Thanks to peer pressure, eight years ago, I purchased a Wacom Intuos Pro tablet. A handful of photographers and retouchers I admired were using tablets to edit photos and I was intrigued enough to hit the buy button on Amazon. The tablet arrived two days later, but within 24 hours of use, it was packed up on its way back to Amazon.
So, what happened? I tried to love it, but editing was faster when I used a mouse. I barely gave it a chance.
For a year or so, I had lingering doubts about whether I’d made the right decision to return it, so I decided to give it another try and buy it once again. This time I asked my wife to hide my mouse which forced me to use the tablet exclusively. It took me a week or so to get the hang of it.
I’ve been using it daily ever since.
There’s no question I now work more efficiently and accurately with the Wacom Intuos Pro tablet. Here’s why.
It’s more than a drawing tablet. Way more.
A big misconception I had before using the tablet to retouch photos was that I needed to draw in order to use the tablet. This is certainly not the case. I’m no drawing artist by any means, and I use my tablet for many non-sketching tasks and can do them quicker. Here are some of the many advantages:
- Fast retouching. Simple cleanup of the skin, dodging and burning, frequency separation and other steps related to editing photos. Using a pen rather than a trackpad or mouse to retouch is faster and more accurate.
- Better workflow. Once you get the hang of using a pen and tablet (which shouldn’t take more than a week or two), you will see a huge improvement in your workflow.
- More accuracy. When making selections with the patch tool and selection tools you’ll be far more accurate. It’s nearly impossible to use the selection tool with a trackpad without pulling your hair out.
- Less effort. When a brush tool is used for dodge and burning, frequency separation, or masking, you’ll find it’s a lot quicker to effortlessly swipe the pen in a drawing motion versus moving the mouse back and forth or sliding down on the trackpad while simultaneously trying to move your finger.
You may not know you need a tablet, but…
The truth is, it’s hard to explain just how useful a tablet is. It’s one of those things where once a person implements it into their workspace, they get that “Aha! This is what I was missing” feeling. The more efficient and easier your workflow, the quicker and better your results will be.
I do workshops throughout the year in cities across the world. As I write this, I’m currently on my way back from India where I taught photographers about my process. At workshops roughly 25% of photographers used tablets. As I walked around the room to answer questions, and I used an attendee’s setup that didn’t include a tablet, I felt hobbled without a pen.
You can’t put a price on productivity
When I make my recommendations for the Wacom Intuos Pro medium tablet, people say “it’s costly.” True. So is missing deadlines because your workflow is too slow, or not creating the finest work you can because you don’t have the right tools. People buy tablets and don’t give them a chance, so they end up getting sold basically brand new at a fraction of the price. If you’re looking to buy a new tablet, Wacom offers a financing program for their U.S. customers, that lets you pay in small monthly increments. If you are in the market for a tablet and not sure which, I suggest the Wacom Intuos Pro. It’s identical in size to a MacBook, so it fits nicely into all laptop top bags.
One last thought on my tablet evolution. I can edit without a nice desk, good chair, keyboard or my sound system (trust me, I do a lot of that in airports under the gun of red-hot deadlines).
You know what? I can’t edit without a drawing tablet.
If you enjoyed this article you may be interested in Dani’s “5 Steps to a 15 Minute per Edit Workflow”.
Acerca de Dani Diamond
Dani Diamond es una fotógrafa de la costa este cuyos impresionantes retratos y estilo característico se han apoderado de todas las formas de redes sociales, desde Facebook hasta Fstoppers.
El equipo preferido de Dani es su Nikon D850 y su lente favorito, el 85 1.4g. Utiliza el 85 para permitirle estar cerca de su sujeto, pero también para permitir una buena compresión y desenfoque. El "desenfoque" es lo que hizo que Dani se interesara por los retratos en primer lugar, su curiosidad lo empujó a descubrir cómo podía crear eso también. El resto está en los detalles, y a medida que Dani se adentró en el mundo de la fotografía, abrió un nuevo camino.
El proceso de crear fotos tan apasionantes viene con algo que todo artista necesita. Una estación de trabajo. La estación de trabajo de Dani es como ninguna otra, equipada con una tableta gráfica de Wacom Intuos Pro , Palette Gear y un sonido envolvente para que Dani pueda trabajar en armonía mientras retoca. Ha creado un grupo de Facebook para el retoque musical (Epic Remixes For Retouching), donde otros fotógrafos y editores comparten sus jams de trabajo y comparten secretos de retoque.
Dani cree que no hace falta ser talentoso para tener éxito, pero sí ser ambicioso. Espera continuar su carrera en la moda y los retratos por el resto de su vida.
You can find Dani’s work, behind the scenes and before/afters on Instagram.
