Tutorial: Wacom Tablet Setup
In today’s update, we’re going to check out the calibration options for a basic WACOM tablet. By setting up your tablet according to your drawing preferences, you should be able to replicate or modify your existing method and make the transition from paper to digital much easier. Once you have your WACOM tablet set up just the way you like it, you’ll be drawing digital comics in no time!
These screens are from the Wacom Tablet preferences in Mac OS 10.5 – for the PC, under your Control Panel you will find the Wacom Tablet settings, and the dialog boxes and drop-down menus should be similar.
You’ll note that in the PEN section of the settings, that the stylus switch has drop down menus for each function, as well as the tip. There are additional functions applied to the tip feel, and double click distance.
If you notice on the top part of the settings, there are three sections: Tablet, Tool and Application. Under Tablet, your model of Tablet should appear. If you have more than one tablet, you can specify specific preferences for each one. Under Tool, you have the option of settings for the stylus and mouse, as well as advanced functions such as gestures and pressures. Lastly, under Application, you can have specific settings for specified programs. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a separate set of settings for Adobe Photoshop – generally the main program used for digital comics creation. Since the settings are fairly general, you could apply them to any of the programs you may use (Sketchbook Pro, Painter, Illustrator, CorelDraw, Flash, etc)
By clicking on the small plus sign at the end of the Applications bar, you will open a new dialog box. The settings manager will ask you if you want to create specific settings for a program that is currently open, or to browse for a particular app. Since I already have Photoshop open, I’ll select it from the list. If your app doesn’t appear, select Browse and navigate to the application launcher/exe and select it in your Applications or Program Files folders.
You’ll now see an Icon for your specific program in the Application list. If you have the icon selected, you will be modifying settings for that particular program. We’ll start by changing a few settings under the Pen portion of the settings.
You’ll notice that the dialog boxes attached to the switch on the stylus has a number of options available for you to designate a function. You can choose any one of these options if you prefer. It’s all about what will make you efficient, so if you prefer to use the switch as a right-click, or as a scroll or a modifier button, feel free to designate that function to that part of the switch. The same goes for the other part of the switch button.
I generally disable the switch function on my stylus. I generally roll the pencil as I’m drawing, so the buttons end up being accidentally pressed far too often for my liking. I’ve adapted my drawing style to use the keyboard or additional buttons on the WACOM tablet with my left hand, and focus mainly on drawing with the right.
If you click on the Details button under Tip Feel, a new dialog box will appear with some additional functions. This is where you will set the pressure sensitivity of your stylus as you make marks. You can also set the threshold for double click selections as well. If you notice, to the right of the sliders is a scratchpad to test the sensitivity and tapping of the stylus tip. Go ahead and try some different settings.
I prefer a harder pressure setting, since it feels more like actual pencil drag. You can replicate the pencil drag feeling by placing a sheet of paper on your tablet and drawing on top of that, but I’ve noticed that it wears down your stylus tips VERY fast. This is the next best thing. You can see the hatching I did on the scratch pad, where more pressure is necessary to create darker, thicker lines. You may have a lighter touch than I do, so adjust your settings accordingly.
In comparison, you can see that the soft setting requires an extremely light touch otherwise you run the risk of your linework blotting and bleeding on you.
Now, if we select the Options… button at the bottom of the screen, this dialog box appears. These are general functions which apply to all of your tools and applications. You can determine if your right-click function can be activated through a hover click option or tap click option. You can also alter the button orientation and the handedness of the tablet mouse for lefties or righties. By default, it is set to right.
Now we’ll focus on changing the settings for the Eraser portion of the stylus. Similar to the Pen, the Eraser has a drop down menu for the eraser tip button, as well as the dynamics for the eraser itself under Details…
Generally, I select my eraser size in Photoshop according to the actual size of area I want the brush to cover. In this case, when I touch the tablet, I want everything within that cursor size to be erased. I don’t like having to press harder to cover more area. You can alter this sensitivity any way you like.
At the other end of the sensitivity, you really have to press hard to erase. Unless you like a good work out or really enjoy the feel of erasing, there’s no need to set the option that high. The point is to make less work and physical effort to do more. You can also change your double clicking options as well. We’re already conditioned to the typical double-click pattern that is used by default in all programs, but if you prefer to speed it up or slow it down, go right ahead and work with whatever is most comfortable.
The next section in the settings manager is the Mapping portion. This allows you to establish the bounds of where your WACOM tablet borders appear on screen. By default, everything on your tablet is relative to how you see it on screen. You may prefer to simply keep your working area smaller, or rotate your tablet or work in reverse. We’ll go through some of the options available and you can determine which method works best for you.
When you select the Orientation drop-down menu, you’ll notice a number of options. Landscape is the traditional format. Portrait requires you to rotate your tablet 90 degrees (it shows you a preview in the left portion of the dialog box) in order to function properly, Landscape flipped mirrors the directions on your screen on a vertical axis (left becomes right, and right becomes left, but up is still up and down still down) and finally, Portrait flipped is essentially the reverse of Portrait directions.
Under the Screen Area drop down menu, you will receive options for adjusting your screen area to fill the viewing area (over 1 or 2 monitors if necessary) a portion of the screen designated by you, or a specific monitor.
If you select “Portion” you will open a new dialog with a number of options. You will see your current screen on the small monitor diagram, with a rectangular box with handles you can drag and place on your screen. You can also set your area by selecting the second option, and clicking and dragging your area physically on your screen. You can be even more precise by selecting your working area through co-ordinates (in pixels) on your screen.
Finally, you can select options for your Tablet Area as well – either a portion of the tablet or the full touch area.
Similar to the Portion dialog box in the Screen Area section, the Portion section also has 3 options to set the boundaries of your drawing area. You can set them via the handles in the first option, using the tool in the second option and by entering coordinates.
If you’ve adjusted your settings and set your WACOM tablet the way you like, you’re now ready to make full use of your new tool. It will take a bit of additional hand-eye coordination to get used to the process of drawing digitally, but if you do this bit of tweaking ahead of time, to keep your current drawing method similar to the new digital setup, you’ll adapt very quickly.
See you next week with a new tutorial!
March 19th, 2010 at 1:50 am
[...] Drawing Digital COmics – Wacom Tablet Settings Tutorial … [...]
June 2nd, 2010 at 8:10 pm
[...] Drawing Digital COmics – Wacom Tablet Settings Tutorial … [...]