The Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch is the latest generation of graphics tablet and offers precise control when editing images. It’s suitable for use on both PCs and Macs, too!The cursor on the Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch can be controlled using the supplied Pen or, if you prefer, you can use your fingertips on the tablet’s surface. The Pen & Touch supports multi-touch gestures, such as scrolling, zooming, or rotating. For web browsing, scrolling works by tapping the web browser Scroll Bar twice and then sliding your finger up and down; it’s quite intuitive but you do have to navigate over to the browser scroll bar so may prefer tablets that include a dedicated scroll wheel.
Zooming works in the same way as the touch screen on an iPhone; hold two fingers on the tablet and open your fingers to zoom out, or pinch them inward to zoom in. It works well in lots of applications like web browsers, word processing, will work in Photoshop when the Zoom tool is selected, and the fingertip rotate control also works in Photoshop for spinning images or selections, too. It’s an intriguing way of working that takes a bit of getting used to; it’s all too easy to click in the wrong place when navigating around documents or between applications.
As with most graphic tablets, the tracking can be set to either Pen or Mouse mode, depending on which style you prefer, and there are loads of preferences for configuring the four express keys on the tablet, as well as the two on the Pen to your favourite functions. The Pen features 1048 levels of pressure sensitivity for more control over Paintbrush opacity and Eraser tools in Photoshop, which isa quicker way of applying advanced brush effects without the tedium of changing the opacity in the Options Bar.
If you do want the fingertip touch control of the Bamboo Pen & Touch, but are after a larger active area than A6, the Wacom Bamboo Fun Pen and Touch is the next model up and offers similar features, sports a bigger A5 active area, bundled creative software and retails at £169.
www.wacom-europe.com