Mouse pens

[John Dickinson]

I mainly use the mouse because I like the functionality that the wheel offers in AE but I do use a Wacom for Painting and have to say that AE7 is easier to navigate with a pen than previous versions. I use a 6 x 8 inch Wacom which does everything I need but doesn’t take up too much desk real estate.

JD

John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au

[Jakob Thommessen]

I use a A5 wide Wacom tablet and I have found that it speeds up my workflow a lot!
It is a bit easyer to do mistakes, reorder layers and so on but the overall speed (especially drawing masks and rotoscoping) makes up for it.

[Robert G]

I also use the Wacom tablet, its really great for drawing masks and spline’s; sometimes I use a mouse in my left hand simultaneously for zooming in and out with the mousewheel. I also noticed that I have less trouble with my wrests, highly recommended.

Kind regards, Robert

[Joseph W. bourke]

If you do a lot of masking and drawing in AE, or Photoshop for that matter, a Wacom stylus is definitely the way to go. It is WAY more accurate than a mouse could ever be. It depends on what the bulk of your work is; if you’re mainly doing compositing, you wouldn’t notice the difference, but for any fine work, it’s good to have it standing by when you need it. Drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a potato.

Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV

[John Cuevas]

I rarely use the mouse at all, having completely switched to a wacom. Takes a little bit to change over, but after learning how to do it, I don’t think I’ll ever switch back.

Using a mouse all day, seemed to be putting me on the fast track to carpal tunnel, glad I made the change.

[Evideom]

Would you guys recommend the Intuos 6 X 8 for masking/rotoscoping?
I like the price of that one, its middle of the road, but I hope it does the trick for what I need it to do.

[Steve Roberts]

It’s in the database. 🙂

[Steve Roberts]

What I mean is …

… I had the 4×5, and it was too small. Then I had the 9×12, and it was great, but took up too much room on the desk. I just bought a 6×8, and we’ll see how it goes.

[Joseph W. bourke]

I’ve been using the 6×8 Intuos for several years now, doing masking, Photoshop retouching, and some rotoscoping, and I find it to be just the right balance of desk real-estate and accuracy (not to mention price). I don’t think you could go wrong with the 6×8.

By the way…thanks for the honor of databasing my “drawing with a potato” line. It’s actually my own, but I’ve stolen enough good lines from other people that I’m glad to see it have new owners.

Joe Bourke
Art Director / WMUR-TV

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Joseph W. Bourke] “…thanks for the honor of databasing my “drawing with a potato” line. It’s actually my own, but I’ve stolen enough good lines from other people that I’m glad to see it have new owners.”

Yes, but as the guy who single-handedly invented the Chez Bovine