Anyone using Loupedeck with Photo Mechanic or otherwise?

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

Hey there folks,

We've had a few requests related to a hardware controller called Loupedeck (https://loupedeck.com/). It seems to be growing in popularity.  We're curious if there are any forum users out there with a Loupedeck and could give us some feedback on it.   I was chatting with some Loupedeck users while at WPPI and they told us how much they'd like to see better Photo Mechanic integration with it.   I am not sure what the most common use case(s) would be for power PM users, so I thought I'd check with the good people here :-)

Mick

[Graham1]

I use the latest version (Loupedeck +) with Lightroom and love it. I have had it about 6 months or so.  It is programmed by reference to Lightroom commands, and can be used with Capture One Pro and a few other programmes which I do not use. I have not tried using it with PM and suspect it could not work with PM without some new interface being written, but I am not a programmer and do not know. I can imagine it would be good for quickly going through images with the twist of the main dial and setting attributes at the click of a button, quicker than using a mouse or conventional keyboard.

There are various videos on YouTube about using a midi controller to control Lightroom, and I imagine Loupedeck works in much the same way under the hood, but with nicely labelled buttons and keys by reference to Lightroom terminology.  If it could be linked to PM for image advance, ratings, selections etc., I would certainly use it that way, but maybe if Loupedeck could be made to work with PM, so could a midi controller.

Graham

Graham

[ron_hiner]

I've been using something similar to Loupedeck -- Pallette.  It's pretty awesome! But quite frankly, I find it worthless for PM.   The keyboard shortcuts in PM are so awesome, that I would think that any external device would be significantly slower.

[jose]

I am waiting for Loupedeck to work with Capture One to buy it. If it also works with PhotoMechanic, great !

jose.

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

The keyboard shortcuts in PM are so awesome, that I would think that any external device would be significantly slower.

That's sort of where I am at too, though talking to other users of both Palette and Loupedeck, the speed gains from NOT having to a) push LD/Palette out of the way and b) pull my keyboard back over to center of desk would be the "win" in making the peripheral work with PM.   Other interviews with Loupedeck users have hinted that they might benefit from the labeled keys on the Loupedeck since some users find PM kb shortcuts hard to remember. I could see that possibly being a benefit for some users.

Other than that, I have yet to hear of a "killer" use case of using those peripherals with Photo Mechanic -- but I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything in my thinking.

Thanks for the feedback

Mick

[Mick O (Camera Bits)]

I can imagine it would be good for quickly going through images with the twist of the main dial and setting attributes at the click of a button, quicker than using a mouse or conventional keyboard.

I could see this working fairly well, though if I saw an image i wanted to stop on while i was twisting the dial, using the dial to go back and find it might be a little dicey? Maybe my hands are just old hands :-)

-Mick

[emilio_n]

I am using Loupedeck for the LR part of my workflow and works really good and help me to save a lot of time. Sad that is not a very good finished and robust product, but works.
For my use of PM, that mainly culls the pictures from the cards and some stars selections I can't see a great improvement. This I do not with the normal Keyboard and as PM is sooooo fast is an easy task. Maybe make that Loupedeck works with the rating buttons and the Control dial to move across the pictures could be a very nice addition but in my point of view, not a game changer. Maybe some PM power users can tell us more.

I will follow!

[Junction10]

Yes - I use LoupeDeck+...  I could see the rating/colour coding, tagging etc being useful in PM6...

[DanHiltonPhotography]

Loupedeck is something I have been looking at. But like one other commenter, I'm waiting for Capture One integration. Following.

https://www.danhiltonphotography.ca

[VGER]

I'm using a "Loupedeck+" as well with Lightroom. I've asked the Loupedeck-Team if it could be integrated with PM a while ago, but they said it wasn't possible at the time. The issue probably is that Loupedeck isn't just a "collection of macro keys" (meaning press a button on Loupedeck, send a keycode to the currently open application just as if it came from an ordinary keyboard), but custom integrated into the target application (Lightroom) via a special plugin. Of course this gives you more powerful integration, but on the other hand it integrates only into applications where such a plugin exists.

For me Loupedeck isn't even about speed, but about ease of use: For example, I don't have to think about whether "5" is yellow or red, instead it says so right on the Loupedeck key. Not a big thing if you use those keys every day, in which case you'll just know. But if you only use them occasionally, then this is quite comfortable. (Color keys just being an example here.)

So yes, I would appreciate to be able to use Loupedeck with PM if it could be made possible.

Regards

[Sallinen]

I’d be very interested to have PM integration, I wouldn’t need to jump between keyboard and Loupedeck.
Loupedeck would be useful at going through photos and tagging/rating selected ones before moving those to LR for editing.

Ping me if this will go forward and there’s need for beta testing.

[mbrakes]

I've been looking at Loupedeck+ too, as I understand C1 is now supported (?) but I have been holding off purchasing because I am currently using a Razer Orbweaver Chroma which is blazing fast once you manage to set it up and learn the custom shortcuts.

Main benefit vs. Loupedeck being minimal travel distance for fingers as the hand rests on and covers the entire device, so ergonomically I would also think it is a better solution long term for massive editing tasks w/o repetitive stress injuries.

But the Chroma requires a lot of set-up and tinkering about and commitment to learn, so if something pre-programmed existed out there which performed the job just as well, then I think that would be a better solution for 90% of users.

As has been mentioned above - the main benefit for PM would probably be to avoid having to push the keyboard out of the way, and a short learning curve as the LD+ has intuitive shortcuts that are clearly marked. The keyboard shortcuts within PM already works very well, but being able to use the same input tool throughout the workflow would be nice.

[Sallinen]

As has been mentioned above - the main benefit for PM would probably be to avoid having to push the keyboard out of the way, and a short learning curve as the LD+ has intuitive shortcuts that are clearly marked. The keyboard shortcuts within PM already works very well, but being able to use the same input tool throughout the workflow would be nice.

Exactly.

Loupedeck announced developer program and SDK just few days ago:
https://loupedeck.com/en/developer
https://developer.loupedeck.com/

[Coligreens]

We just got the loupdeck+. It would be nice to just have the arrows and rating keys to work. It's just more ergonomic ( depending on what keybord you have ). Putting in request now!

[Sallinen]

Any update on this, could Loupedeck support be added to the roadmap?