 when you’re not even pressing down. Were I a scientist, I would say something scientific about the data at this point, like, “dang”.

Can this be combated with the pen settings? Probably. In fact, I think that’s my new “settings goal” for the tablet. Maybe I can finally dial it in to something I don’t want to bludgeon with an ox shank.

I searched for crap and found you

And no hint of sarcasm. Ahhh.

Dear Wacom,

I am still a fan of your products, and the latest driver release for my much-maligned Intuos4 seems to have taken the edge off of my anger (though I haven’t ruled out that this could be A) the placebo effect, or B) the vodka martinis). At any rate, I am the least of your troubles. Someone reached my site yesterday with the following search string:

“wacom intuos4 buttons crap”

Just an FYI.

Oh, and please release a frictionless version of the replacement surface . I have a smooth pit in the middle now, and rough edges where the nib travels less. It is a joy to draw on. Like drawing on bristol with newsprint edges.

Thanks for your time.

March Driver madness

I don’t want to speak too soon, but the latest Wacom driver for my Intuos4 seems to be almost…good. At least in terms of pen response, it seems to have improved my drawing experience.

This doesn’t fix the surface problem (obviously), and the settings interface still makes cryptic adjustments on screens you can’t see, but the actual pen feel is pretty good. So far. Maybe.

You wipe that smug look off your face, Wacom.

Updates later when I’m more in touch with my anger.

Intuos4 — one month review

I’ve definitely mentioned my displeasure with certain aspects of my new drawing tablet before, but in the interest of being fair, I decided to give myself some time to get used to it before making a judgment. It’s been about 1 month (purchased July 19th) with the Intuos4 in my life.

I wasn’t even going to write this post, but I found a Wacom survey in my inbox, and just the reminder of my purchase got my ire up. Some of the following I said in the survey — I don’t know if anyone at Wacom is actually going to read it and/or take it seriously, but if this sounds familiar to you, you are probably the guy/gal at Wacom charged with reading my survey, or you’re somehow prying into my email/brain.

It is also quite possible that you are just me, in which case the following is relatively minor as far as your new problems go.
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