James
- The best thing about the new cintiq 27qhd has to be its size and robustness.
- The worst thing about the 27qhd has got to be the gap between the pen and cursor.
I decided to buy the latest Wacom cintiq in an effort to advance my computer designs to the next level. You could argue that it is not what tools you use that make you a good artists but how you use them however I dont see it like that as art is about expression and if you limit yourself to lets say just using your mouse for instance you may find that your are unable to fully express and communicate your message!
After spending £1500 on my new wacom tablet I expected a lot and I have to admit my new wacom tablet does almost reach my expectations..almost that is.
When I first opened up the box of the 27qhd I was impressed on how well packaged it was and how just how robust and well made the drawing tablet was.
The screen isn’t flimsy at all and isn’t like your regular computer monitor as it will not pop or crack without applying a lot of force. This is because the screen is made from tempered glass so it is quite strong and will only scratch if you scrape something that is harder than the glass surface along the screen like a ring or a watch.
Even though it will take a lot to scratch the screen I chose not to take any risks as all it takes is for a silly mistake to scratch the screen of even for your pen to just pick up some hard grit whilst drawing and then for you to drag this across the screen without realizing and scratch it! So I decided to buy a screen protector from photodon. I chose a anti glare screen protector so that the screen wouldn’t be slick! The screen protector was kind of hard to put on the tablet and I was lucky to get away with just having 5 air small air bubbles around the frame and no air bubbles on the actual drawing part of the screen.
To buy a screen protector cut to the cintiq 27qhd size and with its own application kit cost around £30 and shipping to the uk cost me another £30!
I decided to buy the 27qhd rather than the 22 inch cintiq because the the 22 has been around the a number of years and will probably be upgraded soon anyway to a newer model plus because the 27 qhd was only £200 more at the time I would have been a fool not to go with the bigger and newer model!
The 27qhd is just the right size for drawing and painting any smaller and you would find yourself having to constantly zoom in and out. What is more the huge screen size means that you are able to draw with your whole arm instead of just being constrained to drawing with just your wrist.
You also have to remember that if you are drawing in programs such as Photoshop a lot of your screen will be taken up by the different side panels and tool options making your active drawing space in Photoshop a lot smaller than the screen on your tablet (unless you hide these tool panels).
The huge size of the cintiq 27qhd was one of the reasons why I didn’t just buy the new iPad pro. Even though with the iPad pro it does not have any gap between you cursor and pen the drawing space was far too small to accomplish anything other than wrist drawn doodles. The iPad pro is also restricted when it comes to programs… with the cintiq you plug it into your main computer and can work with a number of powerful programs like photoshop but with the iPad you are limited to just a few drawing apps and are limited on the file sizes of your images as welll!
The cintiq 27qhd isn’t perfect though…
The 27qhd boasts over 2000+ degrees of sensitivity however if you do not adjust your photoshop brushes correctly you will hardly be able to tell that the cintiq is actually changing the brush opacity when applying more or less pressure on the tablet.
Another thing to note is that if you want the best graphics and resolution from your cintiq you are going to need a good computer and a hdmi cable else you will be disappointed by the graphics!
Finally the last thing to mention about the cintiq 27qhd which isnt talked about much is the paralex effect (the gap between the actual cursor and your pen). Due to the fact that there a layer of glass between your pen and the actual tablet screen mean that there is a gap! This means where your pen falls and draws isn’t exactly where your line draws.
How you will also help reduce this gap as if draw at a slight side angle this can make the gap look a lot bigger this gap.
This gap does make things a little bit confusing at first but if you focus more on your cursor than the end of your pen nib then you will have better control and if you calibrate your pen properly this can help improve the accuracy of the tablet. It is also important not to sit drawing on your tablet at a side angle sitting with the tablet in front of you is best because sitting at a slight angle means that the gap is accentuated from an angle.
Also adding a screen protector also only make this gap bigger as you are obviously increasing the distance between cursor and pen even more.
I just recently bought a cintiq and it is brilliant but the one thing that I find annoying (not the cintiqs fault) is that drawing in photoshop is not smooth at all.. as in it picks up all the little zig and zags when you draw, so my advice to anyone is to buy a plugin called Lazy Nezumi is really good for photoshop that automatically smooths/adds some weight to your brush strokes when you draw.