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It was really hard after years of using keyboard shortcuts to get used to these alternatives. Yet after a few hours I was already beginning to adjust to a different way of working. Part of the reason working on the Cintiq is so special is its enormous size. Worlds away from working on a cheap A5 tablet.

Wacom Cintiq 24HD interactive pen display

Reunited: the pen and... virtual paper

One thing creative types moan about, with good reason, is colour accuracy and Wacom has taken this on board. The Cintiq boasts the ability to reproduce 92 per cent of the Adobe RGB colour space/gamut, this was much more important to my photographic retoucher mate who came round to use it and worked on it with a slightly different range of digital imaging skills and techniques. Like me, he found being able to draw directly onto the image akin to a workbench and hugely appealing. Yet even with this intuitive approach, he wasn't convinced productivity would be that different to having an A3 tablet. So, not quite ready to be taking out a payday loan for one.

Verdict

RH Recommended Medal

As a user experience, the Wacom Cintiq 24HD is awe inspiring. It's an excellent match for concept art or creating digital watercolours in Corel Painter, as it's the feeling of sweeping your brush across a digital canvas that makes this tablet special. It is responsive, well-built and of a superior quality to anything else I have tried during my time working in the creative industry. ®

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90%
Wacom Cintiq 24HD interactive pen display

Wacom Cintiq 24HD

Heavyweight tablet and HD screen combo.
Price: £2000 RRP

Re: HD?

It's not a resistive panel. All Wacom tablets use the same technology (patented of course :p), based around electromagnetic resonance.

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0

Cintiqs

I have a the 21UX sibling (2010 model), and I tell you now, if you're an illustrator or you do artwork on computer in any volume, you have no idea what you're missing.

They're not perfect, calibration is a bit annoying sometimes, especially when Wacom release new drivers that muck everything up, but for speed of working, and just getting into the art of it, Cintiqs are awesome. I'll be entombed with mine.

The only downer is software support. They're great with Painter and Photoshop, but Sketchbook Pro (and Design) should be amazing - and they are to a point, but because neither Sketchbook has customisable controls, you can't set up the screen's shortcuts at all, and it they have no Cintiq profiles of their own (brush size rotates the screen, wtf...).

The only thing stopping me from getting a 24HD is the weight and the fact that you can't mount it on an arm (21UX can be, and the standard base allows for rotation...important when drawing on paper). So it should be mentioned that 24HD is more like a draught board...much more suited to anyone working on a board.

1
0

Not a mistake

Did you see where it needed two people to get it out of the shipping carton?

1
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