- This is Loupedeck.
It was originally founded on indiegogo campaign
and it's built to be a photo console
for editing photos on Adobe Lightroom
for either Windows or Mac.
Now it was built specifically
to speed up your photo editing.
And from my experience,
this thing actually does help with that.
I don't make any promises like it'll double
your editing speed, but this is definitely faster
than using a mouse and trying to work your way
down the adjustment sliders on the right side of Lightroom.
And my wife and I both noticed a decrease in the amount
of time it takes for us to edit a series of photos
like something from a trip or a big wedding.
And I also personally found a newfound love
for editing black and white photos when using Loupedeck.
My favorite parts of using Loupedeck so far
are the tactile feel of the controls, the knobs,
the buttons, everything.
And how you can reset them to zero.
This also had me using hue, saturation,
and luminents way more than before,
especially when editing black and white photos,
which can be pretty powerful.
I also really like the Lightroom plugin,
which lets you change the custom buttons quickly.
And instead of wasting my time scrolling up and down
the right panel of Lightroom in the develop module
looking for the right slider or how to adjust something,
now, for the most part, all the tools I need
are on this panel, and I can just quickly
move my hand a little bit, make the adjustment,
and then go to the next photo.
Now let's take a quick tour of all of the buttons
and dials on this thing.
They're broken up into kind of
five different function groups.
Number one, selecting; number two, your basic changes;
number three, color management;
number four, the custom functions;
and number five, activation.
Form right to left, you have a large rotate and crop wheel,
which you can click down to get more precise with.
Surrounding that you have undo and redo,
a brush adjustment toggle,
and all the star ratings and color labels.
Below those you have copy and paste;
the function button, which modifies custom
one, two, and three; pick photo, which flags a photo
or can reject it if you're holding function;
and a zoom button.
Back up top you have the full screen toggle,
color and black and white toggle, and the HSL selectors.
These buttons toggle whether the dials to the right
are changing hue, saturation, or luminents.
Above the HSL dials are eight custom preset options,
which you assign within the Lightroom develop presets.
So you could have four color ones,
a couple black and white ones,
maybe a couple film options.
And you can set those so you can quickly
change a photo to a custom preset you have
with the push of a single button.
Continuing on to the right are the before and after
side by side toggle and export buttons.
Below those are the main color dials;
white balance, tint, vibrance, and saturation.
Continuing down are the arrow keys to navigate
between photos and another zoom button.
This just leaves the main dials in the middle
and the three custom options.
You'll work with your hands hovering here
in the middle most of the time
to change exposure, contrast, clarity,
blacks, shadows, whites, and highlights.
Custom one is a dial, which I have programed to de-haze,
and then when I hold down function, to noise reduction.
It can also be programed to change vignette,
sharpness, vertical, and horizontal transform.
Custom two I've set to toggle between
the library and develop modules.
And then when I hold down function, to show clipping.
Custom three I have set to toggle the spot removal tool.
And then when I hold down function,
to toggle the graduated filter tool.
I know, that's a lot of dials and buttons on this thing.
But I think it's important to know
if you're gonna get one of these what it can and can't do.
Having used this Loupedeck for a couple of months now,
there are a few scenarios where it really shines for me
and speeds up my workflow.
The first one is culling through photos
to select star ratings or color labels in library module,
just like I could use the keyboard before.
Next, I can quickly copy edits from one photo to another
and I can crop and rotate photos pretty fast as well.
And lastly, the fine tune adjustments on the sliders
enable me to change something by .01 or .02 really easily
compared to using a keyboard or mouse.
Not everything's perfect with this.
If I can make a couple updates or improvements
I would add even more custom buttons
or let me change them to pretty much anything that I want.
So because of this, I still use my keyboard and mouse
for other keyboard shortcuts to change things
that this can't do.
And I also love that this thing is wireless
and didn't need that USB cable.
And I'm also standing by so that this potentially works
in Adobe's other programs like Photoshop.
I'd really love it if this thing could work with Premiere
and the Lumentri color panel
because a lot of the sliders are the same;
exposure, contrast, tint, that sort of stuff.
The biggest complaint I've seen about the Loupedeck online
in comments of other reviews is the price.
It comes in at $300 U.S., which isn't cheap,
and there are less expensive mini panel options
like the Behringer, BCF-2000, or an X-Touch mini.
But those take more customization and setup.
So if you're an armature photographer
or you're a hobbyist and you're trying to save some money,
maybe get a cheaper panel, spend the time
learning how to set it up and do the software customization.
But if you are a professional photographer
and $300 isn't as expensive as a lot of people
are complaining it is to you,
and maybe you don't want to spend that on a lens
or more memory cards or a flash
or whatever other thing you might need with that money,
then the Loupedeck is a pretty solid option.
Plus the Loupedeck, for me,
just made editing photos fun again
instead of feeling like a chore.
I was just more into editing my photos
and getting them to look exactly how I wanted them to
than when I was just using a mouse or the track pad.
I know that sounds really weird,
but something about having it be tactile
and how I could change the photos, it got second nature.
I didn't have to look down to see where the dials are.
Kind of felt like I was learning an instrument.
Playing music without having to look at it.
So I don't know how to explain that in any other way.
But the Loupedeck made photo editing
just more fun for me again.
Special thanks to the team over at Loupedeck
for sending this to me for review.
And if you're interested in learning more about it,
definitely check out the links below to find it online.
Thanks so much for watching.
I'm Caleb Wojcik, and I'll see you in the next one.
(modern music)