Digital Pen and Touch Pad for iMac and MacBook

[ryan101]

Hello All,

I am learning Adobe CS products and Illustrator etc and I am looking to buy Digital Pen and Touch Pad to do freehand drawing on the Mac. I wanted to know what the best product to buy is? Does Apple do it's own?

I am very new to this and any advise would be appreciated. Also is there a way of using the iPad to use it like a Digital Pen and Touch Pad? I am hoping to slowly move my career this way, so I wouldn't mind investing in good quality equipment.

Thanks in advance.

 

[mgipe]

Wacom is the industry standard. They have two lines of tablets, a consumer line and a professional line. The pro has better specs in areas that may not mean much to you at this point. (Things like enhanced pressure levels.) The consumer line is very inexpensive.

If you don't mind spending the money, buy a Wacom Cintiq, which is a tablet and LCD display combined. This allows you to draw right on the image you are working with. The 13" is a nice size for most work and goes for around $1000. Their 20" beast is the one that graphic artists drool over, but it costs an arm, leg, and a kidney.

The touch digitizer on the iPad is crude at best, and is not suitable for moderate precision work with Illustrator et al. I've been waiting for Apple to put a proper digitizer into the iPad like Microsoft did with the Surface Pro.

 

[ryan101]

Thanks. I was across Wacom repeatedly. I saw a few at $300 mark, is that not going to be good enough for me to get started. I have been dreaming of entering a design career for almost 20 years. Now I am a bit more financially independent, I was going to slowly make the move. I have no one I know in the design industry, so I am mainly relying on forums. I am estimating it will take 6 months to a year before I am skilled enough to need the pro $1,000 versions. What do you think? Am I off the mark, will I need a lot longer?

 

[mgipe]

The Wacom CTH680 at around $180 will do what you need. You may never need anything fancier unless you get truly serious about making a career out of this. Of course, you may want a fancier toy at some point.