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How to Use a Tablet to Draw in Photoshop TUTORIAL

By Margot Dinardi in Fine art Tutorials> GIMP Help

Digital cartoon tablets are sophisticated computer cartoon aids (comprised of a "pen" and tablet) that many digital artists wouldn't be able to live without—myself included!

At this fourth dimension, the leading brand in the digital cartoon tablet market place is Wacom. What's amazing about Wacom tablets is that they accurately capture pressure sensitivity too as direction, so when you printing downward harder on your tablet y'all'll go unlike results (such equally a thicker line) on-screen.

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If you don't already accept a tablet and pen, I would highly recommend running out and ownership one—they make digital painting and drawing a LOT easier.

Whatsoever size Wacom will work. The commencement Wacom that I purchased (in 1990)was only four 10 6 inches, while my current Wacom tablet is a scrap larger at 6 x eight inches. Larger tablets only allow for more arm/shoulder motility while drawing.

Setting upward your Wacom cartoon tablet

Once your Wacom tablet is installed on your computer, there are some settings you'll demand to customize before y'all can use it in GIMP. If you lot ain a PC, get to your offset button, open up command console and click on the Pen Tablet icon.

01ControlPanel

For Mac users, get to the apple symbol in the upper left of your screen and choose System preferences, then click on the Wacom tablet icon.

02MACsysPref

NOTE: The following settings are my own preferences, so feel gratis to experiment on your own and discover what y'all like the best.

There are two buttons near the drawing point of your Wacom—I like to take the top one open up a Pop-up bill of fare (like the correct-click of a mouse) while the bottom one switches between my foreground and background colors.

04PenButtons

Adjust the pressure sliders to get a softer or firmer response to the amount of pressure y'all put on the pen (whatever feels right to yous).

When yous've finished setting the sensitivity of your pen, make sure that "Pen Fashion" is selected instead of "Mouse Mode" and click on the "details" push. You'll want the entire calculator screen (or all screens) selected, along with a full tablet area.

05Tracking

Now there's just one more affair to do earlier you can go to drawing in GIMP—click on the Popular-upwardly Menu Tab to choose what shortcuts should appear when you press the top push button on your pen.

06Keystrokes

Utilise the drop-down menu to add together additional shortcuts to your list. You can see that I've just added the "undo" control (Ctrl+Z) higher up.

Introducting GIMP to your drawing tablet

Brand sure your tablet is plugged in and turned on before opening GIMP. If you don't do it in that order, GIMP won't know it's in that location.

Even so, your pen and tablet will not work with GIMP immediately—first you'll take to introduce them. To do that, get to File in the carte bar and click on "Preferences."

In one case inside the Preferences dialog box, select "Input Devices" in the left cavalcade and and so click the "Configure Extended Input Devices" button.

07GimpSeePen

Change the "Mode" to Screen and test your pen's directional movements—if it's acting opposite what information technology should, switch the X to 2 and the Y to i (or vice-versa).

Leave the balance of the options alone and save your settings. Y'all should at present have force per unit area sensitivity in GIMP.

Wacom drawing basics

It's fourth dimension to make a sketch! Open up a new document (Ctrl+Due north).

If you've read through any of my previous tutorials you know that an image you plan on printing should be at least 300 dpi while a spider web or Telly image should only exist 72 dpi.

Choose whatever size you'd similar. I picked 8 x 10 inches to fit a standard frame size.

08NewDoc

One of the best things about painting digitally is the safety net it provides. If at whatsoever time you mess upward, the "undo function" will accept y'all back to previous steps (Ctrl+Z).

Another cracking affair about digital painting is using Layers. Layers are free, and so employ lots of them, brand duplicate layers, change their blending modes, and try out whatever comes to mind. You can always delete a layer if yous don't like it.

The most common tools you will utilize when drawing with your Wacom pen and tablet are the Brush, Air Brush, Pencil, and Ink. You can pick whichever one yous like (and some even permit you lot add texture).

09Brushsize

I also like to set my pen to "Fade out" so that it looks more than natural.

10Airbrush

I created an paradigm that was 300 dpi, and then to go a long, fading line I needed a 2000 pixel length for the fade amount. Feel free to experiment and see what works for you.

Another option is to add together a slope—choose different foreground and background colors and your brush will transition between them mid-stroke.

11Gradient

You can get interesting results from highly contrasting colors and subtle results from two colors with a similar tonal value.

Set up the pressure to impact several things at one time and see what happens. Try drawing your offset sketch with the tablet—information technology may be harder than you think!

Some artists find information technology disconcerting to await Upwards at a monitor while drawing on a tablet. The good news is that after a few hours of exercise, that disorientation will go away.

At that place's a lot you can practise with a drawing tablet in GIMP—come dorsum next week for some specific ways to mimic traditional artistic mediums on-screen!

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How to Use a Tablet to Draw in Photoshop TUTORIAL

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