From the course: Wacom Essential Training

Understanding positioning - Wacom Tutorial

From the course: Wacom Essential Training

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Understanding positioning

- If you're new to tablets, then you're most likely used to interacting with a computer via the mouse. Switching from a mouse to a tablet can be a bit disorienting. This is because each device moves the onscreen cursor differently. Computer pointing devices can operate in either relative or absolute mode. In this video, we'll get to the bottom of all this. Or is it the top? Let's find out. Relative positioning is useful in situations where a pointing device's movement is limited. Mouse movement is typically done with a pick up and drag and set down motion, to reposition the screen cursor. Using absolute positioning mode, the stylus tip and tablet are directly linked, or mapped. For example, the upper left corner of the tablet's active surface corresponds to the upper left corner of the screen. Likewise, the lower right corner of the tablet surface corresponds to the lower right corner of the screen. This behavior is exactly the same as a device like the iPad, except that the screen and tablet are in spatially different locations. Absolute positioning is superior for drawing and painting activity. Relative positioning is excellent for navigating menu structures. If you are a mouse user, then you've internalized relative positioning's specific behavior to control the cursor. This internalized behavior can take some practice to overcome when adapting to absolute positioning, but it is definitely a goal worth achieving. It's a small price to pay for expressing yourself via mark-making activities like painting and drawing. So let's pick up our stylus and get to work.

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