This past weekend I dove into my electronic junk drawer and found something that I hadn’t used in years. It was an old Graphire 3 Wacom Tablet that I bought way back in college.

I used to use it for getting some hand-drawn effects in Photoshop, but never for things like After Effects, Lightwave 3D or general computing. When I first got it, I did the usual things that someone does when they get a tablet. I drew cartoons, I signed my name over and over in Photoshop. As the coolness of using a plastic pen as a mouse wore off, the tablet gradually found a home on my desk that was progressively out of the way. It was eventually unplugged and tucked away in a drawer.

This past weekend, after finding the tablet and plugging it in, I immediately found it difficult to use. I had to ‘walk’ the mouse across the screen, and it was really frustrating when the pen would constantly hit the edge of the active area of the tablet and stop tracking. I was just about to unplug it and then I thought ‘hmm, maybe I’ll install the driver and see if that helps. Once I downloaded and installed the Wacom software, it was a world of difference.

With the software installed, the active area becomes a direct representation of the screen area. Putting the pen in the lower left of the tablet will put the cursor near the Start menu. Wacom software has come a long long way since I last looked at it. There’s a floating multi-function toolbar that lets you write characters, or have access to an onscreen keyboard. It’s still not really effective as a keyboard replacement though, but it does work well for what it is.

So today I used my old Wacom Tablet pretty much all day. I’m still getting used to it, but I found it comfortable to use all day for After Effects, Photoshop and Flash work. It’s just as accurate as any mouse, and I think with a little practice, it should be faster than using a mouse as well. It had been so long since I looked into tablets – now that I’ve seen the Cintiq line of tablets, I want one!