Wacom (www.wacom.com) has announced their new Intuos Pro and Intuos Pro Paper Edition of pen and touch tablets.

“The new generation Intuos Pro provides a wealth of new features and benefits to artists, designers and photographers who demand the very best from their creative tools,” says Masahiko Yamada, president and CEO of Wacom. “The new Pro Pen 2 anchors the overall creative experience with enhanced pressure-sensitivity and precision, but it's the Intuos Pro Paper Edition that really stands out by giving users the ability to incorporate paper into their creative workflow. Ink-on-paper drawings are captured and stored digitally on board the Intuos Pro Paper Edition and can be refined later on the tablet with any compatible layered raster or vector software application. Gone are the days of tedious and time-consuming scanning.

The Intuos Pro Paper Edition boasts all the features as the Intuos Pro, but the Paper Edition model adds a Paper Clip (to attach the artists favorite drawing paper), pressure-sensitive Finetip gel ink pen and the Wacom Inkspace App to convert drawings for use with leading creative software applications. The Inkspace App environment also allows users to store and share their artwork.

Less than half an inch thick, the next-generation Intuos Pro is more compact than the previous version, offering the same sized active area in a smaller overall footprint. The Intuos Pro occupies little desk space and can be carried in a backpack or laptop bag. It comes equipped with anodized aluminum backing, a smaller pen stand with 10 nibs and a new pen case. Both sizes of the Intuos Pro, Medium and Large, use a TouchRing, Multi-Touch and eight ExpressKeys for the creation of customized shortcuts to speed up the creative workflow.

The new Wacom Pro Pen 2 comes with the Intuos Pro and Intuos Pro Paper Edition. The Pro Pen 2 features four times the pressure sensitivity than the former Pro Pen, delivering 8,192 levels of pressure.

The recently released Wacom Finetip Pen, included with the Intuos Pro Paper Edition, provides smooth-gel ink. Designed for those who begin their creative process on paper, the Finetip lets users visually depict ideas that are automatically digitized. Users can also select a Ballpoint Pen as an optional purchase.

Available in Medium and Large models, Intuos Pro is Bluetooth-enabled and compatible with Macs and PCs. The Intuos Pro comes with the Wacom Pro Pen 2, pen stand and features eight ExpressKeys, a TouchRing and multi-touch gesture control. The Intuos Pro Medium (US$349.95) and Large ($499.95) will be available later this month.

The Intuos Pro Paper Edition will contain added features as a bundled package to enable paper-to-digital creation. The Intuos Pro Paper Edition Medium ($399.95) and Large ($549.95) will also be available in January.