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Posted on 22/06/17 11:12:03 AM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5613 Reply  |
Am I completely mad
Am I completely mad …… ?? I posted this a few days before the 'crash' so some of you will have seen it. But since it is so very odd I put it back ups again because, if you haven't see it yet, it might amuse you. This is the story of my search for a keyboard free life ……. its long but you don’t need to read it all in one go and it’s got some pretty pictures ………. Steve is always telling us how important it is to master keyboard shortcuts. Unfortunately I have a problem with this. Not with his advice which is excellent - but with keyboards! Firstly I am a complete keyboard klutz - all thumbs! I will do anything to avoid using it. The second problem is physical. How to accommodate slate and keyboard on the same desktop? With two large twin monitors (Apple 32” and secondary Phillips 21”), there is 44” or 1120mm of horizontal travel for the cursor. This begs a large slate. A small slate simply cannot offer up any precision with this kind of travel. My A4 active surface Wacom is physically 490 x 320 mm in overall size. This takes up a lot of desk and leaves one wondering where to put the keyboard because the slate needs to be reasonably central and the keyboard can’t really go to one side because it is too awkward to type with it there. So, in my case, the keyboard is placed at the back of the slate and simply pulled forward on top of it when needed. This is fine for layer naming etc. but is awkward if you constantly need it available for Photoshop key combos. 
More importantly, once I pick up my stylus, I don’t want the flow of hand to pen interrupted by typing. Especially when many shortcuts require typing with both hands while trying at the same time to hold the pen. Interrupting this physical flow interrupts my mental flow as well and my mental flow isn’t that great at the best of times. On the topic of mental flow my next problem with shortcuts is that I quite simply can’t remember them! Especially if I am expected to do so across multiple apps who all have their own ‘alphabet’. If they are not completely instinctive, having to stop and think about them is the ultimate ‘flow’ killer. So what to do? My first attempt was to create my own special tools palette (which I called Quick Tools) using adobe configurator. Quite a lot of work as aside from programming the panel and actions it calls I had to create all the button icons as well - mind you that was a fun challenge since I have never had to try anything like it before. This panel allowed me to group all my most used operations in a single one click, one stop shop. Since I also make lots of mistakes there is also a quick access undo/redo palette just below it. Here it is: 
Quick Tools: Top row - Create Layers. New layer above current. New layer below current. Group from Layers. Copy selection to new laye. Cut selection to new layer. New layers from layer FX. Show hide all layers except current. 2nd row - Create Layer Masks. Layer mask from transparency. Show selection layer mask. Hide selection layer mask. Show all layer mask. Hide all layer mask. Enable/Disable layer mask. Clip/Unclip layer mask or layer. 3rd Row - Fills and Focus. Edit fill white. Edit fill 50% grey. Edit fill black. Edit fill colour (opens the edit fill dialogue). Unsharp mask. Gaussian blur. Now lots of these are available easily in context menus but some are buried two layers down in menus. However meaningful grouping in one place makes them much easier for my rather forgetful Pooh like brain. Some are multiple keystroke macros on a single click which is also faster for me. Lastly all the layer and mask commands are configured to automatically pop up the naming dialogue which encourages me to be more disciplined about naming. (This panel works beautifully and I have been using it happily for several years now, but of course it only exists in photoshop. I couldn’t apply the idea elsewhere and couldn’t take it with me if I decided to upgrade to CC because CC abandoned support for Adobe Configurator.) So far so good but what about those modifier keys which we need all the time? My very first Wacom slate was a monster with an even bigger A3 active surface. I loved it!! This had a five button Wacom mouse that could be placed on the active surface but which didn’t move the cursor. It was a ‘button box’ which I configured to provide all the modifiers (ctrl, alt, shift, cmd and Enter). This meant that, by simply clicking with the left hand while drawing with the right, most of the ‘drawing’ options of Photoshop were available to me without having to touch the keyboard. 
