Move over, Wacom.

Photographers who do much outlining work with the Lasso tool in Photoshop often end up using a Wacom tablet. This is an electrostatic tablet with a pen; the pen is dragged along the surface and activates the on-screen pointer in Photoshop.

I never found much use for my small wired Wacom and gave it away a few years back. As I find I’m using the Lasso tool now and then to blur backgrounds, I find I have a hankering for a pen tablet again.

iPad to the rescue! A combination of the Pogo Stylus and Mobile Mouse is all you need. And the iPad is wireless. Mostly I use my finger for outlining, controlling the Lasso tool in PS from my iPad, but if more accuracy is called for the Pogo Stylus can be useful. With the enhanced outlining in Photoshop CS5 I find my finger suffices nearly every time. If you already have an iPad, Mobile Mouse is about the lowest incremental cost of entry to to a tablet outlining tool there is and outlining with an iPad is far smoother than with a mouse.

Rollover the image (use Safari or Chrome to render – does not work on an iPad):

I also livened up the processed image, as a rollover discloses. Take a careful look at the hair of the beauty on the right ….