I love my Wacom Cintiq as I loved my Intuos 3 tablet before it. When I first got the Cintiq I read a lot of comments from people who loved their new Cintiq so much they were immediately consigning their Intuos to eBay or FreeCycle (or – heaven forfend! – the trash), and this really bothered me as I dearly loved my Intuos setup which it had taken me ages to get just right. The Intuos is also a much bigger area than the Cintiq (I only got the little one) so as excited as I was didn’t want to let it go. But being the ‘have my cake AND eat it’ kind of person that I am, I decided to keep both!

• Although Wacom don’t advertise two tablets as being a viable option – it is! The same Wacom driver works for both devices and is happy to let you set them up with different settings.

  The Wacom control panel app allows you to setup the Cintiq and the Intuos independently which I’ve found really useful. I have my pen set up to work on the cintiq screen area only (because you point at the screen to use it – you may need think about this for a second if you don’t have a Cintiq of your own) but as soon as I move that same pen onto the Intuos tablet it gives me immediate access the entire desktop area across all three monitors – great for multi-tasking as I don’t need to go scrabbling for my mouse. Also within Photoshop you only pull just the workspace area onto the Cintiq, leaving all the other controls, history palette, layers palette etc back on your main monitor. Ordinarily to access those settings the Cintiq comes with a monitor switching button but I don’t use this as I find it interupts my workflow too much – as does scrabbling for the mouse. What’s great about having my old Intuos right alongside the Cintiq is that every time I need to change color or function in one of the palettes in Photoshop I can do it with the same pen just by moving it onto the Intuos.

• The button layout on the Cintiq is similar to the Intuous so by having both I doubled the number of buttons. If you use the default button layout for Photoshop it is mainly modifier keys, which I don’t find that useful. So I’ve always set it up to change functions in Photoshop which lets me work faster. In order to use the Cintiq I have to pull it into my keyboard’s normal position on the desktop, so functions that would once have best been performed by shortcut keys (for example, b for brush, d for default, x to swap colors etc etc) are more difficult. Having twice the number of buttons between the Cintiq and the Intuos is therefore very useful!
  Here’s my button layout with the Cintiq on the left and Intous on the right as it appears on my desk when I’m working. I realize the button setup is a very personal thing, so this is what works for me, yours would be different, but it demonstrates the benefits of using both tablets together.
  
• The pens for the Intuos work on the Cintiq which is good as it doubled my pens straightaway. Voila double the settings options!

A couple of days ago I was asked by Gordon Robb about my Cintiq post the following question

“…how does the cintiq connect if you already have two monitors. I have this setup, but my graphics card only has two outputs, so where would the cintiqu go? This is the only thing stopping me buying it.”

Thanks for your question Gordon. My solution is two dual output graphics cards (ATI Radeon 4800 series). This allows me to have my two main monitors and the Cintiq as an auxiliary. Because my deskspace is limited I’m not in a position to use the Cintiq as a third monitor all the time but on rare occasions when three screens have come in very handy. I use ultramon to handle my existing dual monitor setup and it can handle the Cintiq as a third monitor just fine.

A few months back Adrian put a small box on my desk. Inside was 8 gigs of RAM and a message: “It’s time.” Time to go to Vista 64 bit. I resisted. The little box sat on my desk, staring at me for weeks.

I was scared. I was absolutely convinced that I would lose a lot more than I would gain with those 4 extra gigs. So I started out by taking inventory.

As it turned out there would be only one casualty of moving to 64 bit – my Microsoft Fingerprint Reader. This had been the stickler for a long time. Microsoft wouldn’t give a clear message on whether they would be creating the software to support the reader on 64 bit. In fact the packaging on the Fingerprint Reader I got Adrian at Christmas gives no indication that it works only on 32 bit Vista! When Microsoft finally came out and said that they weren’t ever going to make a 64 bit version there was nothing left to stand in my way!

(Luckily he had found the UPEK Eikon reader, which I think works even better than the Microsoft one, although the software takes a little getting used to.)

Installing Vista 64
Vista 64 needs a full installation (you can’t upgrade from 32 bit). Because of this and a lack of time I installed Vista 64 on a new hard drive. The drive with 32 bit OS (and my data) is visible from 64-bit (and vice versa) so choosing which OS I want to use is just a matter of hitting F8 to bring up the boot loader on start up and choosing the appropriate drive. This made it really easy to bring my data across to the 64 bit install, making it a very fast transition overall.

And the extra RAM? It’s amazing. My system just flies!

Hardware with 64 bit Vista Drivers
Anyway, here’s a list of hardware that I’ve found works just fine on 64 bit. (Hopefully if you’re contemplating making the jump, it might save you some time!)

• Logitech G15
• Logitech MX518 Mouse
• Wacom intuos 3 graphics tablet
• Wacom Cintiq LCD tablet
• CanoScan Lide 600F
• Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000
• Hauppage Win TV HVR 1300

This is the first post in my Wacom Cintiq 12WX experience.

First off, I’ve had it now for three weeks and I’m truly in love with it. I must admit that while I had wanted to get my hands on one of these for a long time, I could not see past the logistical problem of physically fitting it on my desk (alongside my existing dual monitors) and a bit of a pang at the thought of parting with my Wacom Intuous 3, which has been my trusty friend for a while now. I’d watched a few youtube videos about people using their Cintiqs, which really excited me, but several owners mentioned their old Intuos tablets sitting in the corner.

So it was with some mixed feelings that I greeted the Cintiq when it finally arrived. These were quickly swept away once I had it set up and started using it. It’s a very natural creative experience. There is no guesswork required. Unlike the Intuos, you do not need to guage the your position on the screen against your pen’s position on the tablet – (obviously!) your pen is right where you are looking. (This does take a little calibration at the start but once it’s setup you don’t think about it again.)

I was a little nervous about pressing on the screen at the start, but it’s robust enough to use reasonable pressure when drawing.

The Cintiq has ten buttons which can be used for various functions and Photoshop modifiers. The top left button is set initally to transfer from the Cintiq screen to the main monitor when you want to use one of the Photoshop tools, pallettes etc. I found this cumbersome already having dual monitors. Switching back to a mouse was also troublesome, so I quickly reattached my ‘old’ Intuos tablet (which works just fine off the same driver and didn’t require any further installation). I set the Intuos to work off the two ‘real’ monitors so now I only need to move my pen from the Cintiq to the Intuos and my cursor is back out of the drawing area and I can operate my PC/Photoshop normally. The pen that comes with the Cintiq works with the Intuos (and vice versa) so I don’t even need to switch pens. It’s really intuitive and doesn’t interupt my workflow at all.

With eight the buttons on the Intuos that gives me 18 buttons which I altered to match the Photoshop functions that I use most frequently. (I will write more about that next time.)

As for my concerns about fitting the Cintiq and two monitors on my desk, it’s worked out really well. The Cintiq tucks in sideways when I’m not using it, providing a third monitor for general PC use. It’s handy for watching TV or DVDs, or for keeping work applications (like FTP or reference material) running visibly but still not taking up valuable main screen real estate.

I truly, madly deeply love the Wacom Cintiq!! (AND its best buddy the Intuos 3!)

If you have any questions about using the Cintiq, so ask and I’ll do my best to give you answers.