Wacom Tablet and Dual Monitors

I read something about a fellow who uses the 6x8 Wacom on his wide screen monitor, but had to adjust the position of his image so he could access the whole image with the Wacom. (I think he was lamenting about not springing for the 6x11 Wide Format Wacom instead of 6x8, which would have covered his whole screen surface.)

My concern is that neither the 6x8 nor 6x11 will work "well" for me on dual monitors. I usually have the main Ps window with editing image on one monitor, and the palettes on the second monitor. (I do this with Illustrator and Fireworks as well.) I'm concerned that I'll be stuck with "use the mouse to access palettes" / "use the Wacom to draw", wasting my time switching between the two, and benefiting little from either.

Does anyone have any experience with the Wacom tablet on dual monitors setup?

regards

I have a Wacom 6x11 and a 6x8 and have no problem using it across two monitors. You just need to specify the area to cover in the control panel for the tablet. I can't tell you how to access this on a PC as I use a Mac.

Sergei: I do not have the WACOM installed on this machine, but you can access the WACOM from the Control Panel I think (or at least it should be in the program list). You can set the space for the wide screen there and you can also tell the WACOM to use different setting for different apps.

Go to the WACOM site, I'm sure they have a tut on it.

On Sep 5, 2:52 pm, wrote:

I read something about a fellow who uses the 6x8 Wacom on his wide screen monitor, but had to adjust the position of his image so he could access the whole image with the Wacom. (I think he was lamenting about not springing for the 6x11 Wide Format Wacom instead of 6x8, which would have covered his whole screen surface.)

My concern is that neither the 6x8 nor 6x11 will work "well" for me on dual monitors. I usually have the main Ps window with editing image on one monitor, and the palettes on the second monitor. (I do this with Illustrator and Fireworks as well.) I'm concerned that I'll be stuck with "use the mouse to access palettes" / "use the Wacom to draw", wasting my time switching between the two, and benefiting little from either.

Does anyone have any experience with the Wacom tablet on dual monitors setup?
regards

I had one of the cheapie Wacoms 3" x 5".. Graphire 4... in fact, I had two.. one at work and one at home. Both worked great with dual monitors. At home I have one 4:3 and one widescreen. You just have to adjust the area the tablet covers. After one of my cats knocked over a glass of soda on my home tablet I bought the Bamboo (Wacom) 3x5 which seemed to replace the Graphire 4 and was a bit cheaper on NewEgg. This tablet, although cheaper is much better. No mouse (which I didn't use anyway) but it does have a detachable USB cable and a much better tablet surface. There is a "tooth" to it.. so it feels more like you're drawing on paper. I see no need for the larger more expensive models. I get everything I need out of this one.

On Sep 5, 2:52 pm, wrote:

I read something about a fellow who uses the 6x8 Wacom on his wide screen monitor, but had to adjust the position of his image so he could access the whole image with the Wacom. (I think he was lamenting about not springing for the 6x11 Wide Format Wacom instead of 6x8, which would have covered his whole screen surface.)
My concern is that neither the 6x8 nor 6x11 will work "well" for me on dual monitors. I usually have the main Ps window with editing image on one monitor, and the palettes on the second monitor. (I do this with Illustrator and Fireworks as well.)

I'm concerned that I'll be stuck with "use the mouse to access palettes" / "use the Wacom to draw", wasting my time switching between the two, and benefiting little from either.
Does anyone have any experience with the Wacom tablet on dual monitors setup?

I have an ancient small Wacom 2 and two almost-identical 4 x 3 monitors. Using two monitors is considerably easier if they are both the same height, so that you can move seamlessly from one to the other. If they're different heights, sometimes you try to move from the higher one to a part of the short one that doesn't exist and you can't.

For PS, the picture is on one screen and the palettes are on the other. This works very well. And it's great anytime I'm using two programs at once - switching or copying from one to the other is much easier.

I use the Wacom mouse with my right hand and the computer's mouse with my left. Keeps my fingers from getting sore. Switching from one to the other is instantaneous. But I can't use the pen and the Wacom mouse at the same time.

- Max

On Sep 6, 10:57 am, wrote:

I use the 6x8 Wacom tablet and use dual monitors. The tablet can be set to cover one or more monitors. Initially I used it to cover both monitors, but I now use it only for the monitor containing the image being worked. There is a personal preference issue relating to the # of display pixels per cm travel of the stylus that is noticeably different between the two setups. Work can be done with either, but I prefer one display mapped to the 6x8 tablet.

I tried setting my tablet up to only access the image screen.. but my tool windows were on the other screen and I enjoyed using my stylus to click on brush, eraser, etc, so I switched back. However, I have since been limiting my use of the tablet to only brush and eraser tools, and I use the mouse for the more precise work, like drawing paths and working with anchors. So maybe I'll switch it back. I get what you're saying, the less screen area the tablet is trying to map, the higher the resolution. Makes sense.

On Sep 7, 7:17 pm, wrote:

Please excuse my ignorance. I would like to use multiple monitors with CS2. One for palettes,options bar and tool box, the other for the active image area. Based on what I read in this forum it's possible but I have not found direction in the manual or help screen. So how do I do this?

This is a function of Windows.. not CS2. As long as your video card allows this, you'll have no problem. Extend your desktop to your second monitor. The only setup that needs to be done in Photoshop is the positioning of the windows, which you can do manually and then save a workspace. Easy Peasy.

Note: your colors will probably looked different on both monitors. I've even heard reports of people using identical monitors, calibrating each of them with the same device and still having color issues. Once you get used to this you can adjust. But if you have your color picker up on one monitor and your image on the other, there might be an issue.

On Sep 8, 11:17 am, "Ronald Keller" wrote:

John,

Once Windows sees both monitors (display settings - as Bart rightly pointed out) Windows handles your 2 screens as one big screen. This means you can place your programs (or anything else) wherever you like.
For instance you could run one program on the left monitor and another on the right monitor. Or - like you already mentioned put palettes and stuff on either monitor.
Or drag stuff from either monitor... The possibilities are endless. However some older programs don't allow to place tools or windows outside their program window but most modern programs do.
The wacom control pallet (go for Wacom!) let you fine tune several settings, even on a program by program basis but even without using it, using 2 (or more) screens is really very comfortable. The only drawback is that you never will go back to using 1 screen :-)

If you don't already own a tablet you should think about the size you will buy. Larger tablets are not only much more expensive they also have a very large footprint and they require big movement of the arms while smaller tablets require movement of the wrist. (English is not my native language so I hope you will understand what I am trying to say)
Most people are comfortable with a A5 size but that is of course very personal. Bigger is not always better. Oh well ....

Anyway, go for it, you will not regret it that's for sure.
Regards,

Ronald

YEs, footprint was an issue with me, although second to price. I use the small tablet (BAMBOO) and am happy with it and my set up (2 screens, 1 4:3, 1 widescreen) but my wrist hurts after extended use.