Just started getting back into drawing and the like, and I have a laptop with Photoshop CS2 on it at my disposal. I was going to try a graphic tablet and was wondering which one would be suitable for a budding amateur. Ideally I would like to make use of the pen pressure abilities of Photoshop. Any ideas what's best?

anything wacom that suits your wallet really, dont bother with trust and the like the registry is pap. ive been using a wacom for over 10 years

I've got my eye on a wacom on ebay. do they all support pen pressure?

Had a Wacom Bamboo Touch and Pen for a while now, and it's really nice to use. Doesn't have the sensitivity of the Intuous series, but they're much more expensive. The Bamboo is an excellent starter tablet and still has more than adequate level of control. Works perfectly with Photoshop's pen tools, and also with lots of other applications too. For £75 you can't go wrong.

an old sapphire would see you right

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Wacom-Wireless-Pen-Tablet-CTE-630BT3-NEW-/150475199798?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Collectables_InputDevices_RL&hash=item2309055536#ht_500wt_1154

That's the one I'm watching. What's a decent price for those? Don't want to bid myself out of a deal.

go up to 50, i wouldnt do more because of other models available, personally id go for a wired pad over wireless as its 1 less thing to go wrong but if that goes cheap its worth a punt

Apparently they were £160+ new, so you might get a bargain!

Plenty of older but still good Wacoms out there for good prices.

dont bother with trust and the like

True. I naively bought a Trust tablet a few years ago, as it claimed to work with a Mac. It didn't even work properly on a PC. Piece of shit. Wacom FTW!

Bugger. Missed it with my crappy internet connection.

Oh well. Got a Bamboo Pen & Touch for £38 instead. I guess I'll see what that's like. Cheers for the advice.

Get mypaint software. It is slightly fiddly to get into, but once you get used to it, it's a very nice and efficient pretend natural painting program, and is free. Much better for painting/drawing than photoshop, especially if you don't wasn't things to look too digital.

I have a bamboo, it is surprisingly good for something cheap.

Joe

I was umming and arrhhing a while back on whether to fork out for the proper Wacom or the cheaper Bamboo – opted for the Bamboo in the end – it's not as sensitive and you do notice it slightly with airbrushing in photoshop etc but I'm happy to have saved the money with the Bamboo – for 90% of stuff it's fine.

Got to disagree Joe, photoshop is very good at the painter effect just people are too lazy to use it properly.

Painter gets my recommendation also

Well I have Photoshop ready to go anyway so I may as well stick with that. Props to the eBay seller not formatting his laptop hard drive 😀

I'm not a fussy "I need this to do this, and that to do that, and a secret button to swap between the brush tool and magnetic lasso" kind of guy, and I'm pretty arty anyway, so all I really want is to recreate my natural hand gestures and pressure. If I can do that with the Bamboo then I guess I'll be a happy camper.