[BruceBanner]

Hi all,

I am in need of replacing this loud clicky keyboard with a new quiet one, and whilst at it perhaps taking advantage of any assignable keys/knobs or any other kinda interface that might help speed up the workflow. Before reading and researching a bunch of superficial reviews, I just thought I'd ask the community here if anyone uses anything kinda unique to help with the post processing (doesn't have to be LR/PS) and their thoughts on it.

So... anyone use fancy keyboards, mice or keypads with fancy knobs etc for post processing?

TIA!

Bruce

[Adam]

Hi all,

I am in need of replacing this loud clicky keyboard with a new quiet one, and whilst at it perhaps taking advantage of any assignable keys/knobs or any other kinda interface that might help speed up the workflow. Before reading and researching a bunch of superficial reviews, I just thought I'd ask the community here if anyone uses anything kinda unique to help with the post processing (doesn't have to be LR/PS) and their thoughts on it.

So... anyone use fancy keyboards, mice or keypads with fancy knobs etc for post processing?

TIA!

Bruce

Every key on the keyboard is assignable through software, and just about any function in PS/LR can be mapped to a hotkey combination through the menu, so you don't really need any special hardware for this

I have keyboard shortcuts memorized for common things such as cropping, rotating, resizing, levels, saving, closing, and saving for the web, which greatly speeds things up. Photoshop's actions are also great for automating routine tasks.

However I'm not too picky with keyboards, so I don't have any specific recommendations there.

[Tas]

fancy knobs etc for post processing?

I've never used it but this has fancy knobs: Loupedeck Loupedeck Photo Editing Console for Lightroom 6 &

Tas

[RGlasel]

any other kinda interface

My son, the aspiring graphic designer/professional student/non-contributing member of society, purchased the older version of a medium Wacom Intuos Pro tablet a month before Christmas a few years ago, just after I bought the small version as a gift for him. You can program gestures as well as assigning a row of keys and you can even use the stylus to do creative stuff. I'm assuming you are already using two monitors, that's the biggest leap in productivity for LR and PS currently available.

[BruceBanner]

I've never used it but this has fancy knobs: Loupedeck Loupedeck Photo Editing Console for Lightroom 6 &

Tas

Thanks Tas, yeh I saw that, wondered if anyone here might use it and can give first hand experience of it.

I'm thinking that might be overkill for me.

Every key on the keyboard is assignable through software, and just about any function in PS/LR can be mapped to a hotkey combination through the menu, so you don't really need any special hardware for this

I have keyboard shortcuts memorized for common things such as cropping, rotating, resizing, levels, saving, closing, and saving for the web, which greatly speeds things up. Photoshop's actions are also great for automating routine tasks.

However I'm not too picky with keyboards, so I don't have any specific recommendations there.

Right now it's new keyboard time, currently this one is too loud to type on, Mrs Banner has had enough and wants me to use a quieter one.

This is my current one; Logitech K480 Multi-Device Wireless Keyboard | JB Hi-Fi and it's loud as hell. It wasn't always my main board, it replaced it a few years back, I can't recall where I grabbed this one from only it was really cheep at the time so was absorbed into my never ending pile of tech. Functionality wise its ok, I actually do use the dock part and leave a tablet and phone sitting there, and using the dial switch and type on the phone or tablet for stuff, handy at times. I miss it not having a numpad however which led me to try this fella at JB Hifi today; Logitech K780 Multi-Device Wireless Keyboard | JB Hi-Fi (was actually $78).
I nearly walked away with it, it's super quiet to use and has the dock space as well as toggling bluetooth and also a numpad. So it's ticking a few boxes. Grabbing this and a Wacom might be what I end up doing, however I do wonder...

I have a long history of playing computer games, first person shooters, the kind you use mouse to move and look around. I even playing semi competitively and the 'clan' I formed in 2006 actually went on to win nation wide comps in certain game titles. Suffice to say I don't feel too awkward using a mouse for the brush strokes so I'm not sure about the wacom either.

I can't help feel that the Logitech Craft might be what I'm after. One hand on the dial, the other the mouse, I think I would be content with selecting certain things (such as exposure), and instead of messing with sliders just turn the knob, that alone I think would speed up a lot of the work flow. Pricey tho... $240AUD is the cheapest I can find it and have not found anywhere nearby to demo it.

I tried a gaming keyboard that was supposed to be 'silent keys' but seeing as it's still mechanical keyboard it was still very noisy with key presses, so I get the feeling the entire range of gaming keyboards from all brands will likely be too loud.

So... the toss up is the Craft or the K780.

