Hi, folks. I admit I succumbed to the Wacom Graphire frenzy that was on this forum before the holidays. I got one for Christmas! (Santa can be so reliable sometimes, especially when provided with URLs.) <ahem> Anyway, I’ve been using it off and on for a few weeks now, and thought I’d give some tips on what I find useful. These tips are on my Mac, and I assume similar if not identical things apply to Windows.
1. Set Tracking to Pen Mode. In mouse mode, you don’t get nearly the control you do in Pen mode.
2. I set the side button to be a double-click on the bottom, and right-click on the top. Actually, the right-click setting didn’t always work, so I chose "Modifier…" and set it to "Control Key" and "Click" (this is a Mac-only thing)
3. I like using the Click Sound setting, but find that Elements pauses whenever a click occurs and this messes up my flow. So it’s now off.
4. I live and die by tool tips (the little text that pops up when you hover over an icon or button) but it seemed like they never popped up when I hovered over them with the pen. Then–duh!–I realized my hand was moving/shaking slightly, so Elements never thought I was hovering in one spot. Then I realized you could lift the pen up so that its movement wasn’t detected, and then the tooltip would show up. (Aside: then pen only needs to contact the surface in order to generate a click; to move the pointer on screen, just move then pen while it’s a few millimeters above the surface.)
5. Then pen’s pad is PEN-SENSITIVE, not TOUCH-SENSITIVE. It took me a while to realize this, although it’s pretty obvious in retrospect. I keep thinking it’s like a laptop’s touchpad and I should keep my hand/wrist off of it. But that’s totally wrong–and makes it really hard to draw. So feel free to rest or move your hand across the pad as you’re drawing; it will not affect the pen at all.
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2. I set the side button to be a double-click on the bottom, and
right-click on the top. Actually, the right-click setting didn’t always work, so I chose "Modifier…" and set it to "Control Key" and "Click" (this is a Mac-only thing)
Apply some pressure before you apply the right-click. If you move too much, the click or right-click won’t work.
One thing I changed was the Tablet portion that applies to screen. The default area was too large for me. This is definitely something you have to adjust too. When others use the tablet I see they have difficult time adjusting to how far the cursor travels when you move the poen slightly. I placed a business card under the overlay, and used that to set upper left and bottom right.
Yeah, I saw your Santa post on the other thread and it cracked me up!
At our house, Santa and Mrs. Claus have an agreement where we each give & get lists, and it’s up to the other person to choose what gets picked from the list. And there’s an occasional surprise. But we’re both pretty much control freaks, so this system works well for us.
Perhaps Santa does… But, since the gift I received are equally fun, I won’t complain too much. Still, I left the iPod picture on my desktop… perhaps an instant gift will arrive at my door sooner or later ? Santa likes to do this, once in a while…
Oh yes, dreaming is free, and it drives the best project! I mean all start with a vision, a dream. So perhaps I’ll get the iPod with the iMac… a bundle special ? 😉
Since Panther (OS X 10.3) came out, I’ve assigned the scroll button’s click on my Logitech wireless mouse to the F9 key (Exposé). This didn’t work in the Wacom tablet software set up. So I changed the Exposé activation key–temporarily–to F8, then assigned F9 to the scroll button, then went back and changed Exposé to use the F9 key again.
Now when I click the middle/scrollwheel button on the mouse, Exposé kicks in. Very slick.
Hi Lou, I have had my Wacom tablet for a couple of months and don’t use as much as I should, I did copy your instructions, and they really help! I must use it more now. Also thank you for the Apple site, I have been looking at all the OS X goodies. At some point I will have to leave OS 9 behind. I wont try to upgrade my old Mac, but hopefully will get a new Mac and it will be all set up and ready to go, with the newest versions. Thanks for all this info, Jane
Jane, you remind me of myself when it comes to upgrading stuff… " if i just hold out a little longer the new stuff will be better and the bugs will be fixed’….ain’t nothing wrong with that 😉 Like now is not a good time to buy a new HDTV…they are still too new and too high priced !
Hi Jodi, We would never watch enough TV for that, our set is about 10 years old, 27" screen. But now that our grandkids are getting older, we must start to rent or buy some stuff like "Finding Nemo". Our Boston kids refuse to have a TV in their house, so it is a really awesome treat for the little ones when they visit. Especially the one who is almost 5. They all can run computers, but not a TV.
I think that when I get my new Mac, that I will really enjoy OS X. My husband is pushing me towards an iMac. I sure love the way my G4 works now and the way all my software runs, but I better start thinking,,,,,,,,, getting very tempting! Jane
No TV ? ok, now that’s just not right. 🙂 I gotta have my late night TV before bed…got to ! I would never be able to relax without it…ya ya, i know what you are thinking…read a book…ya, I kind of fell off that track a while ago and I do need to catch up on that,,…although the forum and adobe and my computer keep my mind awake…thank god !
Since I discovered elements and the internet I haven’t watched television at all. I only use my TV to watch DVDs (and Finding Nemo is brilliant!). We’ve got satellite TV (this area isn’t cabled) and as far as I can see there are 57 channels of utter rubbish – the local cable/satellite company is about to go digital and the number of channels will triple, but I can’t see that there will be any more on them….I’m glad to say that my kids have become pretty selective about what they watch and have been able to develop a healthy habit of using the off switch. We have to have satellite as my husband is a devotee of American sports and can’t survive without ESPN… It would be nice to have a big widescreen television to watch the DVDs on, but they are still rather expensive here.
Grant, ha ! i know that joke….my hub don’t watch hockey 🙂
Susan, ya widescreens are expensive here too but at this point it’s the High Definition wide screen that gets the votes…..way too pricey but they will drop in price eventually like everything else. I wonder what else they can do to TV ? We have satelite here as well and the channels are good…no complaints…cheaper than cable and a better picture quality. Plenty of educational channels for little people and big people….my TV addictions> Tech TV, TLC, Animal Planet>Discovery Channel.
ooooohhhh, OK, so you are into it for the fights or do you actually enjoy the sport ? My father was an armchair sportsman and when he watched hockey that leg of his would be all over the carpet…ya know…trying to get that puck ! We laughed at him but he never realized it. I grew up playing street hockey year round. I grew up on a dead end road…not cars to stop the game…I was pretty good 🙂
I don’t know about Grant, Jodi, but Liz and I went from cable to DirctTV just so she could keep up with her favorite hockey teams. The game has gotten better over the years but I feel in some ways it’s been a bit "dumbed" down since the days of Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Rocket Richard and others.
Years ago my son gave me an Official CCM hockey jersey. It is in the beautiful rouges, blanc et bleu with a big CH on the front and on the back is RICHARD over top of a huge number 9. This I have proudly worn this jersey to many a games. Alas the "New Hockey" has never matched the glories of the 6 team league. True there have been brilliant players but sadly not brilliant teams.
Maybe we should do a sports challenge just to see how elements would handle this.
I envy you that jersey. What a treasure it must be. I used to watch the Red Wings play at Olympia in Detroit. Used to be only standing room tickets available.
Watching Howe and Gordie Sawchuck in goal was alwyas a treat. No helmets, so you knew who everyone was.
