{"id":10242,"date":"2018-05-09T11:03:39","date_gmt":"2018-05-09T09:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/bez-kategorii\/loupedeck-review-for-fotopolis\/"},"modified":"2018-05-09T11:03:39","modified_gmt":"2018-05-09T09:03:39","slug":"loupedeck-review-for-fotopolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/bez-kategorii\/loupedeck-review-for-fotopolis\/","title":{"rendered":"LoupeDeck Review for Fotopolis"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I have been interested in photo editing consoles for Lightroom for several years. Sifting through thousands of photos from a full-day event was so tedious that every second saved on editing seemed invaluable. Personal presets applied in batches to all photos are very helpful, but minor adjustments are always needed, and navigating Lightroom’s settings is not the most pleasant experience. In search of optimization, the Palette controller first caught my attention. The modularity of this solution, the ability to freely combine ‘blocks,’ and its compatibility with other Adobe Creative Suite programs ignited my gadget obsession. <\/p>\n

\"\"The price of this solution and one crucial fact about the sliders, which I learned much later, was a reality check. Specifically, a slider set to a particular position does not change after loading the next photo. This only works if we operate with reset sliders and do not return to a photo that has already been manipulated. Indeed, there are MIDI consoles with motorized sliders, but their price usually exceeds 2,000 PLN. For a tool not dedicated to editing, this is an exorbitant expense. <\/p>\n

In my research, the last candidate was the Behringer X-Touch Mini. This MIDI device for music creation, costing less than 300 PLN, offers free drivers for Lightroom and a set of knobs that ‘remember’ slider settings in Lightroom. I would probably have decided to purchase this device when suddenly… Loupedeck arrived, which I had the opportunity to test thanks to the Fotopolis editorial team. <\/p>\n

After unboxing the console from its aesthetic and well-designed packaging, I was pleasantly surprised by its weight. Neither too heavy nor too light, with a subtle tilt angle, and simply attractive. And dedicated to working in LR. It can certainly also be presented to colleagues in the field or clients who sometimes observe my work \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n

Naturally, Loupedeck’s ergonomics require getting used to, but in my opinion, the console is well-designed. The only thing I truly missed was Split Toning control. I habitually use it in both reportage and portrait photography, but the creators evidently considered it a niche solution. <\/p>\n

\"\"After starting work, I assigned three presets I use daily to function keys P1-P3, lens optical defect correction to key C2, and vertical geometric correction to key C3. These changes were sufficient for me until the end of the console test. <\/p>\n

With Loupedeck, there is no issue with the sliders and knobs I mentioned at the beginning of the review, as their movement has no start or end. The sliders are not motorized; the manufacturer employed a clever and inexpensive method by using a mouse-like scroll wheel as a slider. While it may not be as refined and pleasant as a well-lubricated physical slider, it fulfills its purpose. On the other hand, the knobs are very pleasant to use. Simultaneously adjusting, for example, white balance and exposure was very satisfying \u2013 something impossible to do with a mouse or keyboard in LR. <\/p>\n

While using Loupedeck, I missed the Shift and Ctrl keys, which I use to select groups of photos during editing. Such grouping significantly speeds up work, so reaching for the laptop keyboard every time was a slowdown for me. It was even worse when I instinctively looked for these keys on the console, pressing the “*” key. <\/p>\n

Regarding pressing, I disliked the key pressure required to trigger a response. I experienced many missed presses, and conversely, the effective force could cause calluses when editing a trillion photos. Due to this inconvenience, during photo selection, it was much easier for me to use the computer keyboard, where by keeping my right hand over the arrow keys and my left hand on numbers 1-5, I can make evaluations much faster. <\/p>\n

During editing, I particularly liked the ability to reset a given setting by clicking on a knob or slider.<\/p>\n

While testing Loupedeck, I had many ideas for improvements.
\nHere are a few of them:<\/p>\n

It would be useful to have the ability to move the zoom area or the area after cropping\/rotating a photo using the arrow keys. Perhaps a Loupedeck software update could resolve this. Even better in this role would be a trackpad, which could also be used for curve control and perhaps even for editing with the Brush or Spot tools. <\/p>\n

It would also be a good idea to enable comfortable one-handed operation of the console by reducing its size or even allowing it to be split into two parts.<\/p>\n

\"\"Going even further, I eventually thought that the most natural way to control Lightroom would simply be voice control. Intelligent assistants like Cortana or Siri could listen to our commands such as “exposure plus one” or “find verticals”. And a few years later, they might even handle a command like “make the model look divine” \ud83d\ude09 <\/p>\n

I am curious how a user “untainted” by knowledge of Lightroom keyboard shortcuts would evaluate Loupedeck. I suspect they would quickly grow fond of the console and speed up their photo editing. Seasoned LR users might have some resistance to abandoning keyboard habits and switching to another solution, although the satisfaction of turning and pressing dedicated keys might be a sufficient temptation to try it. [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I have been interested in photo editing consoles for Lightroom for several years. Sifting through…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10243,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,269],"tags":[276,278,277],"class_list":["post-10242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bez-kategorii","category-guide","tag-loupedeck","tag-review","tag-test"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fantasmatic.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}