---------- Post added 04-20-18 at 05:28 PM ----------

My son, the aspiring graphic designer/professional student/non-contributing member of society, purchased the older version of a medium Wacom Intuos Pro tablet a month before Christmas a few years ago, just after I bought the small version as a gift for him. You can program gestures as well as assigning a row of keys and you can even use the stylus to do creative stuff. I'm assuming you are already using two monitors, that's the biggest leap in productivity for LR and PS currently available.

Yeh like i said, not sure about needing the brush strokes, and those things are pretty expensive too, I mean... I think I either go with a cheaper K780 keyboard and a Medium Wacom or just stick with the mouse and then the Advanced Craft (logitech).

I use one monitor, a 43 inch 4k panel however. Curiously I get less lag if I have LR and PS in a more windowed mode rather than full screen, but I toggle to fullscreen occasionally just to check on things better.

I gather the size of screen you use can also be relevant to the size of Wacom you need? Perhaps for my panel I need a large one?

---------- Post added 04-20-18 at 06:00 PM ----------

You Tube

You Tube

Be interesting to see this in action more. I'm not sure I am convinced quite yet, the 'tapping' of the knob looks a bit annoying tbh, I was just hoping that when you select/click many options to fiddle with sliders that you could simply just spin the dial instead. I use Topaz plugins a lot and I'm just not sure they will work at all with the dial...

[RGlasel]

the size of screen you use can also be relevant to the size of Wacom you need?

I can't remember if the Wacom working surface covers all of your editing window or if you can set it to cover just a portion of the application's editing window, but essentially the larger models allow you to work on more of the image at once. The Wacom's user interface is quite flexible, it struck me as a truly useful complement to other HIDs, not a replacement or extension of a mouse and keyboard. However, If your need is more to do global adjustments as opposed to editing the image at the pixel level, it might not be suitable.

a 43 inch 4k panel

That's wider than the TV in our family room! Eliminates any problem with different colours and intensity on two different monitors, I suppose.

those things are pretty expensive

Relative to other input devices, yes, relative to your display and the hardware to drive it, not so much.

[BruceBanner]

I've done a little digging around and thus far when looking at people using the Logitech Craft, the 'Crown' (that's what the dial is called... O.o ) it seems to still be restricted in it's incremental value that the software stipulates, which would drive me a bit nuts.
For example, in LR, a girl on youtube showed she could use the dial to adjust exposure, but it was still adjusting in bumps of 0.10 (which I find that tad too large a jump, I would much prefer 0.05 for exposure). Other sliders in LR adjust at different jumps such as +/- 5, I always find colour temp to being the greatest offender, when pressing the arrow keys or whatever on the slider, I think it's a jump of 300 at a time, and always find that too much nearly always needing to manually click into the field and enter the specific value (usually a jump of around 150 is better).

It's this constant pissing about with sliders and either trying to make the slider adjust in lower amounts by clicking on it with the mouse and ever so slightly moving the mouse up and down the slider, or just clicking into the field and manually typing the value, this is what sucks up my time and frustrates the most.
I was really hoping the dial on this keyboard could define the increments, there's no reason with a nice dial like this that you could have a far better and fluid experience by being able to use it to fine tune the values more. Doesn't seem to be the case here.

I wonder how other dials perform in other HIDs.

Can i adjust the increments in LR somehow so that then the dial will work as I would like?

Ideally a dial that works the way I'd like might start off with turning the dial and it does the increment jumps as standard (say +/- 0.10 in Exposure) but then when you push the dial again (click it) it then fine tunes the increment to say 0.05 to help, and perhaps then one more click to go to 0.02 (but that might be overkill and OCD kicking in).
I think if things worked like that then the $250AUD that the keyboard actually costs would be worth it.

[Oakland Rob]

The fastest tool I've found for Lr is a MIDI deck (which is essentially what the Loupedeck does). Introduction

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

I use a Behringer X-touch Mini ($50) with the free MIDI2LR. Works really well; something about twisting knobs that makes the most sense when dialing up contrast, etc.

[BruceBanner]

The fastest tool I've found for Lr is a MIDI deck (which is essentially what the Loupedeck does). Introduction

Control Lightroom with Physical Buttons & Knobs: X-Touch Mini Tutorial - YouTube

I use a Behringer X-touch Mini ($50) with the free MIDI2LR. Works really well; something about twisting knobs that makes the most sense when dialing up contrast, etc.

Thanks for that Oaky,

Are you able to adjust the increments at all, like when you twist a knob or move a slider does it still change the value the same as pressing a key stroke (or scroll of the middle mouse button)?

[Oakland Rob]

Take a look at the video. With a MIDI like mine basically the rotation of the knob moves the slider in either direction, and there's a lit LED where it currently is (the older MIDIs were ignorant of where the slider was placed, so if it was at +2.1 then that was the start point; not useful. On mine it shows up as +2.1). Depending on the power of your machine and the adjustment the changes take place more or less instantly. You can assign keystrokes and arrows and whatnot to buttons on the MIDI where knobs aren't useful. For example, on a knob for say "contrast" a push down of the knob is assigned to "reset contrast."

