Some of you may be familiar with this already, however; for those like me, you may have never heard of this type of gear. Palette is a modular device that lets you make custom set adjustments throughout the adobe CC apps. In this particular review I am just going to be discussing what I typically work on: Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.

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Now the beauty about this device is how all of the piece are interchangeable and can be rearranged depending on how you like your panel laid out. Above is how I like to have mine set up on my desk. Hugging close to my keyboard so it doesn’t take up too much space with the dials to one side and sliders on the other. That’s just me, you can set this is in whatever ways make your heart sing!

Below is a video better explaining how they interchange and how Palette integrates into your workflow! Continue on to learn about how I set up my modules for Lightroom and Photoshop.

Now lets talk about how I like to set up my Palette.

Below are screenshots from the Palette App, which comes along free with the modules. In the app you can customize each button to just about any action within a specific program. Lets start with Lightroom:

Lightroom

Lightroom Culling:

Below each button shows the action it is set to.

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When first importing your images into Lightroom, you have to browse through them all and pick ones are going to work. With my Culling preset I can pretty much do all the needed actions just on my Palette.

Just using the dials and bottom button I can quickly move through and flag all of my images without touching my keyboard or mouse. If I need to make any quick basic adjustments, I have that mapped to my sliders.

I have set different buttons to certain colours to help myself remember their uses when looking down at my module. You’ll continue to notice a similar colour theme in the following presets!

Lightroom Develop:

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Now moving into actually making adjustments on our image, I have mapped my Palette to all exposure related adjustments. This way I can tune in the exposure quickly with my Palette and continue to move onto colour adjustments with my keyboard or mouse.

If you were really keen you could make another preset on your Palette for colour adjustments but I personally find colour adjustments a little easier with the mouse.

Photoshop

Photoshop Art + Design:

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My Art + Design Palette preset is for my most basic needs in Photoshop. With this preset I am able to cover my most general needs from changing layer opacity, basic brush control, and font sizing.

For more specific work I rely on my next favourite preset.

Basic Brush:

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This preset is my most used one within Photoshop. Since I am almost always using my brush tool in some capacity, this allows me to make all the brush adjustments I need; with extremely quick access to each. I have also mapped one of my dials to zoom so I don’t need to touch my keyboard in any way while brushing.

So those are a handful of the Palette presets that I have grown to rely on and love. The great thing about the Palette app is it has a ton of stock presets for different uses that are extremely helpful to base your own presets off of when getting started.

If you are interested in learning more about Palette, click here.

If you know anyone who might be interested in this tool or my presets make sure to SHARE this article!

Happy Editing!

-Brendan