Loupedeck
Hands-on photo editing
£289 FROM Loupedeck Ltd, loupedeck.com NEEDS Adobe Lightroom 6 or later, OS X 10.10 or later
Lightroom’s Develop module can feel a bit
awkward to use. Rows of sliders make for a complicated feel. Even pros find getting a picture right often involves a combination of memorised shortcuts and speedy mouse skills.
Loupedeck distills hundreds of shortcuts and sliders into one customisable USB keyboard. Contrast, Clarity, Highlights and more are reduced to satisfying knobs, while rotating and cropping gets its own large control. Colour channels get their own wheels, and those sorting images will appreciate the colour and numerical rating buttons. Made a change you don’t like? Click the relevant dial and the effect is reset.
Responsive and satisfying to use, it offers a major advantage over using a keyboard and mouse in that you can adjust one element of an image while simultaneously changing another sympathetically. It makes editing more organic, allowing you to concentrate fully on the changes you’re making to your shots. It’s also enormously good fun.
The drawback is the price. If you’ve been using Lightroom for years it’s unlikely Loupedeck will change your life, but for newcomers it could ease the learning curve – and it’s fun.