What's cool is that MIDI2LR puts the value on the screen in a bigger popup, like "Exposure +1.02." So you can work with the sidepanels hidden and still see where you are in the slider values; you can see that later in the video. Handy with limited screen space.

And you can assign a button to act kinda like shift, so that a whole new set of knob and button combinations is loaded, like when you go to another module. One fellow I saw even uses two MIDI boards.

Considering that mixing colors, exposure and so on isn't that much different from volume and tone etc in sound, it's amazing to me more don't use these boards for the same reasons sound people use them. Even if you use only a fraction of the functions (for me, 90% is in the "Basic" panel and culling or rating) it's worth it.

[BruceBanner]

Take a look at the video. With a MIDI like mine basically the rotation of the knob moves the slider in either direction, and there's a lit LED where it currently is (the older MIDIs were ignorant of where the slider was placed, so if it was at +2.1 then that was the start point; not useful. On mine it shows up as +2.1). Depending on the power of your machine and the adjustment the changes take place more or less instantly. You can assign keystrokes and arrows and whatnot to buttons on the MIDI where knobs aren't useful. For example, on a knob for say "contrast" a push down of the knob is assigned to "reset contrast."

What's cool is that MIDI2LR puts the value on the screen in a bigger popup, like "Exposure +1.02." So you can work with the sidepanels hidden and still see where you are in the slider values; you can see that later in the video. Handy with limited screen space.

And you can assign a button to act kinda like shift, so that a whole new set of knob and button combinations is loaded, like when you go to another module. One fellow I saw even uses two MIDI boards.

Considering that mixing colors, exposure and so on isn't that much different from volume and tone etc in sound, it's amazing to me more don't use these boards for the same reasons sound people use them. Even if you use only a fraction of the functions (for me, 90% is in the "Basic" panel and culling or rating) it's worth it.

Watched the video, he does everything so fast however that I cannot ascertain if when doing the knob twiddling he is making incremental adjustments exactly the same leaps as a mouse scroll wheel or finer. This for me is the big one, I don't really see my work flow being speeded up if I am stuck at 1.10>1.20 and what I want is to choose 1.15 for example, therefore being forced back to the slider and manually pulling the slider about via the mouse or clicking into the field and entering the value specifically.

Screen real estate for me is not an issue.

In someways I far prefer the idea of a singular knob to turn, I use mouse to click the slider I want to change and turn the knob, I don't much like the idea of having multiple knobs to commit to memory or glance down at when working. I really want my eyes to stay fixed on the screen but simply just want better fine tuning for the values of the instruments I click on.

My secondary concern is LR is just a small component of my editing process. From LR I launch Topaz plugins, I do masking, I adjust values and sliders in this interface as well, and then not just LR but also PS for further Topaz plugins (and masking where masking may not be possible from LR>Topaz and back).

I feel the only thing that will really genuinely speed up my editing process is a universal knob that will work in various software/interfaces. Click the slider with a mouse you want to adjust, twist the knob, perhaps clicking the knob allows for a finer value tuning etc. Double click the knob reset, something like that. If I could find a dial that did that... I'd be sold I think.

[DimC]

If the knob is doing fine tuning and not big steps in incremental I'm sold on this one!
I thought it would be more expensive but $69 is ok at least to try.

[BruceBanner]

If the knob is doing fine tuning and not big steps in incremental I'm sold on this one!
I thought it would be more expensive but $69 is ok at least to try.

U buy and tell me hehehe, but I seriously doubt it does :'(

[DimC]

U buy and tell me hehehe, but I seriously doubt it does :'(

I would probably try at some point but I have no time to setup this thing now.
Ill see if I can find this info on the internet and report here.

[BruceBanner]

I would probably try at some point but I have no time to setup this thing now.
Ill see if I can find this info on the internet and report here.

I would appreciate any help possible

The Logitech Craft at $250 seems hell expensive for me, I feel I can get an equivalent keyboard (K780, in terms of wireless and silent key pressing) for $78, it even includes a handy dock for my phone and tablet to stand in, but it has no dial.

My next step would be trying to ascertain if we can change LR somehow to have the increments in smaller steps, thus when using the dial (or a midi controller) finer adjustments are possible. I can imagine an Exposure of 0.05 instead of 0.10 for adjusting would be far better and simpler without taking too long to move back and forth (with a dial) you can spin to your content rather than a awkwardly middle scroll wheel or tapping or holding down keys.

I would probably grab the Logitech Craft in this case, it's an All-In-One controller and probably similar priced if I grabbed a midi.