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Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 and Cintiq Pro 22 Unveiled

If you're a professional photographer, graphic designer, or video creator, it's highly probable that you've incorporated a graphics tablet into your workflow at some point during your career. Tablets or display screens provide an intuitive way of drawing and editing, not only enhancing efficiency, but also creating a more ergonomic and organic workflow than is possible with a keyboard and mouse.

On October 19, 2023, Wacom introduced the Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 and Cintiq Pro 22, featuring updates tailored to meet the demands of professional users. These two new screens aim to further enhance the immersive experience that Wacom has been committed to delivering over the past two decades.

Our Wacom Cintiq Pro review touches on technical specifications, explores features and delves deeper into the colour accuracy which these provide, in order to help you decide which is going to be the most essential desktop accessory in your creative toolbox.

What is the Wacom Cintiq Pro Series?

Wacom's Cintiq Pro series comprises interactive pen displays, essentially screens that enable you to draw directly onto them. They require a computer to operate and are renowned for colour accuracy, customisation and user-friendliness. Furthermore, each Cintiq Pro is bundled with a Pro Pen, and are designed to meet the exacting requirements of professional users.

2023 Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 and Cintiq Pro 22 highlights

This generation 4K creative graphics tablet offers the highest colour performance with a wider colour gamut, HDR and 10-bit colour depth, pre-calibration and 120Hz screen refresh rate. There’s no jitter, lag or ghosting from the bright 400 cd per m2 screen, and both models include the latest Pro Pen 3.

Why is a pen on screen better for drawing and editing?

Working with a pen on a screen is often preferred over using a mouse and keyboard for photo and video editing for a number of reasons:

1. Precision and Control: A pen provides a more precise and natural way to interact with your digital content, with crucial precision when making intricate adjustments or fine-tuning details in photos or videos.
2. Pressure Sensitivity: Wacom’s pens offer pressure sensitivity, allowing you to control brush size, opacity, or line thickness based on how hard you press the pen against the screen. This provides greater control for tasks like drawing, masking, and retouching.
3. Tactile Feedback: Using a pen on a screen provides tactile feedback, allowing you to feel the texture of the digital etched surface, which can make editing feel more intuitive and responsive.
4. Hand-Eye Coordination: When using a pen on a screen you are working directly on your content, which improves hand-eye coordination, and can lead to more accurate and efficient edits.
5. Natural Brush and Pen Tools: Most professional video and photo editing software is designed to work seamlessly with a pen, offering natural tools that mimic traditional pen on paper techniques.
6. Workflow Efficiency: Pen and tablet setups often have customisable shortcut buttons that can streamline your editing workflow. You can assign functions like zoom, undo, and brush size adjustments to these buttons, reducing the need to switch between keyboard and mouse.
7. Reduced Fatigue: Using a pen and screen setup can be less tiring than a mouse and keyboard, as it promotes a more ergonomic posture and reduces the strain on your wrists and fingers during long editing sessions.
8. Natural Gestures: With touch-sensitive screens, you can perform natural gestures like pinch-to-zoom and rotate, making it easier to manipulate and navigate through your content.

The combination of precision, control, and a more natural and tactile editing experience makes working with a pen on a screen a preferred choice for many photo and video editors.

Who uses Wacom Cintiq Pro tablets?

By prioritising colour accuracy creators are able to future-proof their work  across a wide array of devices and platforms. For this reason a Cintiq Pro screen can be a great benefit to solo creators and studio artists working across multiple industries.  These include:

• Graphic design and illustration
• Photography
• 3D modelling and animation
• Video post production for social media, TV and cinema
• Game design
• Fashion and product design

Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 vs Cintiq Pro 22 Specs comparison

2023 Cintiq Pro 17 and 22 colour accuracy

The Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 and 22 tablets come pre-calibrated, ensuring that they are Pantone validated and Pantone Skin Validated out of the box. Furthermore, these tablets support wide colour spaces, in order to display a broader range of colours on the spectrum, compared to other screens.

Each boasts impressive coverage, with support for 98-99% of DCI-P3 and 99%-88% of Adobe RGB colour. Working with accurate colour in a broad colour spectrum is vital for demanding creative workflows, whether preparing images for multiple channels, working to print, or colour grading for movie consistency.

Why does Cintiq Pro support HDR gamma and 10-bit colour?

The 2023 model Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 and Wacom Cintiq Pro 22 support 10-bit colour depth and HDR. An expanded contrast range results in images that closely emulate real-life scenes. For digital artists, photographers and designers, this equates to a heightened fidelity, in order to more accurately make decisions concerning colour, contrast, and light.

