Mese: novembre 2020

A graphic tablet is an input device that replaces a mouse and consists of the tablet itself as well as a pen. They are also referred to as drawing tablets or pen tablets.

if you’re doing all your retouching and painting with a mouse or trackpad, you are not creating to your maximum potential. The graphic tablet is an integral part of being a successful digital artist.

Graphic Drawing Tablet can be used for most creative and content production needs such as illustration, photography, 3D modeling, animation, graphic design, etc. Most professional programs on those fields offer advanced pen support .

Whether you’re looking for a graphics tablet or a drawing tablet, there are lots of options on the market, and they are probably all pretty compelling. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the abundance of options.

Two particular heavyweights are Wacom and XP-Pen. Both manufacture graphics tablets and drawing tablets and have different strong and weak points. While XP-Pen tablets are generally cheaper than Wacom tablets and have more features, Wacom tablets tend to have more of a premium and durable build, and a lot more brand recognition.

XP-Pen ( https://www.xp-pen.com ) is one of the top brands when it comes to design tools such as graphics tablets, pen display monitors, stylus pens and other digital graphical products. XP-PEN is the brand that I use . If budget is a concern, you can go with the XP-PEN tablets.

5 Ways Using XP-PEN Tablets is Beneficial for Digital Artists & Graphic designers

1. Pen Pressure Sensitivity

Lets kick things off with the most unique feature that comes with XP-PEN. Pen Pressure Sensitivity. XP-PEN Pens are far superior to a regular computer mouse when drawing or grading digital images. These pens recognize the level of pressure you’re applying meaning you can effortlessly control your brush size when using the software of your choice.

These styluses are battery free and the XP-PEN PA2 even comes with 8192 levels of pressure sensitivity and a tilt-response which is more than enough to create beautiful images. For Digital Artists & Graphic designers, this pen pressure sensitivity feature rules out the click, drag, release process of using a mouse to change your brush strokes and will not only enhance your performance but can save you a ton of time by mirroring your exact movements.

2. Precision

Another great benefit of using a pen over a mouse is precision. Have you ever tried to sign your name on an online document using a computer mouse? It’s no easy task. As humans we’re trained to write using our fingers not our palms.

For Digital Artists & Graphic designers, a task that involves very precise pen movements such as calligraphy, illustration or detailed photo touch ups can be grueling using a mouse. Having a digital pen that’s sensitive and smart like a digital pen from xp-pen is a game changer and unlocks a range of capabilities.

3. Intuitive Feeling

For some traditional artists, switching from drawing on paper to a tablet can be a demanding process. You’ve been accustomed to drawing on paper your entire career and it’s normal to be fearful of how switching to a digital tablet could be potentially frustrating to adapt to. The disconnect of what your arm is doing off to the side, and what’s happening on the screen can be off-putting to some people.

A Standard Tablet can totally get the job done – but if you are a hardcore illustrator/modeler, you love sketching in notebooks, painting etc, and you’ve got the money I’d recommend a XP-PEN Artist . Where you put the pen is where you draw – there’s no learning curve, there’s no disconnect, the screen real estate is huge, plenty of buttons and roller wheels to customize shortcuts, etc. it’s amazing.

The XP-PEN Artist series tablet gives you a high viewing angle with 170 degrees in both vertical and horizontal that allows you to see the screen in several ways for maximum comfort. If you have the money, get a XP-PEN Artist 24 Pro . it’s much more intuitive than using a tablet without a screen. You also get a huge 24-inch active area that allows you to create your projects and designs quickly and easily.

3. Speed

Creative ideas come and go as fast as lightning. There one minute, gone the next.

The Deco Pro range from XP-PEN are ideal for artistic minds who want to get ideas from their brain to the screen instantaneously.

The Deco Pro tablets have 8 buttons and a double wheel design to which you can assign various shortcuts that will speed up your workflow at a rapid pace.

Once you get into the swing of things video & photo editing with a XP-PEN tablet will feel so natural and will make you work so much faster.

4. Flexibility

The modern-day Digital Artist & Graphic designer seems to be constantly on the go. Whether travelling for work or for travelling for inspiration XP-PEN tablets come in a variety of sizes with multiple functions to suit those who are never in the same place twice. To name one, the XP-PEN Deco mini4 is ideal as it’s lightweight, can easily fit in a backpack and takes up very little desk space.

Aside from size, XP-PEN has come up with some great accessories to increase flexibility for those that work remotely. The main one being the adjustable stand . The definition of Ergonomics relates to the study of how people work in their environment. When hunched over a desk all day it’s easy to lose concentration due to discomfort. In the long run these conditions can have lasting effects on your back. XP-PEN understands the importance of being user friendly and how unlikely it is for people to work efficiently in the same spot all day, every day.

The main purpose of the adjustable stand is to give Digital Artists & Graphic designers the option to work in whatever posture they desire. These stands also improve visibility by adjusting the tablet into all kinds of angles and positions which is a huge benefit when working on detailed designs.

