I'm sick of trying to use my mouse to do Photoshop drawing. I know the standard is to to use a digitizer (a.k.a., pen tablet), but I don't want to sink hundreds of dollars into one when I really just need something more ergonomic and responsive than a mouse for some details.
Are there any obvious entry-level digitizers, or is it not worth it until I'm ready to pay up for the pro-grade digitizers?
I recently got a Wacom Intuos Pen Small, and I love it.
It does everything I need it to do and it skips out on all the extra buttons and features that probably aren't needed anyway.
The price tag comes in at about $80.
The size of the area that you can draw in is about 6"x4" inches. The actual size is about 8"x7" It might seem a bit small, but it's really plenty.
It comes with 1024 levels of presure sensitivity. I know some of the more expensive models have more, but this is enough for my purposes.
It also has four buttons at the top for Ctrl, Alt, Shift and the Windows Key. Each of which can be customized.
No question: Get a Wacom Intuous. Available for under $100, this will provide all the key features serious graphic artists and photographers use in Photoshop, Illustrator, and the like: high resolution pressure sensitivity, touch sensitivity. It has a large enough surface that you might never feel the need to upgrade.
And you may even find it to be a useful replacement for your mouse in more traditional applications.