Sadly Wacom abandoned support of the Intuos 3 with Mavericks. I had to replace it and this manner of working was no longer available with the newer generation of slates. The button box mouse was replaced with a vertical row of buttons on the side of the slate itself which I found (and still do) extremely awkward to use, especially for multiple button combos. However the success of the earlier slate with my left hand on a mouse that didn’t move the cursor and my right holding the pen got me thinking. My first attempt to replicate this was simply to use a second mouse in in my left hand that had a card taped to it's underside so it wouldn’t affect the cursor movement. I mapped it’s buttons to Ctrl. Alt. Shift and Cmd. So once again I could draw with my right with all the modifiers available in my left. It worked but was rather clumsy. Then I discovered an app that could read the input from just about any kind of input device and completely re-interpret it to provide any output you like (including multiple keystroke macros from a single keypress). I quickly realised I could take this ‘everything under the left hand’ idea much, much further. I brushed the dust off an old bluetooth numeric keypad that I used to use with my laptop and started playing with it. I completely reprogrammed it to be a Photoshop keypad with all the modifiers and all my most used functions. It worked perfectly! Suddenly I had all my most used functions assigned to a single key easily available under my left hand. I was able to work properly with shortcuts but didn’t even have to remember the shortcut …… just which single key to press. It was great! But it didn’t stop there …… The software I was using to re-interpret the keypad’s input was ‘foreground app aware’, that is to say it could re-program itself depending on which app was running in the foreground. This meant that I could have it completely re-interpret my keypad according to which app was currently active. At this time I was working principally with Photoshop, Sketchup and Strata 3D. I was able to configure my left handed keypad such that it adapted to each automatically when it was running in foreground. The really good news was that most graphics apps be they vector, bitmap or 3D have things in common. Commands like scale, flip and rotate are universal and could be the same one button regardless of app because the concept is universal across all of them. With a little imagination the same becomes true of other buttons. The button that produces ‘view 100%’ in PS produces ‘view selected’ in Sketchup. The same button, when shifted, produces ‘fit to screen’ in PS and ‘zoom to entire model’ in Sketchup. They are not the same but they are completely comparable philosophically - thus easy to remember. When I started working with Affinity Photo as well as Photoshop things got even better. They have almost identical operations but with completely different shortcut combos. Didn’t matter - the button that does ‘New layer from Selection’, for example, does it for both regardless of their different shortcuts and I don’t have to remember any combos - just which button to press. So here is my first ‘graphic Keypad’ which sat to the immediate left of my slate. It is programmed for Photoshop, Affinity Photo and Sketchup. The white keys are ‘permanent’ and are active all the time regardless of what app is running. I use them all the time even when working in the basic OS. The green and yellow are Photoshop and Affinity Photo and the magenta are Sketchup. 
Sadly, a while ago, this died of a hardware failure and, as is so often the case, had in the meantime been discontinued. I was unable to replace it exactly. However every cloud has a silver lining and in the search for a replacement I stumbled across gaming pads! These come in a stunning array of different styles and arrangements with buttons, wheels, joysticks and all sorts of bizarre goodies and gizmos. Some fo them look like they were designed for Star Trek! The end result of my search is this: [url=https://flic.kr/p/VFKd5x] 
It is not a thing of great beauty! But its 22 main keys can be assigned keystrokes, macros, system commands ……… just about anything. I have one thumb key configured as a keyboard shift which can double the function of all the other keys. The hand rest keeps the left hand comfortably placed for finding the keys and the shift key sits neatly under the thumb. There is also a thumb operated joystick that is great for small movements for which one would normally use the arrow keys. Like the old keypad it changes its key assignments automatically to whatever app is running in foreground. Here the key assignments for Photoshop. White keys are permanent for all apps. Blue are Photoshop unshifted and Yellow are Photoshop shifted by the thumb on the shift button. It’s really comfy. 
I am still a bit slow and awkward with this new keypad while my fingers learn exactly where to move and get used to the new layout. But once I have got used to it it will be far easier and more flexible than its predecessor. So there we are ………. bizarre, and not very beautiful ………. but it WORKS! Now tell me I am completely mad …… ‘cos that may well be the case …….  _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 22/06/17 11:36:25 AM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 5613 Reply |
Am I completely mad
Steve responded to this before the great wipe out with the observation that he found an A6 perfectly adequate for his 27" Screen. My twin 32" and 21" screens have a total horizontal width that is almost double the width of Steve's single screen. My A4 tablet surface is exactly double the width of his A6. This is completely consistent with Steve's comment as it means effectively we are both working at exactly the same 'resolution' or tablet/screen ratio. Steve also commented that to go to such extraordinary lengths I must really hate shortcuts. This is not really so. I don't hate them - I quite simply can't cope with them. Firstly, I am completely keyboard dyslectic and make far too many mistakes, and mistakes can send Photoshop spinning off into doing stuff you really didn't want it to and have to undo again afterwards. Secondly, many of them are two handed so the cack handed typing problem is exacerbated by trying to type while holding the pen in the right hand. Lastly I quite simply cannot remember them! Especially across multiple apps! I would love to love them but the reality is they slow me down horribly. In the end the solution I have found is ironically still keyboard shortcuts ....... I haven't avoided them - I have re-invented them so they need only one hand, and the only memorising needed is a single key as opposed to multiple fingered combos and that single key is in most cases the same single key across all my graphics and photo apps and thus even easier still to remember. Short cuts for Pooh Bears ........... _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 22/06/17 11:47:25 AM |
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tooquilos
Wizard of Oz Posts: 2889 Reply  |
Re: Am I completely mad
Impressive  complex but impressive _________________ Wicked Witch of the West: I'm melting! I'm melting! |