Conclusion

With the right tools Digital Artists & Graphic designers can reach unimaginable expectations and achieve stunning results. The benefits of these tablets are endless. They’re not only reliable but flexible, fast, precise and offer artists multiple capabilities so you can draw, paint or edit like a natural.

The XP-PEN is an entry level digital art tablet brand , but seems like really good value for money. It is really easy to set up and get started with, and (though I’m no expert) I’d recommend it for anyone else looking to get started with this kind of tech.

A Guide On Drawing Monitors and graphics tablets

A good graphics tablet is a must-have for anyone who’s looking to get deeper into making digital art. It makes drawing easier, and is compatible with a lot of devices and software that are industry standards. Graphics tablets are a mainstay for professionals, but more budget-friendly models let even beginners buy and learn using their own tablet.

The graphics tablet is a very useful tool for illustrators, animators, graphic designers and photographers. The ability to pick up a “pen” to direct drawings or mouse movements is a much more natural way of drawing, painting and moving a cursor around.

To use graphics tablets, you need to connect the drawing pad to your computer to transfer data to your computer. which allow you to use your existing computer, OS and desktop software.

The main difference between a pen tablet and a pen display is that the pen tablet does not have a screen, and the pen display does. A pen tablet is a computer input equipment, usually consisting of an electronic drawing tablet and a stylus. The users can draw on the tablet with the stylus, and the image will be displayed on the computer screen.

The pen display on te other hand, an input device and a monitor. It is much easier to use than a simple pen tablet, but also requires more financial investment. The tablet will display any software that a monitor would display and the pen acts as a mouse. Usually the set up includes this display as a secondary display, attached to your computer.

the drawing monitor has turned into the go-to illustration device for lots of artists due to its convenience, high-tech features and excellent usability.

Let Me Help You Decide On The Right Pen Display monitor To Get

Just like Picking the right graphics tablet can be confusing, specially for a first-time buyers. Picking the right drawing display can be the same. Specially givng the many factors that go into that.

In this post, I will talk about the various factors that can help you pick the right pen display more easily. Think of me as your friend who’s tryring to organize your thoughts to help you in your purchase.

Key Features & Specs

There are a lot of factors that impact the quality and functionality of a drawing tablet monitors.

Here are a few of the most important:

Resolution

The higher the resolution, the better the picture. Resolution, the number of vertical x horizontal pixels that comprise the image, is inextricable from screen size when you’re choosing a monitor. What you really want to optimize is pixel density, the number of pixels per inch the screen can display, because that’s what determines how sharp the screen looks (though there are some other factors), as well as how big elements of the interface, such as icons and text, can appear. Standard resolutions include 4K UHD (3,840×2,160 pixels), QHD (Quad HD, 2,560×1,440) and FHD (Full HD, 1,920×1,080): You’re better off looking at the numbers than the alphabet soup, because when you get to variations like UWQHD they can get ambiguous. When you see references to 1080p or 1440p, it’s referring to the vertical resolution.

For example, on a 27-inch display, 1,920×1,080 has a pixel density of 81.59 ppi. On a 24-inch display, it’s 91.79 ppi. Because a higher density is better up to a point, FHD will look better on the smaller screen. Pixel density has a big impact on monitor quality, and our sweet spot is 109 pixels per inch (ppi). A larger monitor will have low pixel density if it’s a lower resolution.

Size

A larger screen is more comfortable to draw on and easier on your eyes. It’s like drawing on an A4 vs A5 paper. With a smaller screen, user interface may be small and you have to squint your eyes to see.

Everything being equal, and if you’ve got the space and budget, bigger is almost always better. Screen size labeling is based on the length of the diagonal: That made it easy to compare when almost every screen had the same aspect ratio (the ratio of the number of horizontal pixels to vertical pixels).

The different sizes of drawing tablet with monitor I considered here range from 11.6-inch to 23.8-inch. The bigger the monitor the better and easier it is to illustrate on. However, one would sacrifice on portability and the ability to take the tablet anywhere when choosing a bigger drawing monitor. We would consider drawing tablets up to 15.6-inch as portable, anything bigger than that would need a permanent place on the desk given its built-in stand and bulkiness. Sizes considered are: 11.6-inch – to take anywhere with you , 13.3-inch , 15.6-inch , 19.5-inch , 21.5-inch – to be stationed on desk, 23.8-inch.

Response Times

Shorter is better, but it’s not a big priority unless you’re gaming. Response time tells you how long a monitor takes to change individual pixels from black to white or, if its GTG response time, from one shade of gray to another. Longer response times can mean motion blur when gaming or watching fast-paced videos. For gaming monitors, the highest response time you’ll likely see is 5ms, while the fastest gaming monitors can have a 0.5ms response time.

Panel Tech

for image quality, TN < IPS < VA. TN monitors are the fastest but cheapest, due to poorer image quality when viewing from a side angle. IPS monitors have slightly faster response times and show color better than VA panels, but VA monitors have the best contrast out of all three panel types. For more on the difference between panel types, see the dedicated section below.

