# Wacom advice for Lightroom?



## Chris_M (Aug 12, 2012)

I purchased a Wacon Bamboo Pen this week, and have been practicing with it in Photoshop,
the most difficult thing at the moment is getting used to the relative positioning of the cursor.

Anyway, what I wanted to ask here is this,
Is there any recommended way to use a Graphic Tablet in Lightroom
and
Does anyone know of any video Tutorials using a Tablet and Lightroom?
(had a look on YouTube and found mostly only unboxings or demos).


And while I'm asking things, I also have 2 TIF questions from the save dialog of Photoshop.
My preferred file format is TIF, and typically, when I am working on a photo,
the FIRST thing I do is make a duplicate Layer of the photo,
so I always have a copy of the original, as it was, before I do any work on it.
So there will always be at least 2 layers in any saved TIF, but on older photos also a third Curves adjustment layer.

With that in mind, my 2 questions are (related to the screenshot below):
1) I am running this on a Windows 7 64-bit PC, should the "Byte Order" not then be "IBM PC"...?
2) The settings in the screenshot were the default settings aside form compression which I changed to LZW,
considering my above description of what a saved TIF would contain,
are these the best settings to retain quality and save space?


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## Hal P Anderson (Aug 12, 2012)

Chris,

Interleaved Pixel Order is evidently more widely supported:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=21113

Byte Order evidently doesn't matter, but I'd use the IBM PC one. It's carry-over from the days when Mac CPUs and PC CPUs used different "endians". Now they use the same hardware:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=29136247

Both PS and LR support both Zip and LZW compression schemes, but LZW _might_ be more widely supported, if that matters. (Zip evidently compresses a little smaller.) Take your pick.  Just stay away from JPEG compression. 
http://printplanet.com/forums/prepr...1820-save-tiff-zip-lzw-compression#post136941

Hal


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## Chris_M (Aug 12, 2012)

Hal, thanks for that, interesting reading.
I just had a quick play around with the dialog, and found that when choosing the ZIP Image Compression option, the filesize was actually larger than LZW,
but when I changed back to LZW, and then activated the ZIP Layer compression option, the filesize was cut to less than half.
I guess now I'll have to create a droplet to re-save all my files with that layer compression option.

Any word on my Wacom questions anyone?


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## donoreo (Aug 14, 2012)

I am wondering about the Wacom side as well.  I got a Intuos 5 on a special deal from Dell (Days of Deals) a couple of weeks ago.  I have it connected but have not really used it yet.


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## Chris_M (Aug 14, 2012)

I don't see any advantage of using it in Lightroom, apart from maybe the adjustment brush, I've been using it in Photoshop for retouching.
That was why I was asking about using it in Lightroom and if there was any Lightroom based video tutorials on using graphioc tablets in Lightroom.

Slowly getting used to the relative cursor positioning now, but because I have the small Bamboo, I have it set to 1 monitor in my 2 monitor setup, which becomes a pain if you are doing intensive retouching, because I have PS set up to have the canvas on one screen, and everything else on the other.

I'm going to do some Googling today to see if I can find some shortcuts I could use to switch things around on-the-fly instead of having to open the Bamboo Dock every time I want to make a change.


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 14, 2012)

I use the tablet constantly in LR, combined with a dial - float over the slider with the pen, turn the dial to move the slider, works great.  I'm not sure I've seen any LR tutorials on it though - what kind of thing would you like to know?  The best suggestion I was given was to lock my mouse in a drawer for a month to really get used to the pen.  I'm not sure how I'd manage with it only set to a single screen though.


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## Chris_M (Aug 14, 2012)

Victoria, there's no one thing in particular I'd like to know, just general use info.

The Bamboo pen however does not have ANY extras, it's just the pen and the surface of the tablet,
not even extra buttons on it, let alone a dial, but that's what you get if that's all you can afford.

The single screen is a pain as I said, but if I set to dual screen,
then the already small working surface of the small Bamboo Pen is cut in half, so that's just something I'll have to deal with...


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 15, 2012)

Ok, when I'm using a tablet with no dial, I float over the slider and use the up/down keys on the keyboard.  It's just easier to get nice fine-tuned adjustments IMHO.  I also find it a more fluid movement generally, but that takes practise.


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## Chris_M (Aug 15, 2012)

I'll take a look at that then on the next photos I do, thanks.


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 16, 2012)

I've just spotted this on Facebook, might be of interest to you: http://www.facebook.com/groups/pshopandlightroom/permalink/409431132453039/


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## donoreo (Aug 16, 2012)

Victoria Bampton said:


> I've just spotted this on Facebook, might be of interest to you: http://www.facebook.com/groups/pshopandlightroom/permalink/409431132453039/


that could be handy, thanks.


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## Chris_M (Aug 16, 2012)

Thanks, I particularly like the YouTube Channel they link to on that page.


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## GBM (Sep 7, 2012)

Here is the Wacom webinar reference list url ...

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL32C9A72480B94029&feature=plcp

Victoria, when you say ' float over the .... and use the up and down keys.... etc....'   that would be very interesting to see on youtube.... does it mean you can see where your pen is going to ' touch down' and start making  a mark ..before it does ?


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 7, 2012)

I'm not sure how well it would show in a video.  Float the cursor over the Basic Develop sliders and you'll see the number field at the end of the slider is highlighted.  Then press up/down on the keyboard and the slider will move.


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## GBM (Sep 7, 2012)

Victoria, are you moving the cursor with your wacom pen ?


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 7, 2012)

Yes, that's right.  It's a smoother movement than using a mouse.


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## GBM (Sep 9, 2012)

RE: Wacom/Lightroom 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYo-8dyX7IE&feature=related


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