Waqas Qazi may be a freelance Hollywood colorist, but his desk setup is worthy of an emperor. His jaw-dropping rig boasts three monitors to play with, and a trio of bookshelf speakers to pump out the audio. Plus, he has a DaVinci Resolve Mini Panel, for color-grading and editing, and the Elgato Stream Deck XL, which is great for multitasking.
And don’t forget that cheese-grater Mac Pro!
While smartphone makers are scrambling to be the first to market with a foldable phone, Lenovo has been quietly working on a foldable PC. It won’t go on sale until 2020, but an early prototype shown off this week looks incredibly exciting.
But is a foldable PC really necessary?
If you love the idea of Apple Pencil but you don’t want to upgrade to a pricey iPad Pro, the new Bamboo Sketch stylus is the solution.
With 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, interchangeable tips, and Bluetooth connectivity, it’s the ultimate stylus for any iPad.
The 9.7-inch iPad Pro was titled the ‘Ultimate PC replacement’ by Apple, and for a lot of people it is. But for myself, mainly working within the creative world designing graphics, editing videos and conjuring up visual effects — this isn’t really possible on the iPad Pro yet.
But I think I’ve found the solution in the form of Wacom’s latest tablet, the Cintiq Companion 2.
Check out my full video review below.
Apple’s massive iPad Pro tablet is finally getting into the hands of the waiting public, and now all that remains is the small matter of how to make the most of its 13-inch screen.
The company has been pushing its new hardware to creators and enterprise. And while we’re guessing that most artists and professional designers and artists who already owned iPads have a favorite app or two, newbies picking up the latest for its huge screen and fancy Apple Pencil stylus might be at a loss with where to look.
Here are some of our picks for iPad Pro apps to start getting your creati-on.
This is a guest post by Linda Dong, a graphics expert and former designer at Apple. It originally appeared on her personal website.
A lot of hesitation (or dismissal) of the new Apple Pencil seems to stem from people’s belief that the Wacom Cintiq, currently regarded as the pinnacle of professional drawing stylus/surface design, is superior in performance and design at a similar price.
😩 *sigh*
Quite plainly, the Cintiq sucks in comparison. And I’ve been using them for years for industrial design sketching, UI and art. Let’s compare the experience:
Whether you’re an illustrator, concept artist, traditional artist, professional photographer, or designer, Corel® Painter® X3 will give you all the tools you need to unlock new artistic possibilities.
As digital art continues to make its way into the mainstream, Painter is about as realistic as it gets, and an invaluable resource for any artist. If you are making the move from traditional to digital, Painter will make the transition as painless as possible. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for 30% off for a limited time — just $299!
So you have your iPad and your apps, and you even arranged a bowl of fruit/nude model (delete as applicable). But what about hardware? After all, only stupid babies fingerpaint, right?
If you’re doing a lot of iPad painting, you should pick some kind or drawing tool. But what kind? Styluses can be had as dumb pencils, as brushes or even in Bluetooth pressure-sensitive versions.
And then there are the other accessories that’ll make painting a little easier.
Wacom makes the best graphics tablets for Mac and PC and now it wants to do the same for the iPad. The Bamboo stylus is already my favorite iPad stylus, but the ICS, or Intuos Creative Stylus goes one better with pressure sensitivity.
The iPad’s screen is binary in terms of touches: It might detect multiple fingers, but they’re either touching or not. So the pen itself has to measure how hard you’re pressing and send that info to the iPad. In the case of the ICS, this is done via a low-power Bluetooth 4 connection, with the pen communicating 2048 levels of pressure. This wireless connection also means you can use the button on the side to control various functions: undo/redo for example, or to pop up a color picker.
The ICS uses a single AAA battery, has a replaceable nib, and comes in a natty box which carries extra batteries and nibs.
This, as they say, is the Rolls Royce of styluses.
Wacom
Price $100
You have your pens and pencil, but what about somewhere to keep them? A pencil case is traditional, and the Wacom comes with one. But Adonit’s Jot Tote case is made to hold your iPad and also let you clip on a stylus. And while it’s designed for Adonit’s own Jot, you can use it with pretty much any pen-shaped object.
The case is a rear shell with a grippy finish, and on the back is a steel strip which slides out of the side and grabs onto the pen, holding it both safe and handy until you need it. This might not be strictly necessary, but for serial pen-losers it’ll be sure to save you some cash.
Adonit
Price: $50
While a pen is nice and all, nothing quite beats the feel of a good hogs-hair brush when you’re smearing on the oils. When I first saw a Nomad capacitive brush years ago, I thought it was just a gimmick. Then I tried one, and I loved it. You can’t really scrub and stipple the paint of course – the iPad sees the brush as just another pink digit – but that doesn’t mean that the action of stippling, scrubbing or stabbing isn’t more pleasing to the brain. It really does feel like you’re painting on canvas. Well, not canvas, as canvas has a stretch and give that the glass screen lacks, but it is like painting on wood or card.
Now nomad has a range of brushes, but my advice would be to go for a set of whole brushes. The kits with the single handle and screw-on tip look good in theory, but these things take up so little space it’s nicer to have the convenience of quickly grabbing the brush you want without dicking around changing the tips.
Nomad
Price: From $20
One thing that was essential to me when I painted in oils was a palette. I went the traditional route with a thin plywood board in the familiar shape, which is easy to hold in one hand, but I know people who just mixed their paint on tabletops or any nearby flat surface (including one of my own paintings).
Remote Palette is an app which lets you use your iPhone as a palette to mix paints. You can swoosh your colors around until you have the exact hue you need and the color will be automatically loaded into your brush in the iPad app. It works via Bluetooth so you can use it anywhere.
The only downside is that you have to paint using the Remote Palette app on the iPad, which is pretty limited. It’s not MS Paint, but neither does it come anywhere close to something like Procreate. Still, it’s cheap and fun.
Remote Palette
Price: $1
The NeoLucida isn’t really an iPad accessory, but it can certainly be used as one. It’s a modern version of the camera lucida, an optical device used by artists throughout history (well, since the mid–1800s anyway) to make their drawings more accurate.
The principle is simple: the unit has a prism on the end of a flexible arm, and this lets you see both your paper and your subject at the same time. This allows you to “trace” the image from real life as if it were projected onto your paper.
And of course when I say “paper” I also mean “iPad.”
The NeoLucida was made by university art professors Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin because antique versions are too expensive for working artists and students to afford. Their Kickstarter was super successful, raising almost half a million on a target of just $15,000, and they’ll be back in 2014 with a retail version. Until then you might want to speak to your bank manager before hitting Ebay.
NeoLucida
Price: Around $40
If you’re planning on buying a pressure-sensitive Bluetooth stylus for your iPad, then you should probably hold off until October; that’s when Wacom puts its new Intuos Creative Stylus on sale.
If all goes according to historical precedent, the ICS will follow the Bamboo along with all of Wacom’s plain styluses as best-in-class.
I love my Wacom Bamboo Stylus; it’s by far the best stylus I’ve owned for the iPad. And although I wouldn’t exactly call it big, I wouldn’t want to carry it around in my pocket all day. Fortunately, Wacom has a new, smaller and super cute version of the Bamboo for that.
Called the Bamboo Stylus mini and measuring just 1.85 inches, it’s the perfect portable stylus for those on the go.
