Digital Photo Etching

[puw]

Wildrice, I want to thank you for all the images you put into this post, because I came here tonight looking hopefully for some advice about how Xara interacts with a graphics or pen tablet. I've been looking into these this last week as a way of maybe helping solve my deficiencies trying to create art/designs/vectors with a mouse, but everyone always talks about AI or PS - never Xara

From what I have learned over this week, the tablet you have been using is just a 'drawing board' yes? As in, your results show up on your laptop or desktop screen, not on the tablet itself. Unless you have prior experience using a graphics tablet, the speed in which you developed your skills so fast on the one you bought is astonishing to me.

I also love the way that you've approached these in a back to front kind of way - by adding white onto black to create them.

Please can you tell me, have you found any issues at all since you began using the Wacom with Xara? Are any of the features and functions not working or need a workaround at all?

To any other members who use a graphics/pen tablet, please can you offer your experience, what you use, what Xara product you use it with etc. I see people saying to buy a small less expensive one to begin, but if I do that, I won't have the money to buy a bigger better one once I know their value and potential in helping me. But just as important, is knowing that various ones (not just Wacoms) work with Xara.

Mods, if you prefer I make a new post, please advise.

Thanks again Wildrice for any feedback/advice you can give, and congrats on your art being used too.

Oh, one last general question. Does the size of a tablet, if smaller, not restrict the size of a drawing you can create? I appreciate if you're doing vectors once finished, this is irrelevant. But while working, if you can only see & work on a portion of your work due to the workspace area size, does this not hinder you in any way or make you have to keep zooming in and out all the time. I can't quite work this out in my mind, how it works from a small tablet size to a larger tablet size, thinking all smaller tablet size owners are all working on small designs etc.

Thx again.

[WildRice]

Most of this technique was done on a Wacom Intuos Creative Pen & Touch Tablet with Xara PGD9 software. The Boogie Board LCD tablet is a great way to get started though. The Wacom tablet is indirect but has a paper like texture. I can run the same software on my Surface Pro 2 computer for direct on screen work, but the stylus indexing can be off for detailed work and the glass surface lacks texture resistance. But I have still done publishable work on it. The zoom in function makes it easy to draw at any scale with either set-up. The only problems is that after a few thousand line objects are drawn the program can bog down a bit. Grouping lines as one object helps some, but then makes it harder to edit individual lines.

I just got a major journal article approved called "The History of Light: An Illustrated Retrospective" that describes the work of Roentgen, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Doppler, Rembrandt, and Vermeer in the physics and interpretation of light photons, using artwork (my own, living artists, and dead artists). It was accepted by a major radiology technical journal with no major revisions.

Wildrice, I want to thank you for all the images you put into this post, because I came here tonight looking hopefully for some advice about how Xara interacts with a graphics or pen tablet. I've been looking into these this last week as a way of maybe helping solve my deficiencies trying to create art/designs/vectors with a mouse, but everyone always talks about AI or PS - never Xara

From what I have learned over this week, the tablet you have been using is just a 'drawing board' yes? As in, your results show up on your laptop or desktop screen, not on the tablet itself. Unless you have prior experience using a graphics tablet, the speed in which you developed your skills so fast on the one you bought is astonishing to me.

I also love the way that you've approached these in a back to front kind of way - by adding white onto black to create them.

Please can you tell me, have you found any issues at all since you began using the Wacom with Xara? Are any of the features and functions not working or need a workaround at all?

To any other members who use a graphics/pen tablet, please can you offer your experience, what you use, what Xara product you use it with etc. I see people saying to buy a small less expensive one to begin, but if I do that, I won't have the money to buy a bigger better one once I know their value and potential in helping me. But just as important, is knowing that various ones (not just Wacoms) work with Xara.

Mods, if you prefer I make a new post, please advise.

Thanks again Wildrice for any feedback/advice you can give, and congrats on your art being used too.

Oh, one last general question. Does the size of a tablet, if smaller, not restrict the size of a drawing you can create? I appreciate if you're doing vectors once finished, this is irrelevant. But while working, if you can only see & work on a portion of your work due to the workspace area size, does this not hinder you in any way or make you have to keep zooming in and out all the time. I can't quite work this out in my mind, how it works from a small tablet size to a larger tablet size, thinking all smaller tablet size owners are all working on small designs etc.

Thx again.

[puw]

I just got a major journal article approved called "The History of Light: An Illustrated Retrospective" that describes the work of Roentgen, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Doppler, Rembrandt, and Vermeer in the physics and interpretation of light photons, using artwork (my own, living artists, and dead artists). It was accepted by a major radiology technical journal with no major revisions.

Well done. Hope you post a link once it is published.

Thanks for the reply too