As you get more into photography and Photoshop, eventually you being to think you would like some extra control over what you are doing in Photoshop even if you cant quite put your finger on what that means. This is usually the time to plunk down a couple hundred bucks on a Wacom tablet and gain a whole new level of functionaly from the brush-based tools (brush, eraser, healing tools, etc) than you had with just a mouse. However, good Wacom tablets are expensive and since we here at L7 want you to get the most bang for the buck, we think we found a great alternative.

A friend sent over an ad for geeks.com with the code GEEKTAB2 which gets you the DigiPro 6×8 tablet for only $39. This is one of those prices that, if it really just sucks, you toss it in the trash and don’t look back.

It had been a busy week here and I completely forgot about it until the FedEx guy rang the doorbell.

I installed the software and then plugged in the base into the USB port and let it detect everything. My Windows XP system required a reboot before the table would function properly.

In Photoshop, I didn’t have to set anything for the tablet to work. The pen is cordless and you just tap the tablet once to wake it up. The spot healing tool is one of my favorites for quick touchups to remove dust, pimples, etc. If you just lightly touch the tablet and draw with a brush tool you will get a very fine brush line, the harder you press the larger the brush becomes.

I have never used a Wacom so I can’t give a comparison between the two, I can only say that the DigiPro tablet exceeded my expectations. With the pressure sensitive control of the brush tools, it dramatically reduces the amount of time spent touching up pictures. I do mostly product shots and no matter how well you prep a product, there is always some dust, scratch, or similar problem you want to take out quickly and the DigiPro tablet makes this much less of a chore than it was before.

If you are budget minded like me, the DigiPro table is an excellent deal. Do some google searches and you are sure to find similar discounts it if the geeks.com deal is over.

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