Input Devices: Wacom Tablet, Mouse or Trackball for Image Editing

Question:
I am considering a Wacom tablet. Do you use one? If so, do you recommend it for image editing?

Answer:
Short Answer: I use a trackball by choice for all image editing.

I was once allowed by a former employer to sample about every device known on the market for input. The range included cordless, optical mice, tablets/pens and trackballs of all shape and size. I ended up the beneficiary of some experience that is hard to get otherwise, and my image editing likely improved because of it. By the end, I'd selected the Kensington Turbo Mouse (http://aps8.com/kensington.html) as my input of choice above tablets and any mega-mouse you could find. I still use the device for digital photo-editing work to this day, though in a newer and even better model. I don't know that a trackball is the solution for everyone, but for my skills and experience, this item is better.

Just to review the benefits of a trackball as I see them:

1) They don't require lift-and-move motions like a mouse, so they are easy on the wrist, and likely help keep you from getting carpal tunnel or other computer stress syndromes.

2) They have a small footprint on your work desk, don't need to move, and don't require a mouse pad, so they take up little desk space, and can always be found where you last left them (even in the dark). You don't ever fuss with wires, so being wireless is redundant.

3) The large ball on the Kensington device offers stability and control that you will not get in devices that have smaller controllers. The software has a very neat variable speed option which lets you slow the cursor movement as the ball speed slows. A big, slow ball means pixel by pixel pinpoint accuracy--and you can rest between or during moves (unlike with a pen).

4) Maintenance/cleaning requirements are near nill. Tip it over to get the ball out, and blow. Replace the ball and you are ready to go.

5) The replacement and service for Kensington products is excellent (the one time I had a problem after 5 years of service, the item was completely replaced with a new device).

6) I am not drawing oriented. If I were I would likely draw more often. I take pictures because I don't draw as well as I'd like, and likely that is because I am not so good with a pen/pencil. Pens seem unstable and difficult to control to me.

7) There are four programmable buttons and chords (combinations of buttons) that allow you to assign custom commands and menu calls for customization.

Don't be fooled by cheap immitations. I was. I'd used bad trackballs before my testing and thought they were completely useless devices. Regretfully the ones I used were stiff, small and inaccurate. With the Kensington I have great control and comfort. When my daughter was 3, I had both the mouse and trackball hooked to the machine, and once she knew how to use both, she always used the trackball...It isn't a great study, but I think it says something. The only thing a tablet can really do that my trackball can't is pressure control, and while I see that it could be useful to those with artistic skills in drawing, it isn't, again, for me.

I have been using a Kensington since 1995, and I have sampled new devices and even other Kensington products, but nothing has swayed me from the Turbo Mouse. I highly recommend it!

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Spot Application of Photoshop / Elements Filters

Question:
Is there a way to spot apply filters?

Answer:
Short Answer: Certainly, several ways -- and the best one.

There are many reasons that you might want to apply spot filtering. For example you might want to sharpen only a portion of your image, or add special effects (glows or color enhancement) in spots to more creative ends. You can apply filters as spot correction just by making a selection and applying the filter, but almost always I want a little more control, and the ability to adjust the changes I made later in the image editing process. As long as you use the right techniques, any filter or filter combination can be applied to spots in the image rather than the entire thing, and you can make adjustments whenever you want.

Filters are mostly mathematical calculations that have to be applied to content in the image. They look at content, and make a change based on how the calculations are set up behind the scenes, sometimes dependent on user input (the filter controls). When you apply filters, you have to apply them directly to content, or nothing will happen. That is, if you just create a layer and apply the filter, the layer is blank, so the filter has nothing to calculate. In that case you won't see any change. On the other hand if you have an image with a lot of layers, you can't apply the filter to one layer and have it necessarily effect every part of the image.

What you have to do to apply the filter correctly is create what I call a layer snapshot...collect all the image information you see in a layer and then apply the filter to that. Once the filter application is in its own layer, you can mask it however you want to spot apply the filter changes.

To use filters on a layer you have to do something like the following:
1. create a new layer, and name it Layer Snapshot 1
2. stamp visible to the new layer (ctrl+shift+alt+E)
3. apply the filter and re-name the layer as appropriate

Step 3, stamping visible, collects all the currently visible parts of the image into the target layer. You need to do this type of collection every time you have several layers producing a result and you need to work on ALL of the content of the image. While the visible image does not change, the change in the image is an important one: everything you saw in the image is collected into one source layer. Once the content is collected, you can apply a filter directly to all of it -- even if before it was scattered on different layers (with different modes, styles etc.).

You can use these layers to spot apply filters if you combine them with masking. For example, after the filter is applied to all of the content, you can mask the layer (either using layer clipping or Hidden Power tools for those with Elements [ http://hiddenelements.com ], or layer masks for those with Photoshop) to limit where the filter is applied.

I would apply different filters to different snapshot layers so that you have separate control over each. Using the layer snapshot and masking techniques should give you ultimate control over the result.

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