The best of them will react to the users as though they were drawing on a pen and paper (or paint brush and canvas), reacting to every single movement of your pen stroke, no matter how minute. The addition of buttons, jog dials, and wheels allow users to zoom, scroll, and swap tools quickly without having to go back to their keyboards, keeping their eyes on the task at hand.Īccuracy is among the most important feature in any tablet. While it may not be critical to photo retouching, it is incredibly important for designers and illustrators, but still translates into things like applying a mask and changing the intensity of an effect.Ĭustomizable buttons and dials add more control for each individual user to allow them to program their most used commands into them, allowing for a much more distraction-free experience when editing. These include Pressure Sensitivity that allows users to truly capture how hard or soft you are holding and pressing the pen against the tablet in order to recreate the same behavior as if you were pressing a paintbrush or marker harder on a paper’s surface.

There are a lot of factors to consider when looking into a pen or display tablet for retouching. This means the only choice is to figure out the size, features, and budget that meets their needs. While they may take a little bit of time and practice to get used to, pen tablets will make long days in front of a computer far easier and faster for retouchers and editors. These tablets are often far more sensitive than anything a mouse or trackpad can offer, with the best models offering high accuracy, tilt recognition, and thousands of distinct levels of pressure, which can be incredibly important for graphic design, typography, and photo retouching.

Why use a tablet? Basically, they simply behave like the classic “pen on paper” which allows for incredibly natural motions that are much more accurate and comfortable for an editor than using a mouse or trackpad.

Large drawing pad for macbook pro