As I was working on an image the other day, I realized how much I depend on my Wacom tablet for post-processing. I also realized that I don’t often get the chance to mention this incredible tool when teaching workshops.
So I figured it was high time I share the joys of editing with this indispensable tool. Below I’ll talk a little about the advantages of a tablet when editing, and then show a video detailing how I configure mine to function best for the kind of photo work I do.
Graphic Tablets
A graphic tablet is an input device that replaces a mouse and consists of the tablet itself as well as a pen. They are also referred to as drawing tablets or pen tablets. Wacom is the brand that I use and is generally considered to be the gold standard of this niche.
A typical graphic tablet with its pen.
At the most basic level, the pen and tablet are used as a substitute for the relatively unwieldy mouse or track pad. Instead of working with an unergonomic mouse, you can use the more natural and ergonomic pen and tablet to click your clicks, dab at spots and draw your masks.
These devices are very popular with graphic designers who need to “draw” and “paint” on the computer. Imagine how difficult/impossible it would be to draw a realistic scene with a clumsy mouse. Now put a pencil in your hands. Feel the control? Ah, much easier.
When to Use a Graphic Tablet
For most of our processes in night photography (or photography in general), we don’t need the extreme level of control some of these tablets offer. But the natural feel of the pen does reduce hand strain and does make many of our tasks much easier. When I was recently working on a Death Valley image that needed a lot of spot removal, I was reminded of the convenience of my Wacom.
I’d been shooting on one of those nights when long-exposure noise was creeping into images. (The temperature had been fairly cool when I made the shot, so I didn’t turn on long exposure noise reduction for the series of 3-minute exposures. The night was, however, very dry. This is a phenomenon that I first heard about from Lance Keimig: In dry, desert-like environments, long exposure noise becomes visible at shorter exposures than usual at the same ambient temperature.)
In this example, the long exposure noise hadn’t completely ruined the image, but I definitely had to do a lot of spot removal to salvage the shot. Using the Wacom tablet and pen made my job much easier. Instead of fussing around from hot pixel to hot pixel with a mouse, trying to microadjust the position of the pointer, trying and missing and undoing and redoing ad nauseam, I was able to just pinpoint each spot with my tablet pen.
The image in question, before eediting the long exposure noise. Click to enlarge to see how many pixels need to be spotted out.
Final image with long exposure noise removed. Death Valley National Park. Nikon D4s with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 14mm. Ten exposures at 3 minutes, f/4, ISO 320.
That’s one prime example of when a tablet makes my life easier. For basic image editing (moving the sliders about), I generally don’t use one, as I am fairly comfortable with the mouse and trackpad for those tasks. But the moment I need to perform serious spot removal, I plug in the Wacom and revel in its ease of use. I also use the tablet extensively when I’m working on creating masks for local adjustments in both Lightroom and Photoshop. Basically I use it anytime I imagine that a pen would be a more efficient tool than a brick … I mean, a mouse.
That being said, I know plenty of photographers who use the pen and tablet the whole time they are editing. They just find it all-around more comfortable.
Setting Yourself up for Success
Many models and varieties of tablets are available at different price points. Wacom’s most popular are the Intuos and the Intuos Pro lines. I prefer the Intuos Pro (Medium) for the extra size of the tablet for resting my wrist. It also has better pressure sensitivity for when that may be needed.
A lot of folks find their first few attempts at working with the tablet to be somewhat frustrating. I know I did. The reason is that it is truly designed for extreme control. This means the pen has pressure sensitivity to regulate how hard you need to press to paint, draw or click. Also, a tablet has a fairly large active area (the surface that’s sensitive to the touch of the pen). In some cases this means you have to move your whole arm to get your cursor/pointer/tool from one corner of the display to another. That can seem like a lot of wasted movement for folks accustomed to nudging their mouse an inch to reach the far end of the screen.
Those aspects of pen and tablet are great for exerting precision strokes, but (I believe) are unnecessary for the average photographer. The folks at Wacom would cringe if they heard how I basically “dumb down” the whole setup for my editing. But, hey, it works for me!
In the following video, I’ll show how I set up my Wacom Intuos Pro. I won’t cover all of the myriad options the tablet offers, but rather just the ones that pertain to my way of working.
Wrapping Up
Using a tablet is a great way to gain comfort, precision and efficiency while editing images, in addition to making certain tasks (such as spot removal and local adjustments) much, much easier. I couldn’t live without mine.