Colours rendered in 10-bit also better replicate an extended spectrum of hues, saturation, and depth, leading to heightened vibrancy and a more lifelike quality. Broadened colour gamut guarantees that the hues observed on your display closely resemble real-world colours and all of the subtle graduations.

Intricate lighting, shadows, and highlights are all displayed more accurately, which is crucial for creatives working with particular images such as photos and drawings.

With the increasing prevalence of HDR (High Dynamic Range) content across various media, owning an HDR-capable pen display ensures your work is future-proofed. It allows you to create content that adheres to evolving benchmarks and audience expectations. Whether you're engaged in creating artwork, videos, or animations, your images will be optimised for HDR-compatible devices, including high-end monitors and TVs.

Why use a professional-level pen display?

A high-performance pen display offers several advantages over an entry-level model, including:

1. More vibrant and richer visuals: Due to its expansive colour space coverage, the pen display can portray rich and vibrant colours that may be challenging to achieve with displays featuring narrower colour gamuts. This aspect holds particular significance for projects requiring attention-grabbing visuals and striking presentations.
2. Consistency Across Artists working on multiple Devices: The ability to faithfully render an extensive spectrum of colours is crucial for ensuring uniformity when multiple artists collaborate on diverse devices and mediums. This capability empowers several artists to work with confidence, mitigating substantial disparities in their colour perceptions, thus significantly reducing the need for time-consuming colour correction.
3. Colour-Critical Applications: Professionals engaged in fields such as photography, graphic design, video editing, and animation depend on accurate colour representation. Artists and designers can have confidence that their work remains consistent whether it is viewed on a high-end monitor, a laptop screen, or even in print.
4. Enhanced Creative Expression: Professionals engaged in fields such as photography, graphic design, video editing, and animation depend on accurate colour representation. Artists and designers can have confidence that their work remains consistent whether it is viewed on a high-end monitor, a laptop screen, or even in print.

Cintiq Pro screen ergonomics and usability

For more familiar interaction, both 2023 Cintiq Pro tablets offer significantly improved 10 Point Multitouch input, enabling natural gestures such as swiping and tapping. Each device can detect and record 5080 lines within one inch of the drawing surface, resulting in greater accuracy while capturing pen movements.

Grip Express Keys

The Grip Express Keys have been purposefully made to combine ergonomic design with functionality. They are designed to offer users an ergonomically comfortable grip for accessing express keys, thereby promoting muscle memory and a seamless workflow.

Ergonomic Stand with Versatile Positioning

The Cintiq Pro stands are engineered to be adjustable to any level, ensuring a high degree of comfort for artists and providing robust support at any angle. In contrast to previous designs, the Cintiq Pro 27 stand included in our bundle, offers the flexibility to hold the device at a wide range of angles, accommodating different work setups, environments, and the ergonomic preferences of individual artists.

40-Degree Rotation

The 40º rotation feature complements the ergonomic stand by allowing artists to rotate the device as needed in their workflows. This rotation capability contributes to a natural working posture and enhances comfort, particularly during extended working sessions.

Customisable Workspace

The inclusion of 1/4" UNC threads enables artists to create a highly customisable workspace that caters to their unique requirements. This modular attachment offers the ability to attach accessories such as input devices, document holders, or other tools.

VESA Mount

Incorporating a VESA mount onto the pen display provides the convenience of securing the display to compatible monitor arms, wall mounts, or ergonomic stands, contributing to workspace ergonomics optimisation, while adapting to specific use cases as needed.

Pro Pen 3

Wacom’s included Pro Pen 3 ensures a comfortable and ergonomic drawing experience, even during long creative sessions. By adjusting the pen's balance and diameter users experience reduced hand and wrist fatigue, reduced tremors and a more comfortable creative workflow.

This is the first Pen to offer Customisable grips, weight adjustment and side switch configurations.

Arguably, there’s no better solution for creative professionals who need a comfortable, colour accurate and ergonomic solution to long stints at their screen, than the latest generation Wacom Cintiq Pro models. They arrive pre-calibrated, with a wider colour gamut and include fast refresh 4K screens for demanding workflows.

Order your Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 Graphics Tablet and optional Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 Stand, or the flagship Wacom Cintiq Pro 22 Graphics Tablet with Stand included and discover how these devices can transform your pen-to-screen experience.

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By Nick Dautlich on 19/10/2023