Wacom Announces Two New Cintiq Interactive Pen Displays

Wacom just announced the impending release of two new Cintiq interactive pen displays to their line of tablet/monitor hybrid products- a widescreen HD model as well as a widescreen HD touch Cintiq. In case you didn't know, the Cintiq is like an art board as a monitor, allowing you to use the popular Wacom pens directly onto a screen rather having a separate tablet.

Pat, Lee, Lauren and I all played with a Cintiq at WPPI in February and we were all pretty happy with the directness of the control. They are just kind of pricey, but if you do heavy retouching or digital drawing on a daily basis, these things rock.

From the Wacom Official Press release:

"To offer users an immersive experience and a more intuitive and natural way to work, the new Cintiq 24HD touch combines Wacom's multi-touch with its renowned pen technology. The Cintiq 24HD touch closely replicates the experience of working with two hands when using traditional materials such as paints, markers and clay while giving the artist powerful capabilities that only exist in today’s creative software applications. “Increasingly, as creative software incorporates multi-touch interaction and gesture support, the Cintiq 24HD touch provides a natural input experience for all related activities including concept sketching, illustration and especially 3D activities such as sculpting, modeling and animation,” says Don Varga, Professional Products Brand Director. “The ability to manipulate a 3D model or pan, zoom and rotate an image with one hand while simultaneously sculpting or sketching with the other
delivers a completely natural experience enabling artists to stay completely in their creative zone.

Professionals with color-critical workflows, such as photographers, graphic designers, video and film editors as well as animators and game developers will benefit from the Cintiq 24HD's life-like color quality which displays 1.07 billion colors and 97 percent of Adobe's color gamut.

To improve workflow and creative output, the Cintiq 22HD offers eight customizable, application-specific ExpressKeys located on each side of the display’s bezel. Additionally, user-defined Touch Strips, conveniently placed on the back of each side of the display, can be used for such functions as zoom, scroll, brush size and canvas rotation."

The 22HD is $1999, and the 24HD Touch is $3699 USD. I've been told to expect shipments in August. Plenty of time to save up and get excited!

For more information, head over to Wacom.com.