Is taking it out of the box. (The following is a reenactment…in daylight.)

I opened the box last night. A large box filled with ecologically-correct brown paper. Lots of paper.

 Underneath the paper was an elegant black box with a handle…

 In a slip cover.

Carefully, I eased the round, heavy-duty tape off the tab that holds the box together.

I opened it.

Somehow, I feel like I’m getting into the big time, now….

Hmmm…Looks suspicious to me…

  Efanor does a final quality check.

Okay…that was the fun part. Now, what say we try to get it working. 

I read the scant instructions and one of the cautions is “If it doesn’t work, turn off your antivirus software and reinstall.” Not being one to fool around with that kind of nonsense, (and particularly since the install CD didn’t auto-run) I try to turn off my Comcast-free Macaffee software. I right click on the icon, expecting it, like any well-behaved antivirus software, to give me the option to turn it off.

Nope.

I go to its control panel and hunt and peck all around the antivirus subheading. I check the help files. Nothing. Great.

I go up on line to Comcast and in order to chat with a help person, I need to know my Comcast email address….

Darned if I know. I’ve never used it. I take a guess; fortunately, I guess right. Solution is simple…go back to the control panel and look under “Computer and Files.” Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Of course it would be under Computer and Files and not AntiVirus.  Sheesh. I turn it off, reinsert the CD, and the whole process begins.

I plug in the USB. The light comes on. A few seconds later: “Your Intuos has been correctly installed.” (Or words to that effect.)

Oh…goodie, goodie, goodie.

Now, they want me to register. Fine. I give them all the numbers, then they take me to a “choose your software” screen. I have a choice…Two of three: Photoshop Elements, Corel Paint Sketcher, and Autodesk sketcher.

Ack! choices! Anybody have any suggestions which? I know I want Corel Sketcher, and I have Paint Shop Pro, which is better, as I understand it, than Photoshop Elements. Does anyone know anything about this Autodesk program? It’s supposed to be specifically aimed at pencil-style sketching, which w/b nice. And it’s small, which might also be nice, i.e. memory-light, for just sketching.

Suggestions? Please? Pretty please with peanut butter on top?

I close out of that screen, pull out my little pen and make the cursor dance all over the screen. I discover that the pad rests perfectly over my laptop keyboard. I open and close files with little taps of the pen tip.

This is going to be so much fun.

I open Paint Shop Pro. Eagerly, I create a file. I flood fill the background with white. I make a new transparent layer and start with something simple. A paintbrush with black. I make a stroke.

Okay…it’s nicely curved, but where’s the much-touted variation of width? Of darkness? I sketch some more. It’s nice, but … I want to “ink” on the screen! It’s just a line. So, I poke and prod, looking for something that will make it do something cool. I check the help files, but it doesn’t recognize art pad or any variation thereof. Finally, in desperation, I go to the internet. I was sure PSP supported the art boards, and indeed, it claimed to, but nothing to say which brushes utilized its special properties or how to adjust them.

Finally, I don’t remember where, I got the buzz word “pressure sensitive.” Back to the help files, input “pressure sensitive” and with a bit more poking and prodding, I finally found that there was a whole new “palette” one had to bring up to make the pens work.

Not the simple procedure I had with my old wacom board…the one that hasn’t worked since Win98.

One thing’s for sure, once I begin to figure out all it can do, it’s going to be seriously fun. 

But first, I have to figure out how to make the eraser work…