The most important factor, to me, is the type of panel used for the display. It should be an IPS panel so that you get the maximum viewing angles and best colour reproduction. You’ll be constantly tilting your monitor, and without an IPS panel it will mean that colours on the screen will shift depending on where your eye is. It’s very irritating to use a non-IPS monitor. Imagine when your monitor is upright, the skin tone looks alright, but when monitor is tilted down even by a few degrees, the skin tone appears off.

Color Accuracy

Having a monitor that displays colour and contrast totally accurately is crucial for a designer or photographer because your work will be viewed by others exactly as you intended it. It also comes in handy when you need to match the colours in a digital design to a printed version.

The most regular gamut are sRGB, AdobeRGB, NTSC and DCI-P3, in which NTSC is now used most widely, sRGB is a very old specification, Adobe RGB is mostly used for professional designers, and DCI-P3 is the preference for TV and film makers.

Normally, there are conversion formulas for these 3 gamut, 100%sRGB≈72%NTSC， 100%Adobe RGB≈95%NTSC. Different manufacturer will advertise their product with different terminology, we need to keep our eyes sharped while choosing one of them.

You will need to know it’s wrong that the higher percentage of a gamut, the better is a monitor. Different gamut has different specifications, and they will be applied for different usage.

Monitors with 85% NTSC gamut or 85% AdobeRGB gamut above is the excellent one.
If some monitor’s gamut is below 65%sRGB or 45% NTSC, don’t think of it, they are just trash, and will do harm to your eyes.

Pressure Sensitivity

This is one of the main reasons why drawing with a graphics tablet is superior to using the mouse. Pressure sensitivity is a feature that allows you to vary the thickness of the lines you draw by applying more or less pressure on the surface.

Pressure sensitivity can also be used to control the brush opacity, and many other things, depending on what settings your art program supports.

Since it’s an important feature, it may be tempting to get the highest pressure sensitivity you could get, but in reality, you don’t have to, since there’s a limit to how much you can benefit from additional pressure beyond a certain point, so don’t stress out about it too much.

Any tablet that supports 2048 levels of pressure or more is worth of getting, some may argue that getting even less than that is okay, but these tablets tend to be much older.

Even if pressure sensitivity mattered, different graphics tablets from different brands all support the highest pressure level out there.

Tilt sensitivity

Tilt sensitivity was introduced to bring your stylus experience closer to a real pencil. This feature, e.g. of the Airbrush tip and eraser, senses the amount of tilt between the tool and tablet. This creates a natural-looking pen, brush, and eraser strokes in applications that support tilt-sensitivity.

Stylus with tilt sensitivity allows the artists to shade just like a real pencil when the stylus is tilted at an angle. This can be important for an artist who does a lot of shading work. If you are a normal user who uses the stylus for light note-taking tasks, then you don’t really need tilt sensitivity.

Which apps support tilt: Almost all the popular drawing apps and software support tilt. Some of the most prominent ones are mentioned : ( Photoshop ,Affinity Photo, Procreate,Autodesk Sketchbook,Corel Painter,Krita, Sketchpad,Clip Studio paint, Art Rage, Affinity Designer,
and many more…)

Report rate speed

It is nothing but the frequency with which the graphics tablet reads the position and pressure of the pen and then sends this data to the computer. If the reading speed would be low, we would receive a broken line with very fast movements on the screen.

Currently, the standard is 200 rps (reports per second), or 200 Hz. Anything around 200 rps (or higher) is great and most tablets fit this description.

Hot Keys

Many graphics tablets come with hot keys . These keys can be programmed to do many functions, like keyboard shortcuts & mouse clicks, which can be handy to access the tools or dialogs that you use often.

Some artists prefer not to use hot keys, and opt to use the keyboard instead, since it gives them more options. I am one of those people. I only bother with using the hot keys when I do something that doesn’t require much shortcuts, like simply sketching & the like.

If you’re not sure whether you need hot keys or not, I advise you to pick a tablet with at least 6 buttons if possible. That way, you could try them yourself

Tip:- You may have noticed the trend here, but many things when it comes to digital art (and other purposes), like graphics tablets, are bound to your preferences, which you will develop after dabbling with it for some time.

Brand

Whether you’re looking for a graphics tablet or a drawing tablet, there are lots of options on the market, and they are probably all pretty compelling. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the abundance of options.

Two particular heavyweights are Wacom Cintiq and XP-PEN Artist . Both manufacture graphics tablets and drawing tablets and have different strong and weak points. While XP-Pen tablets are generally cheaper than Wacom tablets and have more features, Wacom tablets tend to have more of a premium and durable build, and a lot more brand recognition.

Whenever and whatever you wanna buy for your personal or professional uses. But the price of the products has a great role when you compare some similar products, so if your budget is tight then, you should definitely go with the XP-pen artist series ( https://www.xp-pen.com/series/Artist-display.html ) .