Watch video: DCW Unwrapped
Choosing a gift for the photographer or image-maker in your life can be tricky. There are obvious things, like lens cap mugs and cleaning cloths, but if you want to give a really useful present it can feel like a bit of a minefield.
On DCW Unwrapped, we rip the paper off our favorite photography, videography and image-making presents. It's a fun way for us to share some great gift recommendations – including gifts for yourself!
It may even give you some inspiration for gifts you can give during other seasons and occasions, whether it's a birthday, a graduation, a tradition like Eid, or even next Christmas if you're planning ahead!
Today's present is the amazing XPPen Artist Pro 16 Generation 2 from XP Pen – not just one of the best drawing tablets on the market, but also one of the best priced, given all the things it can do!
While the tablet is designed for illustrators and 3D artists using software like Illustrator, Maya and Blender, this is a brilliant device for photo editing as well. Used with packages like Photoshop and Gimp, the tablet and stylus can be wielded much more deftly than the clumsy keyboard and mouse interface.
The best way I can describe using the Artist Pro 16 is that it’s like retouching your photographs with the delicate strokes of a paintbrush. By comparison, going back to clicking and dragging a mouse is like editing with boxing gloves on!
The stylus offers over 16,000 pressure levels – that’s a world-first, doubling the traditional 8,000 pressure levels in rival tablets – and increases accuracy by 20%. Whether you’re dodging and burning, creating delicate object selections or using fine tools like the cloning stamp and healing brush, this is an absolutely transformative way to edit your images.
It's super-comfortable Stylus is battery-free, using electro-magnetic resonance technology for wireless energy transmission – meaning you don’t need to charge it! It has dual shortcut keys near where your thumb rests, making it easy to switch functions, and it packs a digital eraser on the back – which is a really intuitive way to make corrections.
Its pinpoint accuracy is made possible by the cutting-edge X3 Pro Smart Chip Stylus, delivering a 100% improvement in performance. This works in conjunction with the X-Nature Display, which boasts 2.5K resolution and 99% sRGB color gamut coverage – offering an incredibly rich ratio that enables you to switch between color spaces like sRGB, Adobe RGB and DCI-P3. This gives you the same kind of color accuracy as professional art monitors, and the display is certified by Tüv Süd to optimize eye comfort by reducing blue light emissions.
The anti-glare, anti-fingerprint etched glass screen marries with the felt nib of the stylus to give a familiar, paper-like feel. And with the screen and display being laminated, there are no parallax errors between the stylus and the cursor.
To make using the 16-inch workspace as comfortable and fatigue-free as possible, the gorgeous metal body features an ergonomic wrist rest, as well as a foldable built-in stand – making it easy to edit, draw, sketch or write notes at home or on the go.
You can take your productivity even further with the X-Remote Control – a wired or wireless one-handed input pad with 10 keys, for up to 40 shortcuts, along with a damped physical dial that is extremely tactile and pleasing to use for zooming, rotating or adjusting brush sizes.
Whether you’re using MacOS, Windows, Android, ChromeOS or Linux, if you’re a photographer who wants to take your editing to the next level with stunning color alignment and pinpoint precision, the XPPen Artist Pro 16 Generation 2 is going to truly transform your post-production.
