Written by Scott

Wacom has just introduced their new Intuos digital tablet. I have been in the market for a tablet to replace my first generation Intuos tablet and this one looked to have all the right improvements.

I decided to purchase what Wacom is calling the Medium Intuos. This for all purposes is the 6×9. The surface is 6×9″ and the entire device is 14.5″ x 10″.

One thing I noticed about the Intuos 4 was the lack of buttons on the right side (or left, but we’ll get to that).

On the one hand, this is very nice. However, I found that the buttons are a little smaller and harder to select specific ones. Often, especially in modo, I am pressing two or three hot-keys to move around (for example ‘option-shift’ to make a translation move, ‘ctrl-option’ to zoom).

I might be switching these to the Touch Wheel or else making each key combo associate with one key, which is very easy to do. Especially since you can make certain buttons map to certain keys on an application basis.

My Cintiq 12″ and my wife’s Cintiq 21″ both had the touch strip and buttons on both sides. This was good thinking at the time, I thought. It makes it useful for both righties and lefties.

But I never used the buttons on the right side. Apparently, the great minds at Wacom realized the same thing and moved all the buttons onto the same side.

The next big thing that is the most obvious was the they removed the touch strip and replaced it with a touch wheel with a button inside. This works almost exactly the same as a touch wheel on an iPod.

And the best part, which we’ll get to in a bit, is that all the buttons, including the wheel, can be programmed. In many programs, the wheel even allows you to rotate the canvas onscreen. In fact, you can even reprogram the entire tablet to reverse itself by turning it upside down, moving the buttons to the right side and clicking a button in the settings. Now its setup for lefties.

But you can configure the Intous so that the buttons are not just left side or right side, but also top or bottom. This can be great if you draw in a more portrait shaped canvas as opposed to landscape canvas. And while it is possible to set it up with the buttons on the top, the USB cable would be in the way, as it is on the opposite side of the buttons, so it would be sticking out facing you.

You can also customize each of these buttons on a global and/or application basis. In the image below, I have Photoshop fired up and some of my temporary customized buttons are activated. I’m still getting to know the tablet, so these buttons will change as I find what works best for me.

In the meantime, though, you can assign a label to each button so you don’t forget to what shortcut what the key is mapped. Its wild watching the OLED change as you switch from app to app.

Now when you plug the tablet into the computer, you’ll notice something very interesting. An LCD screen next to the buttons lights up with the current setting.

Along this line, when you change the orientation of the buttons, the LED text flips to the proper orientation. When the buttons are on the left, the LED labels display one way, when the buttons are on the other side, the LEDs flip 180 degrees so they can still be read.

A small lighted dot also rotates to four positions on the wheel, depending on the mode. Yes, there are four settings for the wheel and the inside button.

For example, the first setting is set by default to zoom when you rotate your finger around the wheel clockwise. Counterclockwise allows you to zoom out. The fourth setting allows you to rotate the canvas in programs like Photoshop by running your finger around the wheel. This is very similar to the multitouch system on Macs.

One tiny feature that I haven’t seen advertised is the USB cord connection. With the old first generation and even our Cintiq tablets, the cords were all permanently attached. Wacom made a great move by making the USB cord able to unplug from the Intuos4.

This is one of those small things that I think really needs to be noticed and applauded. I am constantly placing my tablet into my laptop bag and the cord was getting pretty worn, especially right at the connection.

Even Angie’s 21″ Cintiq had a problem with the cord getting a crimp in it since it could not be removed from the screen. Wacom was great about repairing it for us, but it was a hassle that it had to be done. So bravo to Wacom for this feature.

The pen is a bit wider than the first gen Intuos and also thicker than both of our Cintiqs. There might be a driver issue with the new pen, but while it worked on my Macbook Pro with the Intuos4, when I tried it on my wife’s Mac on her Cintiq, nothing happened. I’ll report back after installing the new driver on the Mac with the Cintiq.

The stylus pen now has 2048 levels of sensitivity and can detect just 1 gram of pressure. This sounds impressive. I haven’t really noticed too much of a difference, though I’m still getting used to the spongy/rubbery feel of the tablet, but I can say that it does seem smoother. But this could just be a placebo effect! I’ll try and write about this in another few weeks after I’ve used it for awhile then go back to my old stylus.

The system preferences were pretty straightforward. There is the standard screen for the button programming. Then there is an additional screen for the Touch Ring.

Another little feature is the Radial Menu. This feature is just wicked.

I use Luxology’s modo for all my 3D modeling and animation and they have had for years what they called “Pie Menus.” This is something I’ve grown so used to that I can’t imagine not having it when in modo. It is THAT useful.

The concept is simple; when you press a hot key, a radial menu pops up at the curser. When you click one of the options round the ring, a new menu pops up, specific to your selection. This hierarchical menu system adds a LOT of efficiency to the 3D workflow and I look forward to using this feature with Photoshop and Painter.

When you click on the command “pie” at the 12 o’clock position, this menu vanishes and the new menu appears in its place:

If you click on “media” button on the main menu, a play, pause, fast forward, rewind, etc, controls appear instead of the copy/paste options above.

I would highly recommend all digital artists explore the possibilities with this new workflow.

When drawing on the Intuos 4, it has a very unique feel to it. At first, I didn’t like the feel. It has a ’spongy’ feel to it, but the more I used it, the more I began to like it.

When used in applications, it works just as you would expect a digital tablet from Wacom. Its a highly sensitive, customizable tablet that you’ll find using to be a joy and more important, more efficient with the additional remapping tools, Touch Wheel and the radial menus.

Update:
For your convenience, I’m attaching a link to purchase the medium Intuos4 from Amazon. This goes through my affiliate link with them, so by clicking this link, you’ll be helping to keep this site going (that would be me!). Many thanks!

Purchase the Wacom Intuos4 Medium Pen Tablet on Amazon

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2. Becoming a Wacom Cintiq Tablet Power User – Pt 1
3. The Apple Tablet and the Mobile Digital Artist
4. Breaking into the Live Digital Caricature Market
5. Review: Automated Video Slideshows from Animoto

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